By Dawne Belloise

Amid blue metal panels of multi-colored blinking buttons, switches and flashing lights of enormous machines that seem to have been transported from the set of the original Star Trek, Brian Carney is part of the team of superheros who control the drinking water quality for Mt. Crested Butte. He moved here three years ago and swears, “I never owned a pair of skis or a snowboard until seventh grade, when I got my first snowboard. I still snowboard to this day,” a big factor in his move to the north end of the valley.

Brian grew up in Arvada, where his dad was a airline mechanic for United and his mom was an elementary school nurse. Throughout school days, he played a lot of sports, like roller hockey and basketball. “As a teen, I spent a lot of time coming up to the Roaring Fork Valley to visit my uncle, aunt and cousins. I’d spend every summer in Basalt, inner-tubing and just getting on the river quite a bit,” he recalls. His uncle owned a painting company that put him to work painting. On days off, “We’d take the boat out on Ruedi Reservoir, wakeboarding and water skiing.”

In high school, Brian played football and baseball, ran track and pole vaulted. “I wasn’t the fastest so I didn’t win any races,” he says of his short-lived track career, “But no one wanted to pole vault so I just started doing it. I wasn’t good at it, if you’re talking technique. If you’re doing it correctly, the pole will bend and fling you over the bar but I would just run and do a double death spin and I would get over it. The highest I got was nine feet, five inches but if you’re good you’re doing like 14 feet,” he laughs. However, he excelled at football, which earned him a scholarship at Western State College (now Western Colorado University) in 2007. He says, “I had no idea what I was going to do and the only reason I went to college was because I had a scholarship to play football.”

He arrived with his parents during a recruiting weekend, and says, “We went out partying until 3 a.m. with a bunch of the football kids. The next day, I smelled like a classic brewery and looked like hell when I met with the coaches.” However, they apparently figured Brian would fit right in and gave him the scholarship. “It was winter and it was so cold,” he remembers his first frigid reality in Gunnison. “There’s no valley that’s colder than Gunnison, but it was the only school that gave me a scholarship.” It took him a year before he came to the conclusion, “This is the best place.”

Unfortunately, two months into playing football, before regular season even started, a skateboard accident changed Brian’s course. “I was longboarding past Taylor Hall and a dude rode in front of me on his skateboard. I was cruising down that hill at maybe 25 mph and we collided. I remember being about four feet away from him and then I woke up in a Denver hospital.”

He was airlifted out of Gunnison after having seizures from a badly fractured skull and subdural hematoma. Back home from the hospital, Brian had to adjust to the healing process, and recalls, “Any lights would give me the most intense headache so I lived in my parents’ basement. I slept for 16 hours a day for the first two weeks.”

Once he was able to return to Gunnison for classes, Brian says, “I thought I would be so far behind missing two weeks of school but it could have been a lot worse. I had been failing all my classes and if this hadn’t happened, I would guarantee I would have dropped out but when I returned, almost all my teachers were supportive and I got good grades.” He was no longer able to play football, so instead he played on the club baseball team. Brian graduated from WSC in 2012 with a business degree with an emphasis in land and resource management and a minor in economics.

Having been told he could make good money in the oil industry, he set that as his goal. “My bro Bob was making a ton of money as a petroleum engineer, and I wanted to make a bunch of money and have a bunch of things too, because I’d been told that in the end, the man with the most things wins.”

He was hired as data entry for an oil company in Denver. “I was awful at it and it was the most boring job,” he confesses. “I don’t know how people do it. I was sitting there thinking, so this it, and then I’m old. I lasted for six months and I pretty much got fired. They called it ‘laid off’ but I was the only one who got laid off.”

So, he headed down to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, where his aunt was living two blocks from the beach. “I’d get up and swim and snorkel every day. And I got certified in scuba diving.” When Brian got a call from another oil company, he took the job researching legal documents. “And that was horrible too. I left in a month. My brain doesn’t work like that,” he finally concluded.

Brian moved to Carbondale when his buddy offered a “super cool cheap place to live. I did a million jobs there. I got a job at the Limelight Hotel in Aspen as a bellman, while painting for my uncle and delivering Domino’s Pizza twice a week. So in a month’s time, I went from making really good money with the oil companies to delivering pizzas for Domino’s… but I was stoked,” he laughs. “I’d never been so happy. Just being outside was such a life change for me as opposed to being in a hellhole office.”

Ski season was under way and as a Limelight bellman, he also picked up guests from the airport. “I didn’t like the job but I’d go skiing during my four-hour break, just enough time to run Highlands Bowl.” After one season, he got a job in property management.

Brian had met his future wife, Christine Kelly, at WSC in 2009. She was the work-study librarian. “I couldn’t write a paper at all and I asked her to help me. She wrote the whole paper for me and it’s been sweet love ever since.” She had the legitimate job as a third grade teacher in Breckenridge so he moved there in 2015. Brian says, “I worked as a shuttle driver from Breck to DIA and back, driving the worst drive in Colorado on a daily basis, sitting in dead-stop traffic for eight hours on the weekends, but I could snowboard every day.”

He scored a summer job with the town of Breckenridge Parks and Recreation and snow plowing with the town in the winter. “I didn’t mind it. I was making way better money and boarding three days a week. But I ended up working at Breckenridge’s sewer treatment plant. Nobody thinks about what happens when you flush your toilet but there’s so much biological activity that breaks down the waste and it’s absolutely insane. It’s basically a biological reactor. It promotes intense bacteria life and growth, microorganisms that feed on the waste. It was mind-blowing. It was more like working at a laboratory. I loved it—it was awesome and amazing. I really loved working there but I saw a job opening at the waste water plant in Mt. Crested Butte.”

With his experience, he was hired in April 2017. When there was an opening at the water treatment plant, he decided to switch. “Every day is a new experience and challenge to figure out. We do so much stuff. We go back into the East River, behind Crested Butte Mountain Resort, with its breathtaking views. We’re getting a new pump house and a new pipeline and we’re getting a whole new water plant as well. The technology is mind-blowing. It’s state-of-the-art,” he says excitedly.

