Benchtalk: February 23, 2018

Annual Flauschink button contest is on 

Crested Butte will be celebrating its 50th year of Flauschink this spring and organizers are looking for a fabulous button design for the 2018 button. This will be the event’s 50th button. Please submit your design by mail to Sherrie Vandervoort, Box 152, Crested Butte or email it to [email protected] by February 26. The winner will receive $50 and will forever be a part of Flauschink history.

Four-part lecture series with local poet begins this week 

“Colorado in Black and White” with Western Slope Poet Laureate David Rothman starts Monday, February 26 at 7 p.m. This series of four lectures will take place at the Crested Butte Library on Mondays, February 26, March 3, March 12 and March 19. The course will consider the poetry (and some of the prose) of Colorado beginning with Whitman, Longfellow, Robinson Jeffers and Katherine Lee Bates (who wrote “America the Beautiful”), through Yale Younger Poet and Denver journalist Thomas Hornsby Ferril, Mina Loy, Nellie Burgett Miller. Colorado poets of mid-century such as Allen Ginsberg, John Denver and Kurt Brown will also be discussed. Please call or email to reserve your spot 349-6535 or [email protected].

Gunny Night Live: SonofaGunn 2018 at the GAC

Re-live some of Saturday Night Live’s greatest skits with a Gunnison twist in the 29th annual theatrical tradition of SonofaGunn, a locally written, acted and directed play. The curtain goes up on Gunny Night Live March 1-3 and March 8-10 at 7:30 p.m. at the Gunnison Arts Center. You’ll be rolling in your seats with laughter, watching local residents spoof hometown events based off SNL, directed by Shelly Pierson. Tickets for this GAC fundraiser are: Thursday night, $20 per person; Friday and Saturday nights, $25 per person. Tickets are on sale now at the Gunnison Art Center.

Final winter writing workshop at the CB library

Mark your calendars for the final writing workshop at the Crested Butte Library with WritingStrides coach Alissa Johnson on Thursday, March 1 at 10 a.m. This session will focus on dialogue and description. You’ll study how to write believable dialogue and how much description or background information to include in your stories. This series of workshops culminates with the opportunity to participate in a group critique on March 22. Call (970) 349-6535 for more information.

Gothic Mountain Tour

The good folks at Crested Butte Nordic are hosting the 12th Annual Gothic Mountain Tour on Saturday, February 24. It’s a skimo race that takes participants on a 22-mile, three valley tour starting behind the school in town and connecting the East River valley, Washington Gulch and the Slate River valley before finishing at the Magic Meadows Yurt. Registration and information can be found at cbnordic.org.

Birthdays:

February 22- Rowan Piccaro, Dom Piccaro, Nicholas Gainous, Mary Covelli, Jani Wedmore, Wyatt Williams

February 23- Diana Wickenhauser

February 24- Addison Bogardus, Sherry Deetz Nelson, Ryan Dowell, Sally Hensley, Ryder Miller, James Andrew Herndon, Sarah Steinwand, Skylar Donnell, Michelle Bivens, Anna Cole

February 25- Candace Targos, Jessie Dean, Jim Herndon

February 26- Bob Giannone, Maggie Nunn, Tiffany Deutsch, Caleb Hash, Donna O’Connor

February 27- Colin Drake, Madeline Derusseau, Tiffany Burgess, Ben Vulich

February 28- Carol Kastning, Winnie Haver, Lilah Young

February 29- Jefferson Lewis

Cameos: What do you know now that you wish you knew before you came to Western?