COAL CREEK -- Roger and Lori Drienka have lived together in the Colorado mountain community for nearly 50 years, with Lori’s connections to the state reaching back generations. In 1936, her grandfather built a teepee near his family’s property in the town of Pinecliffe.

Lori was born in Denver, where she lived until around the age of ten. She moved to Southern California, where she met Roger in a high school construction class. As the only girl in the class, other guys would often make themselves known to her.

At one point, annoyed with a guy in her group “subtly” vying for her attention, she asked the teacher for a different class project foreman. The professor reassigned her with a new foreman: Roger. The rest, as they say, is history.

Roger and Lori moved to Colorado together in 1977, first settling in her grandfather’s Pinecliffe property. They arrived with Lori’s parents, as Lori’s mom bought the house soon after dreaming that the house was up for sale.

Roger had never thought about moving to Colorado before, but when Lori told him she was moving there with her parents, he, naturally, didn’t think twice about going with her.

Roger and Lori both remember arriving and wondering how they would find a job in what felt like the middle of nowhere. Within two days, Roger found a remodeling job in real estate, and the two settled into a routine. Soon, they moved to Golden, and Roger worked while Lori attended school for court reporting.

The two later moved to Hummingbird Lane in Coal Creek Canyon and started a family. As residents in the canyon, they volunteered at Coal Creek Elementary as chaperones and musical performers.

They also joined the Coal Creek Canyon Improvement Association (CCCIA), hosting a monthly open stage at the community center and working on the building’s original deck.

Performing concerts at the elementary school, Roger and Lori would perform original family-friendly songs at Earth Day concerts and develop sets of other songs that related to the current school subjects.

When they came back to perform at the school, the students would often request songs the two had performed in previous sets, which inspired them to host the open stage and branch out their performances in the community.

For Roger, in particular, music has been a lifelong passion. He’s performed since around the age of ten, starting in talent shows and jumping into garage bands as a pre-teen. He also performed with musicians around Southern California, hired by Milkman Studios to showcase a Transicord electronic instrument.

After meeting Lori, the two jammed together privately before expanding into local mountain shows. In 1999, Roger released an album, In This Place, as the songwriter, recorder, mixer, primary and background vocalist, and acoustic and electric guitarist in a six-piece group called US.

Lori played violin and cello and provided backup vocals for the album. The rest of the lineup consisted of David Frink on saxophone, clarinet, flute, and backup vocals, Ed Ford on drums and percussion, Susan Phelan on bass guitar, and Daria Joanna on cello.

Roger recorded and mixed the album with Park Peters, who also provided keyboards for the album as a guest musician. Roger Franz provided electric bass and backup vocals as another guest musician.

A third guest musician, Christopher Currell, provided electric guitar for the album. A frequent collaborator of Michael Jackson, Currell played on In This Place in exchange for Roger building a studio in Wondervu, where he later moved.

Roger and Lori have also released two albums (both available everywhere) as a duo, simply calling their project Drienka. They released the duo vocal album Dreams in 2008 and the meditation album Journeys in 2010.

For their day jobs, Roger and Lori worked together in their self-started carpentry business. Originally a union carpenter, Roger had to transition into freelance work after being blackballed from various union jobs.

Roger gave a deposition against a project manager in a company where he worked, after charges were brought against the manager for slandering a Mexican carpenter. As a result, Roger found himself laid off from union jobs only a few days after getting hired.

Ultimately, Roger and Lori started freelance work as independent carpenters. Through word of mouth in the community, they became trusted carpenters in the mountain community.

They connected with many community members, who felt more comfortable with people they knew working on their house, and Roger and Lori always took on nearly all of the work on each of their hires.

That connection is one of the strongest reasons why they took to the Coal Creek community. They find the community incredibly supportive, helpful, and appreciative of the place where they live.

Roger and Lori also found many similarities between their lives and the lives of other community members – their appreciation for the home, their interests, and their long-lasting and sturdy marriages.

As much as they’ve made an impact on the community through their work, the Drienkas feel the community has made just as much of an impact on them.