One of the main reasons Brian and Christine wanted to get out of Breckenridge was affordability. “There was no possible way to own a home or anything. A 400-square-foot studio apartment was $280,000 with $650 monthly HOA. It’s changing for sure here in Crested Butte. We were able to buy our condo in Buckhorn a year ago and since then similar condos have increased 20 percent. We feel lucky. This is perfect out here. There’s no place that I’ve been to like this. This is the most beautiful place. Coming up valley it’s like a wonderland.”

Gets a Rec Path named in his honor

By Kendra Walker

Joe Fitzpatrick has worn many hats since moving to the valley: Mt. Crested Butte town manager, former Mt. Crested Butte mayor, former Planning Commission board member and former business owner. Fitzpatrick retired September 2, but his imprint on the town will very much remain on the community.

After moving here with his wife, Beverly, in 1978, Fitzpatrick started a property management company, Solutions, Inc./Crested Butte Accomodations. He spent the early 1980s on the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council and Planning Commission board, and was mayor of Mt. Crested Butte from 1986 to 1992. In July 2004, the town council named Fitzpatrick as acting town manager and then he was hired on as the full-time town manager that November.

Highlight reel

Looking back at his 16 years as town manager, Fitzpatrick recalls many highlights. During his first year, “We essentially had a boom starting then and the Mueller family wanted to help develop in the base area, and the Lodge at Mountaineer Square was built. Going through that whole process was quite an event, to say the least,” he said. “Working through the public/private partnership with Crested Butte Mountain Resort and the Downtown Development Authority to develop the Adventure Park at the base area has greatly improved our summer base area visitor traffic.”

Another significant project for Fitzpatrick is the construction of the Recreation Path. “We were always working on the Rec Path,” he said of the project’s 30-year-long evolution, which required cooperation between Mt. Crested Butte and Crested Butte, getting through dozens of property easements and patience.

“We started the Rec Path between the towns in 1991,” he said. “When the ski area was sold to Vail Resorts, Tim Mueller wanted to wrap up his agreements and obligations,” which included negotiations to extend the Rec Path up to the Snodgrass Trailhead and improve Gothic Road. “That is the construction going on right now that should be finished in September,” said Fitzpatrick.

The town’s new maintenance facility, completed in December 2019, was another milestone for Fitzpatrick. “The town’s original maintenance building is the Town Hall council chambers that we sit in today. That was originally a garage and housed a fire truck and the town maintenance equipment and staff.”

But when the fire district continued to grow, the town helped build the fire district its own building and the town moved into the original fire barn. “But as time went on we outgrew and really needed more space,” Fitzpatrick said of the design process for the new facility located near the Snodgrass Trailhead. Fitzpatrick remembers presenting the project in Golden to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) for a potential grant that would fund up to 50 percent of the project. “We were happy to get even $200,000,” he said. “Well, we must have won them over, because they gave us the maximum amount,” which was about $700,000 for the project.

Fitzpatrick was also instrumental in the town’s work with Crested Butte Mountain Resort and the Crested Butte Land Trust in solidifying the Snodgrass Trail as access to National Forest land.

Looking ahead

Throughout his time working for the town, Fitzpatrick has noticed the relationship between the two towns progress with collaboration and cooperation, which is especially important in today’s coronavirus climate, he said. “Originally up valley/down valley relationships weren’t really good. It’s been a real blessing to witness our improved relationships, partially triggered by the Mayors & Managers meetings once a month. That has helped us work together for the betterment of the whole county in ways that other counties in Colorado haven’t really been able to do.”

Looking ahead, Fitzpatrick has his eye on some town improvement projects that he hopes can move forward with his replacement and interim town manager Carlos Velado. “We need to improve the town park pavilion. We’ve outgrown it and we need to expand it. We need to improve our playground equipment, which was installed in 1981. The Town Hall itself could use some remodeling,” he says of the 1974 building.

As for larger projects, the North Village development is top of the list, along with finishing the Crested Butte Mountain Resort parking garage and skier drop-off.

But Fitzpatrick knows he leaves with the town in good hands. “We’ve got a great staff of police officers and administration and maintenance and community development. It’s a great bunch of folks that are really dedicated to the town,” he said.

Words of wisdom 

“Keep the community and relationships with all the government leaders in the county alive and well, but don’t overlook state and national relationships either,” Fitzpatrick advises his future successor. “You need to keep us on the map of the world. That’s important.

“Keep good communication going with the citizens and take care of the staff. Continue to have good housing for our workers here. Keep the relationship going with Vail Resorts. We are the bedroom for the resort and so it’s important to keep that perspective. Look to develop a better downtown, make our community so it functions both in winter and summer.”

Among Mt. Crested Butte town council members who have received Fitzpatrick’s advice over the years, current mayor Janet Farmer recalled the joys of working with him. “I’ve known Joe a long time, but had not worked with him until I went on town council in April of 2016. I was always impressed by his dedication and love for Mt. Crested Butte.  When I became mayor in April of 2019, our friendship and working relationship went to an entirely different level.  He has been there for me in ways I can’t thank him enough for doing.  He has been a wonderful mentor in leading me through aspects of being a mayor that have made me better at a job I never expected to have. His knowledge of the town along with his wonderful smile will be missed, but since he’s not leaving town I may have to call him occasionally.”

Fitzpatrick chose his retirement date, September 2, to coincide with his 75th birthday. During the September 1 town council meeting, council recognized Fitzpatrick’s dedication to the town and officially proclaimed September 2 as “Joe Fitzpatrick Appreciation Day.” Council and staff are also honoring him by naming the Rec Path after him, news they surprised him with during the meeting.

“Needless to say Joe’s fingerprints are all over this town,” said interim town manager Carlos Velado, noting Fitzpatrick’s large role in the 30 years in the making of the Rec Path. “I think it’s only fitting for your name to be on that.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Fitzpatrick. “Thank you, it’s just been a great, great journey and I’ve had the support of many councils and an absolutely fantastic staff to work with and I just wish you all the best in the future.”

Fitzpatrick is also an ordained deacon in the Catholic Church and plans to devote more time to church activities. He and Beverly have been married for 43 years and look forward to relaxing in retirement with hiking, skiing and e-biking. “We’re making good use of our Rec Path, too,” he said.

