Dr. Caleb Kronen grew up in Nederland and not only remembers when the Frozen Dead Guy Days started, but has enjoyed performing his music at the festival in the past. He’s returning this year to present his hometown community with an entirely different service: preventing hearing loss.

Kronen is the acting Director of Hearing Conservation at the Marion Downs Center, located in Denver. As a Doctor of Audiology and a guitarist for his band, Kronen Band, Kronen’s experience with loud sounds led him to utilize preventive care to help people in certain professions avoid permanent hearing damage.

“This morning I had a miner come in and I had a guy who works at a plastic factory come in. It doesn’t always mean that their hearing has dropped because they’re around loud sounds, but a lot of my job is educating them, too.”

Kronen explains how custom silicone earplugs and other advancements in hearing aid technology help people in specialized careers.

“I went to the Colorado symphony and I got all of them special music hearing protection. I see over a hundred musicians every couple of months. I take impressions of their ears to get them custom made in-ear monitors so they can hear themselves better on stage; and it also protects their ears from it being too loud on stage.”

Preventive care is Kronen’s central focus because of all the issues that could arise if hearing problems are ignored. He details just how important proper ear care is for anyone at any age.

“Some of the only cells in your body that don’t regenerate are in your inner ear, and they’re the cells that take the soundwave and turn it into electricity that gets sent up to the brain. So a loud sound will come in and break the cell…and it’s a rare type of injury that doesn’t heal. We find that hearing loss, if it goes untreated, can result in anxiety, it can result in depression. It puts you at higher risk for cognitive decline or dementia, and it also can make people feel more isolated.”

Kronen feels his work for the Marion Downs Center is more than a career but a necessary and vital service, as he recalls avoiding medical professionals in his youth because he simply couldn’t afford it.

“When I was trying to make it as a musician I didn’t have enough money to go see a doctor. But the good news is we’re a non-profit; we don’t turn anybody away.”

Part of the Marion Downs Center’s non-profit services is a state-of-the-art mobile testing trailer. The mobile testing trailer is part of a program that started in 1972, aimed at driving into rural communities and serving factory workers who had been exposed to repetitive loud sounds.

This year the mobile testing trailer will be providing free hearing tests at the Village Shopping Center for Frozen Dead Guy Days.

“The culture is unique in Nederland and Frozen Dead Guy Days kind of embodies that culture and exemplifies it.” Kronen speaks on how his return to the festival this year feels like coming full circle, having grown up in town and blasting his guitar amp into the festival crowd in 2016 and 2018.

“I remember when this festival first started, I remember the roots of this festival, and to me it means a lot to be part of it and to serve the community that I was raised in.”

The mobile testing trailer will be at the Village Shopping Center, off Lakeview Drive, for both days of the festival, Saturday, March 19 and Sunday, March 20.

The Marion Downs Center has provided hearing, speech, language and early literacy services since 2015. For more information go to: https://mariondowns.org

For more information about Kronen Band, check out their Facebook and YouTube pages: https://m.facebook.com/KronenBand/ and https://youtube.com/c/KronenBand