I never wanted to move away from Gilpin, but in 2019 my health and my husband’s reached a point where we could no longer live at altitude and an hour from a major medical center. John grew up in Dallas-Ft. Worth area, where his family still lives, and my family is all in Canada, so off to Texas we went.

It was hard to leave, and even harder to move to a new community with no support system. So it seemed magical when Barbara Hardt asked me to help out with the paper…again.

I had written for The Mountain-Ear even before the Hardt family owned the paper. My first work for The Mountain- Ear was in 2004, when I was a community organizer in Florida during the presidential campaign, and sent articles back to Nederland about my experiences as one of the oldest organizers on the campaign. I started writing for Hardt in 2008, mostly covering government meetings, and gradually returned to my very first professional passion, editing. Before that, I had written for the Weekly Register-Call.

Writing and editing were my primary passions, but I spent a lifetime as an academic (teaching psychology, English and social work for several colleges/ universities in Canada), an administrator (director of human services in Iqaluit, Nunavut, and Gilpin County; director of the Women’s Resource Agency in Colorado Springs and a Workforce Center for 12 counties in Eastern Colorado), and a non-profit manager (executive director of the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association). Somewhere in there, I worked briefly for a yarn shop in Lakewood and as an interior designer for a furniture company in Douglas County. I guess being flexible should be my middle name.

While I have slowly integrated myself into my new home town – especially difficult during Covid, as you can imagine – I am thrilled that I am able, through this work, to stay in touch with my Heart’s Home here in the Peak to Peak. I’m also happy that in many cases I can serve as the paper’s institutional memory, since I worked with and wrote about successive local governments and movers and shakers for so many years. I even remember how to spell local names!

I’m looking forward to continuing living my virtual life in Ned and environs as The Mountain-Ear moves on in its role to bring together this disparate and wonderful community.