Aside from soaking in the Mt. Crested Butte lifestyle, they plan to do some traveling to see family in Bend, Oregon and Minnesota.

“We love the mountains and we’ll just continue to enjoy being here.”

Man of the cloth, community and the mountains

By Dawne Belloise

As a little kid having to move a lot, Joe Fitzpatrick says it was a challenge and his childhood memories actually start in third grade. Joe was born in Waynesboro, Va., and his father moved the family quite a bit for work—from Ohio, Washington state and Kentucky, to Minnesota, where Joe finally had the chance to have a childhood with friendships, playing in the park. In those days, Joe recalls, “The boys took their trucks and spent a lot of time in the sandbox.” 

Joe was skiing on the Laurentian Divide in Minnesota by the time he was 12. “It was about seven miles from us and it had the first chairlift in Minnesota. That was my sport passion,” he says. In middle school, the ski area developers enticed the kids with talks and ski movies and Joe and a buddy were hooked. “That first year I bought a season pass. Opening day, we got a group ski lesson and we were the only two in the group because it was about 10 degrees below zero but we skied all day,” he recalls.

Joe got a summer job working at that ski area when he was 12, and when he was 13 they gave him a chainsaw to cut swaths of trees for new ski runs. He was also a summer liftie. As a high point in the state it was a summer attraction for the view. Joe was more than happy to work for just a season pass. In high school Joe’s interests were running track but it was all about skiing for him.

After graduation in 1963, Joe attended the University of Minnesota for engineering. “I was strong in math and science but I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up,” he smiles. “By the end of my second year, I was really over differential equations so I took some time off.” 

However, the Vietnam War was raging and leaving college meant getting drafted, so he enlisted in the Air Force to train as an electronics technician for fighter jet automatic flight control systems. When he completed his year-long schooling, he was sent to Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. 

“I fought the cold war,” he says. “This airbase had B52 bombers and KC 135 tankers, a refueling jet. We would send bombers full of atomic bombs to fly the Arctic Circle in case we needed to bomb Russia. I was with the Air Defense Command, who were there to protect the airbase and the bombers,” he says. “There were very few people in my career field that were trained in my particular job so my squadron commander blocked all my orders to Vietnam because he didn’t want to lose me.”

While still in the service in Grand Forks, Joe enrolled in night school at the University of North Dakota, receiving his BS/BA in business administration in 1970. He took a job in Minneapolis with Investors Diversified Services (IDS). “They set me down with a bunch of VHS tapes and said you’re going to learn to be a computer programmer,” and he began working with IMB main frames. 

“It was science and math stuff so I really enjoyed it,” but, he says, “I didn’t enjoy the big corporate atmosphere,” with too many regulations and buzzers, so in 1975, he switched jobs to work for a small company doing data processing for doctors and dentists. 

During the time he was working at IDS, he’d ski on weekends and decided to start a ski club for company employees. He would sign people up and completely organize the trips to different ski areas in upper Michigan and northern Minnesota. “On one of my trips, I had 42 people—40 of those were ladies and I have been married to one of those ladies for 43 years now,” he says of his wife, Beverly.

In 1966, Joe was taken by the movie The Sound of Music. “I had never been to the mountains but after I saw that movie I thought, I’ve got to move to the mountains!” It influenced him to the point that Joe joined the National Ski Patrol and became a volunteer night-time ski patroller at Birch Park, a small ski area outside of Minneapolis. “My goal was always to get a pass. I ended up becoming the ski patrol director with 80 people under me. I also became a first aid instructor for the Red Cross. I taught patrollers advanced first aid.”

To support himself while he was living in Minneapolis in the mid-70s, Joe managed and maintained apartment buildings. It gave him a free place to live and the experience he’d need to land a job at a ski resort, along with Bev’s degree and experience in hotel management. 

They set their sights on Snowmass. “We had skied there previously and loved it,” but when one of their tenants suggested Crested Butte, they added it to the list, which also included Telluride. 

They headed to Crested Butte first, in July 1978. “We drove into Crested Butte in the evening and as we’re coming down the valley, it just blew us away. We found the Nordic Inn, ate dinner at the Artichoke, got up in the morning and went to the Skicrest Lodge, just to see if there were any jobs for the winter.” 

They were sent to Ptarmigan Mountain Properties where they met Glo Cunningham, dropped off resumes and discovered that Columbine Condos needed an onsite manager for maintenance, front desk, reservations and dealing with the HOA. The position included a two-bedroom condo to live in and a ski pass. 

They took off to Snowmass and Telluride, where they were offered jobs at both resorts, but the call came in with the job offer for Columbine and they snagged it because, Joe says, “I got a ski-in ski-out condo to live in and what could be better?” 

“It was a dream job,” Joe recalls. “If you look at the snowfall records, 1978-79 was one of the biggest snowfalls we had here. It’s January and I’m shoveling snow over my head from the walkway. We did earn our keep. At the end of the ski season, our boss gave us a 30-day vacation and we went to Hawaii and Florida,” he says about the days of real off-seasons. 

Joe was promoted to work in the main administrative office doing accounting, but when the snow didn’t fall in the winter of 1980-81 and the resort was dead, they moved to Wisconsin with new baby Katherine, and Joe helped a friend there start a laser machining business. “It was fun getting that started but I wanted to live in the mountains.” 

Columbine’s HOA offered the couple a job managing the building and the small family returned in May 1981. Their son, Christopher, came along in 1982. Joe and Bev started their own management company, Solutions, Inc., and Crested Butte Accommodations. When they sold the company in 2001, they were the largest property management company in the valley, with 11 HOAs. 

Joe also started a small construction company, Capstone Custom Builders, with his brother-in-law, Vince Rogalski, primarily installing cabinets for Thurston Kitchens. They dismantled the company in 2004, about the same time the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council asked Joe to be the interim town manager, which he accepted and began in July. By August, they hired him permanently. Joe had served on the Planning Commission for Mt. Crested Butte in the early ‘80s, was elected to the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council in 1984 and in 1986 became the mayor for eight years. “I loved the community and I wanted to get involved.” 

Joe has held the town manager position for 17 years; however, he says, “I’m retiring September 2. It’s an important day in my life since it’s VJ Day and I was born that day.” 

Joe’s faith led him to Catholicism and he became an ordained deacon in 2007. “Becoming a deacon is part of the steps of becoming a priest but there’s a branch, you can become a permanent deacon or take the next step to becoming a priest. Most deacons are married,” he explains and adds, “The main reason I converted to Catholicism is the Eucharist. In the Catholic church, the church Christ began, the Eucharist is believed to be the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Once I learned that and studied the church history, I asked myself whether this was true—and it is.” 

Retirement from town government was a tough decision for Joe because, he says, “I’ve always been extremely active and always loved the town and loved being in this position. I’ve loved being involved with everything going on in town, the future, keeping things running day to day, working with the council. I have a fantastic staff of dedicated people and it’s just been really enjoyable.”

The unthinkable was thought about last Monday.

No, I’m not talking about the social media pounding of the valley’s most conservative columnist by many who consider themselves conservative. Nor the apparent surprise by some that I am not of a fan of certain actions taken by the Trump Administration and would actually write about them in an editorial. Or the essay in Newsweek by Yale epidemiologist Harvey Risch arguing the benefits of hydroxychloroquine in the coronavirus fight despite the politicization of the medicine.

No, the unthinkable talked about Monday was that the community should start pondering what happens if the ski area doesn’t start spinning its lifts this November. What the…?

The broad community through the One Valley Leadership Council has started to talk about the possibility. And the Crested Butte Town Council broached the subject in a work session on July 27. While difficult to comprehend, the reality is such that it is wise to start considering all possibilities.

The best case scenario discussed was that we enter fall in the same state we are in now—a so-called Blue risk assessment level that allows business, including the ski area, to be operating within certain restrictions that include capacity limits and social distancing protocols. The worst-case scenario is that we start seeing massive bumps in COVID-19 cases that fill the hospital and shift us to the Yellow, the Orange and the Red risk assessment levels. Red is where we were last March when the ski area, along with almost everything else, was closed and we were basically quarantining inside our homes.

Honestly, as an enthusiastic resort skier I have had a mental block about that bleak future possibility. We are a ski town. The rhythm of life has a decent snow falling sometime around Halloween, activity in the Mt. Crested Butte Base Area in early November and a thin but skiable snowpack by late November. I figured we would determine how best to “flatten the curve” of this virus, take some hard but appropriate measures and get back to a near normal life by the fall—you know, like New Zealand or Germany. But we are a bigger country under more questionable leadership that has led us to the land of constant uncertainty.

The local Crested Butte Mountain Resort crew has been pretty silent on what to expect because I don’t think they yet know. The higher-ups with Vail Resorts are watching how their winter resorts that are open in the southern hemisphere are operating to get tips on how best to make it work for us. And by us I mean their Vail Resorts operations that spread all over America and Canada. As can be seen on this page, VR CEO Rob Katz released a letter confirming that uncertainty on Wednesday and calling for continued vigilance. One fear being whispered is that CBMR is a small blip in the corporate spreadsheet and focus might be sharper in places like Vail, Park City and Breckenridge instead of the resort described Monday by a council member on a separate but related topic that is located “in the middle of nowhere.”

I’ve lived here a long time but am having a hard time trying to wrap my head around a winter without the lifts spinning. Have we reached enough mass to remain quiet but vibrant in the valley for a winter without lifts? Can businesses we love make it through a ski season with half or 25 percent or even less of the normal tourism numbers? Can we morph into the center of all things Nordic and backcountry for American tourists who love to get outdoors in the winter? And if so, will we be allowed enough capacity in our restaurants, lodging and shops to service those who do come here?

Okay, I’ll stop there because it is still July and I was sweating sitting in the sun Monday morning having coffee. The trails are tacky, the leaves still green and the forests lush. Even in a pandemic, we are in a great place at the right time to ride it out. We all just wish the ride will end before November.

Summer is special in this valley. But I just can’t yet fathom that worst-case scenario for the next ski season. Hopefully I won’t have to—but a tip of the hat to those who are starting to think about the reality of how best to handle it if doesn’t change or it gets worse.

In the meantime, I’m not that worried about filling pages this week as some of the social media pounding of both me and our conservative Notions columnist (his latest column is on page 22) also came in the form of letters to the editor. So pick up a bag of popcorn, turn the page and take your mind off the potential of a ski season without lifts. Out of tightly wound anxiety can come distraction, at least for a while. Enjoy the high mountain days of summer…

—Mark Reaman

Share your art that touches on what is happening in the world right now

Showcase your art created during quarantine, your dramatic images taken during the Black Lives Matter protest and the list continues. Drop off your submissions to the Gunnison Arts Center on Friday, July 31 or Saturday, August 1 during open hours. Submissions are $5 per piece. Open to all levels of artists and all art forms. With questions, contact Alysa@gunnisonartscenter.org.

You can win money this Friday

The Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum had a virtual Black-and-White Ball this year and part of it was a raffle. That raffle is still open for a few more hours so buy some tickets and win a prize. The CB Mountain Heritage Museum will announce its summer raffle winners on Friday, July 31 at 7 p.m. Be sure to join them for a Facebook Live event to find out if you won. The museum will be posting the links just 10 minutes before the event starts. Raffle participants have the chance to win a townie bike from the Alpineer, a week’s stay at a Moloka’i, Hawaii Time-Share, a 10 to 14-day time-share stay with VI Resorts or a $500 cash prize. Tickets to join the raffle are available until 6 p.m. on July 31 at crestedbuttemuseum.com. Raffle prizes must be claimed within two weeks of winning or the prize will go to the next winner on the list.

Finding the Well of Your Creativity with weekday classes from the GAC

This writing class at the Gunnison Arts Center for people aged 16 and older begins to lay the foundation for Exploring Your Emotions—for a healthier self, whether you are experiencing stress, fear, sadness. If for you these are murky waters this class is for you. Paige Stewart will instruct the weekday classes—on Tuesdays on Zoom, August 4-25, from 6 to 8 p.m. and on Thursdays in person, August 6-27 from 6 to 8 p.m. The cost for the class is $80 and $68 for GAC members. This intensive class has a specific focus on using writing as a tool to create space for creativity and healing to transpire. At the end of this intensive, you will have four unique mediation techniques, the ability to remove limiting beliefs whether mental or emotional, and a set of tools to implement in your own life that allow you to return to your well and draw up ideas and inspiration.

Duane Vandenbusche teaching history online on Thursdays

Join Dr. Duane Vandenbusche (whose birthday it is next Tuesday) for a Gunnison Country Webinar Series every Thursday evening at 7 p.m. The 14-part series is sponsored by the Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum. Each lecture will be about 35 minutes long. Lectures will address ranching, the Black Canyon, the early days of skiing, coal mining, narrow gauge railroads, the great silver camps, farming, water, placer gold mining, Marble, the Western Slope, Gunnison and Colorado. The zoom webinar is free. Go to crestedbuttemuseum.com for details and to register.

Preschooler story time at OBJ on Fridays

Renee Schmidt, “Nay Nay,” is hosting a free lap-sit story time for preschool-aged children and caregivers beginning on Fridays from 10:30 to 11 a.m. downstairs at Oh Be Joyful Church, 625 Maroon Avenue. The Friday, July 31 topic is “Colors of the Rainbow.” The August 7 story time will be “Hot Diggity Dog.” Space is limited to 11 people, so RSVP online by visiting objc.churchcenter.com/registrations. Story time is completely free and open to the entire community.

Birthdays:

July 30- Jill Norris, Dusty Demerson, Mary Barbour, Marla Covey, Joyce Dalbey, Kim Reichhelm

July 31- Betsy Heartfield, Johnny Biggers

August 1- Brad Ellis, Jerry Garcia, Amelia Rutherford

August 2- Eileen Hughes, Ali Roth

August 3- Marcia Dowell, Claudia Bucholz, Carissa Duncan, Alec Solimeo

August 4- Steve Katzman, Patrick Curvin, Gina Morgan, Susie Schechtman, Duane Vandenbusche, James Law

August 5- Michael Helland, Robyn Zimmerman, Jerry Falkner, Olivia Bray, Dahlila Hickey, Quinn Winter, Frank Kugel

Cameos: What is your favorite place to watch a sunset from?

From teepee to techie

By Dawne Belloise

Dan Jones sits framed by a small forest in his front yard. He seems to be as tall as the aspens that surround him. He tells the story of how his grove of quakies grew from seedlings planted by the now-exiled Amax mining company. “These were put in a cavern under Mt. Emmons as part of Amax’s reforestation project, that grew into little trees and when they pulled out, Amax put all the seedlings on two flatbed trailers and took them down to the Four-way Stop. Jeff Siefried and I took all the plants we could, sold them, gave them to friends and everything that looked like it was too weak to make it, we put in our yard. And as a result, I have 54 trees.”

Dan arrived from Aspen in the dusty little ski resort of Crested Butte in 1974. When he and his partner/companion, Jeff, bought the house on Second Street in 1976, Dan recalls that the yard was nothing but sagebrush and a 1954 Mercury up on blocks. It was the far northwest end of town with no houses beyond their property, just pasture and views.

Born and raised in Seattle, Dan says, “It was fabulous. I grew up on Sunset Hill above the water. I was lucky enough to be in a big house with a big family, three sisters and a house full of German shepherd dogs. It was a three-story house and there was usually a pack of dogs everywhere.” All his grandparents hail from Sweden and when he was young, his parents took the family to the motherland. Dan says, “We drove all over searching for family records in churches,” and he got to meet his family there.

At 6’4”, Dan played basketball in high school. He graduated in 1966 and emphasizes, “I got so angry at my country for the Vietnam War that I left the country after graduation and lived in Switzerland for a year,” working as trail crew at a ski resort in a small town like Crested Butte. “I was skiing around all day with a shovel. There were German shepherd avalanche dogs all over. I was in love,” he smiles.

When he returned to the United States, Dan attended the University of Washington, graduating in 1970 with a BA in English literature. While in college, he was on the rowing team but after graduation he realized, “All I wanted to do was ski my butt off. My parents had started me skiing when I was a child and that’s all I wanted to do.” He eventually became a ski patrol.

Dan was in San Francisco in 1971. “I love San Francisco, it’s the ancestral motherland of homosexuals,” he laughs. He was a gypsy taxi driver even though he couldn’t pass the test, which was mostly a geography test and he didn’t have a clue as to where anything was in the city, “but they handed me the license anyway.” The calls for fares would go to a phone booth behind a Sinclair gas station but the only way to make money, Dan says, was to hang out at a hotel and wait to take customers to the airport.

Following the snow, Dan was a houseman at Sun Valley tasked with driving the maids around all day, carrying their vacuum cleaners upstairs for them and bringing firewood into the condos. As he recalls, “And then, we’d break into other condos and drink all their liquor.” Dan had moved to Aspen in 1973 because the skiing was so good. He landed a job at the prestigious Refectory restaurant, a chain of high-end eateries. It was in Aspen that he met Jeff Siefried, and having hit it off over an offered slice of pizza, the two skied up to Crystal the next day, where Jeff was living in a teepee in the middle of the river on an island. The couple then took off to travel Colombia, South America.

They returned to Aspen for a short while, then moved to Vail to work on Avon’s sewer system until they heard about this crazy little ski town called Crested Butte. Dan and Jeff were hired to help build the Irwin Lodge and Dan remembers, “We lived in a teepee down at Ruby Anthracite with Linda Baker. We’d hike the mile and a half up the river to work. We were young and tough. We’d go work and then hike back down to the teepee. It was a great lifestyle. We’d build little pools to jump into. We had pet trout. We made sweat lodges by bending willow branches and then we’d put blankets over the branches. I still feel Irwin is my neighborhood.”

Later, in 1974, he and Jeff opened the very popular restaurant, The Vineyard, serving fondues of meats, bread and chocolate. They sold the eatery a decade later and went their separate ways.

After the restaurant sold, Dan left for Pennsylvania, working as finance director for a Democratic congressman, who later moved him to the Washington, D.C. office. He had worked in Dallas on the Carter/Mondale campaign, having learned computer software when his college rowing coach got him a job at a Seattle bank as a programmer.

Dan was not thrilled when his boss sent him to Texas. “I didn’t want to go to Houston but somebody had to go and I was the one who was the most techie.” He was in the Lone Star State from 1985 through 1991, until, “My partners were tired of me whining about wanting to go back to Crested Butte,” so they sent him home to work remotely.

Back in Crested Butte, when the CF&I mining company decided to sell their land on Gibson Ridge and the town of Crested Butte couldn’t come up with the $2.1 million to purchase, Dan and a group of friends realized the gravity of not having control of potential development land surrounding town. The property was bought by a developer who then built exclusive homes on what was once the coal mines overlooking town. Dan, Jim Starr, John Hess and Norm Bardeen took the initiative in creating the Crested Butte Land Trust in 1992 in order to have a plan and funding in place for the next time strategic property came up, “To preserve the present for the future. We begged, borrowed and everything up to stealing,” Dan says of their fundraising efforts. Then they convinced the town to enact the real estate transfer tax, which takes 3 percent of all real estate sales in town, “and that’s when the Land Trust was able to really start. It gave the trust a source of funding that without it, we’d never be able to conserve land,” Dan says.

Dan was an avid rower, spending his days out on Lake Irwin, Long Lake and Blue Mesa and he laughs, “I’m pretty sure I was the highest rower in the world, in every sense of the word,” but continuing issues with his legs and knees forced him to quit. “It was clear that my rowing career was closing so I decided to drive my old blue Bronco as far as it would go from Seattle. I was hoping for Patagonia,” and he took off to San Francisco. “I thought if I made it into South America and the car died, I could leave it in some village and they would love it because they would take care of it and fix it and they’d all be happy and I’d go home and start doing something else. But I didn’t make it that far.”

His ex Jeff asked Dan to stay in his San Francisco apartment for a few weeks while he flew off to Hawaii. A few weeks turned into a few months, and he took computer programming temp jobs. He discovered Vivid Studios, the cutting-edge tech firm and web developer at the time, and went in to apply for a job, donning his business suit. “There were Frisbees flying, wildly dyed hair, dogs running around and computers everywhere. Everything that you think about when you think of San Francisco, Vivid Studios was emblematic of all of that and more.” He just turned around and left, completely intimidated. Returning another day, in casual dress, he made them an offer to work for free for a month and if they liked him, they could pay him. He went on to become the vice president of the company, from 1995 to 2001, when he retired.

Back home in Crested Butte since, Dan feels, “I love the mountains, what’s not to love? I love this town and always have. This is my home, this community first and foremost. I just want to be here.”

By Dawne Belloise

“I’m a jerky pusher,” Jamie Watt laughs when asked about his award-winning Jamie’s Jerky. “I give out a free taste and then they’re hooked. I get phone calls at 10 o’clock at night from people saying, ‘Jamie, I need a pound bag.’ I carry samples with me all the time. I carry it in my car because people flag me down on the street.”

Everyone knows the locally made Jamie’s Jerky, which began 40 years ago when Watt and his then-wife happened to stop in a little Texas town known for its smoked meats, BBQ and beef jerky.

“Jerky wasn’t a well known thing back then, other than Slim Jim beef sticks.” After one taste, Jamie knew he had to have more and figured he could make his own but it took him five years of experimentation to come up with the right combination of flavorings and meat.

He started giving it to friends, and “More and more town people got addicted to it,” he smiles and now prints a caution on his bags, “Warning: You will become addicted.”

Jamie started his young life in Ann Arbor, Mich., moving to Summit, N.J. at the age of four. When he was in fifth grade his parents moved the family to Chappaqua, N.Y. “Both places were only 45 minutes out of NYC, but both Summit and Chappaqua were heavily wooded. I lived a Tom Sawyer life, playing outside all day long. We went barefoot, playing in streams, lakes and rivers. There were no video games and barely any TV. There were trails that dated back to Native American days, and Revolutionary War soldiers used those trails.”

In high school, Jamie discovered soccer. “Back then the only soccer was either on the East or West Coast. Soccer wasn’t as popular of a sport with Americans.” He started soccer in ninth grade and played until he was 60, forming the Crested Butte adult co-ed soccer team 25 years ago.

When he graduated from high school in 1970, Jamie spent a second senior year in Villars, Switzerland, a little ski town like Crested Butte. “I got really good at ordering food and wine in French at restaurants. We had field trips all over Europe.” He figured he’d follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, so he enrolled at the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU) for pre-med.

The year he was in Switzerland, Watts’ mom had moved to Niwot, Colo., north of Denver, and opened the Cottonwood Cottage restaurant there. Jamie married one of her wait staff. They had a daughter, Anne, and four years later, Sasa (Melissa). He was still attending CU and on weekends he was building a house for his mom in Estes Park.

“I was self-taught. We didn’t know how to pour a footing or how to lay cinder block so we’d go watch another crew doing it,” Watts recalls. It took two years of weekends to finish the 5,000-square-foot house. When it was completed, a lady pulled up to the house and asked if they wanted to build her a house, so Jamie and a friend decided to start to a construction company, “because we didn’t want to tell her that we really weren’t a construction company. Back in the old days, even in Crested Butte, we had the same crew for everything—drywall, paint, framing and foundations,” he says.

After three years at CU, Jamie decided that construction was pretty lucrative so he found a business college near the beach in San Diego and moved his family there in a 1954 Chevy school bus he had converted into a deluxe motorhome. “We rented a tiny shack half a block from Ocean Beach. Our dining table was an old door on two cinder blocks. We only had $2,000 to our name and spent it on a 16-foot Hobie Cat. Neither of us had ever sailed before but we got really good at it and entered regattas.”

His intention wasn’t to get a degree but to take the courses that would enable him to run a construction business, so after learning all he needed, the family moved back to Boulder in 1979. He had restarted his construction business when the country fell into a recession. “The price of oil was so high and what that meant was that wealthy Texans were doing well and ski towns like Crested Butte were booming.” With no work on the Front Range, while visiting Crested Butte Jamie asked if they were hiring workers at the Buttes condo construction site. “At the time I was only 22 and had already built five houses by then,” he recalls, and they hired him on the spot.

“We didn’t know what the town looked like because it was one of the heaviest snow years and the town didn’t do snow removal from the sidewalks of Elk, so there were tunnels to all the businesses. I remember dogs running across the rooftops.” Jamie remembers his first day at work on the mountain, saying, “I got up to go to work—it was negative 24 degrees and that was the end of March. It was the Wild West back then in Crested Butte. There was a 50-man crew and every Friday, we’d finish a keg and go downtown and tear up the town, mostly at the Wooden Nickel.”

A year later in 1982, he restarted Alpine Construction, building the first homes in GoldLink, the Danni Ranch, Red Mountain Ranch, Prospect, Larkspur and the Silver Ridge condos.

In the mid-1980s, hit with yet another recession and people moving out of town, the East Coast was the only place booming in the country with the stock market going crazy, so Jamie loaded up the family and a five-man crew from Crested Butte and moved them all to Connecticut.

“It was like the Beverly Hillbillies with trailers full of tools and furniture. I was able to land a job building a custom home for a doctor back there and my company immediately became the preferred builder in that part of the country, because after building in Crested Butte, you can handle anything. My crew was the only crew who would work eight hours a day whether raining or snowing. If the temperature got down to 40 degrees or if it was raining or snowing, the state would shut down. We were like a tourist attraction—people would come watch us working in the snow, but it was nothing for us.”

When the stock market crashed in 1988 and killed the economy back East, Jamie moved back to the Butte, as a single guy, landing the bid to build the largest house in the county at the time. Fifteen years ago, he got his real estate license, because, why not? Currently, he’s with Crested Butte Resort Realty at the base area.

Jamie wrapped up 18 years on the Mt. Crested Butte Planning Commission board. He’s also on the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) board. He’s mostly retired from construction but still owns Alpine Construction and does maintenance on some of the buildings he’s built, a bit of property management and if someone begs him, he might consider another building job. And, of course, he’s still skiing.

There are lessons in the past and always hope in the future. The pandemic has certainly thrown a wrench into both history and what lies ahead, so there is no shortage of things to anticipate in the coming days. The key is to learn from history and make good decisions based on past outcomes. That is true whether deciding how to open the schools this fall, figuring out how affordable housing can be built in the valley through cooperation instead of sniping, or determining best practices to get the ski lifts spinning this winter. Here are a few things to keep an eye on in our immediate future.

—Vail Resorts closed two of its three Australian ski resorts last week. Falls Creek and Mt. Hotham in Victoria were closed after local restrictions were put in place. Vail is obviously taking a conservative approach and keeping safety of employees and guests at the forefront. It is something for us in Crested Butte to certainly keep an eye on. “In this moment, with all that is going on in the world, we feel Labor Day is a much better time to have a conversation with our pass holders about next season,” said Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz on an earnings call with investors at the end of April. As more and more is learned about this virus, the actual skiing part is probably pretty safe. The other stuff that is part of tourism skiing—the restaurants, the buses, the planes getting here, the bars at night—present the problems. We all need to keep an eye on how we can help a winter ski season happen in this ski resort community.

—Here’s one idea from Donald’s administration: The director for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, this week pleaded with Americans to put on a mask to slow the spread of COVID-19. He said that if that happened, then “over the next six weeks we could drive [the virus] into the ground.”

Heck, I honestly have no idea if that would work. But to do a six-week experiment that seems a bit inconvenient but relatively easy for most—and that might hit a homerun so we can see the results before Labor Day when the head of Vail Resorts wants to talk ski season and kids want to be back in the classroom shouldn’t be a divisive, culture war type decision.

—The money response to the coronavirus and what future response is made could be interesting. Local employers have said to me that it is harder for them to get people to work this summer since the federal unemployment subsidy has made a pretty good paycheck for people who would rather ride their bike than wash dishes (that might include me, by the way). That $600 per week on top of state unemployment money has had an interesting impact and business owners are keeping an eye on that to see if it is renewed.

Meanwhile the Colorado Sun compiled a list of all the businesses in the state that received the PPP loan that might be more of a grant than a loan. When the list was published, a few people asked me why one of the largest awards in Crested Butte went to a business called Nations Best Holdings that had the address of a house near Totem Pole Park. I emailed the CEO and founder, Chris Miller, from the company website that listed its headquarters in Dallas. He responded and explained, “The reason our PPP loan was done in CB is because that is where my corporate office was established at that time. Our operations consist of hardware stores and lumberyards in Texas and Oklahoma, and we just recently established a new corporate office in Dallas.”

—Anecdotally I hear how the coronavirus crisis has shown people how they can work from home, and this valley makes a mighty fine home to work from. So I totally understand that people who would rather be here than in say, Houston or LA are figuring out they can make a living surrounded by pretty peaks where they can hike with the kids instead of dealing with hot concrete and long commutes while watching their children’s birthday parties on social media. It will be interesting to see if that theory of more lone eagles or those on the corporate track with their bosses’ okay figure out that life is more than making tons of money—it is more about time and experience. Keep an eye on that potential change and what it means for our community.

—Had a pleasant conversation with Gary Gates this week over a cup of coffee and he is stoked to finally be actually building an affordable housing project in the valley. It is not the Corner at Brush Creek but it is basically the show model to perhaps get there. The “Paintbrush” project on the north side of Gunnison will crank into high gear this week and he hopes to have local workers living in the 77 units in well under a year. He invites people to keep an eye on Paintbrush so he can prove that many of the concerns voiced by people about the proposed Corner at Brush Creek won’t come to fruition and he can prove that his group can pull off a quality project that houses members of the local workforce. If there’s one thing I’ve seen with Gary over the last few years, it’s that the guy is a grinder. He doesn’t give up easily. The Gunnison housing project is something to keep an eye on at his invitation and I’m sure we all will.

—According to the Associated Press, protesters who have clashed with authorities in Oregon are not just confronting local police. According to the AP, “Some are also facing off against federal officers whose presence reflects President Donald Trump’s decision to make cracking down on ‘violent mayhem’ a federal priority. The Department of Homeland Security has deployed officers in tactical gear from around the country, and from more than a half-dozen federal law enforcement agencies and departments, to Portland, Oregon.

Using federal troops to police Americans doesn’t seem all that … American. That is definitely something to keep an eye on as Donald is in his comfort zone with mayhem and distraction.

—The North Village project in Mt. Crested Butte is reaching the point where the Town Council gets to decide whether to move ahead with real dollars committed to the process. They’ll be talking about it Tuesday. It seems there continues to be future opportunity for a real public-private partnership that could result in significant workforce housing, parking at a currently congested trailhead, recreation opportunities and a pretty low-impact and low-density development. The devil is always in the details but watching from the 30,000-foot level, there appears a chance to strike a good partnership and see how collaboration can result in the proverbial “win-win” for everyone.

—The upcoming Gunnison County commissioners’ election will be interesting. As it is still early, everyone involved is pledging it will be a respectful, clean, issues-oriented race and I always take people at their word until they break it. The new GV2H PAC has made it clear it wants to play a role in the race so it will be interesting to watch how this all shakes out, as I am sure the PAC won’t be spending its money and influence on the people currently sitting on the board. This is something all voters will be keeping an eye on between now and November.

There is no shortage of issues that lie ahead. Pandemic, drought, elections, keeping local workers living near their local jobs, making sure the country doesn’t slip into authoritarian dictatorship. You know, the little things.

Here’s to once again being fortunate enough to live in interesting times.

—Mark Reaman

Bringing a different perspective, while emphasizing unity

By Mark Reaman

When John Messner retired from his District 1 county commissioner seat on July 1 to take a position with the state, the Gunnison County Democrats had 10 days to appoint his replacement to fill out his term for the year. They met last week and chose Liz Smith, the political party’s co-chair. She will also run for the seat this November and while many of these questions will come up during the campaign we felt it fair to get some of her perspective as a sitting commissioner.

Why did you throw your hat (or mask) in the ring to replace John Messner?

In recent years, I have been deeply troubled by the divisiveness in our national and local politics. In my tenure as co-chair for the Gunnison County Democratic Party, I have consistently promoted unity as our most important core value, arguing that we need to find hidden virtues in positions we disagree with to leverage the common ground we share with members in our community. For me, the message of unity is not simply a dinner theme or campaign slogan. It represents a core value I strive to live by in my teaching, relationships, community activism and day-to-day life. This is a value I think our entire community could benefit from right now.

What is your professional background?

In a word? Varied. I completed my Ph.D. in English and Cultural Studies from the University of Oklahoma in December 2016 and have more than 10 years of teaching experience. While completing my doctoral degree, I also developed a profitable technical writing and editing business working on short- and long-term projects, including grants for institutions like the National Weather Service, technology proposals for the military, medical and psychiatric reports for workman’s compensation litigation, land impact studies and appraisals related to large-scale eminent domain projects. Additionally, in my experience coordinating two programs at Western Colorado University and spending five seasons directing the aquatics program at Boulder Country Club, I have developed and overseen budgets up to $55,000, managed staffs as large as 30 and cultivated a strong set of interpersonal skills to successfully collaborate with numerous programs and stakeholders.

What is your political experience background?

I became politically active in Gunnison County almost as soon as we moved here. Bill (my husband) and I brought our son, Jacob, to the 2016 caucus when he was just 1½, and I signed up to be a Precinct Committee Person (PCP) on the spot. Within a few months, Jeremy Rubingh asked me to co-chair the Gunnison County Democratic Party with him. In this role, I’ve been responsible for facilitating many essential processes for a functioning democracy, such as the Democratic Party precinct caucuses and county assemblies. I’ve helped audit our local elections and have hauled my son to Democratic State Assemblies so I could represent the viewpoints of our county. I’ve canvassed and phone banked to get out the vote and increase participation in our local elections. In these capacities, I’ve also developed close working relationships with our local, multi-county and statewide elected officials.

If elected in November, do you plan to keep your current job?

I consider the county commissioner position a full-time job, and my work at Western would be scaled accordingly if I’m elected in November. Fortunately, before COVID-19, I had already made the decision to work part-time this school year to figure out how to make a career pivot towards public service. Since being appointed to the county commissioner vacancy, I have reduced my responsibilities this fall even further. Assuming I am elected, if I retain any responsibilities at Western beyond this school year, they will be very minimal.

How long have you lived in District 1?

We closed on our house in June 2015. Bill and I have been in and out of this valley since 2000, though; he used to work maintenance at Western cleaning dorms just so he could spend the summers out here running with the Western cross country team. His best friend from high school ran at Western under Duane Vandenbusche, and we used to come out and visit for weeks at a time. It’s funny because Bill loves it so much out here we almost didn’t meet: in 2001, he wanted to transfer to Western, but with a brother and sister in line behind him for college, he couldn’t come up with the out-of-state tuition. In August 2001, he drove straight from Gunnison to Kansas City, Missouri, stepped out of the car to attend a team barbecue at his apartment and we met. He introduced me to Gunnison in the summer of 2002, and the rest is history.

What are your favorite things to do recreationally in the area?

Bill and I are both avid runners; it’s how we met in college. Since he started helping out with the Mountain Sports Trail Running team in 2018, I’ve embraced the transition to trail running as well. I finished the Grand Traverse in 2018 and 2019, and there are few things I enjoy more than pounding out miles on trails all over this county. This year, our son has enjoyed getting out on the SUP with me at Blue Mesa and other local lakes. When winter hits, we regularly hit the slopes at Crested Butte Mountain Resort or pull out the snowshoes/XC ski gear.

What do you see as the biggest issues facing the county right now?

COVID-19 has magnified many longstanding issues in our county, like the high prices of health care and housing as well as increasing food instability. These are issues many people in our county are experiencing for the first time, and they are ones I know personally. I was six when my parents divorced and vividly remember the shame we felt when my mom took us to food banks or paid for our groceries with food stamps. We lived in an abandoned house on her brother’s farm that should have been condemned; my brother and I weren’t allowed in the kitchen because the floor was falling in, and only my mom knew how to walk the floor joists. Looking back, I realize how difficult it was for her to make the decisions she did, and the economic downturn from COVID-19 has left people in this valley confronting similar ones. To ensure the financial stability of our workforce and business owners during this pandemic, it’s essential for us to take care of each other so we can keep our economy open. As a mother of a school-aged child and faculty member at Western, I’m also concerned about how we will safely open our schools this fall. And as if a pandemic weren’t enough, we continue to face incredible challenges to combat climate change and protect our watershed and public lands.

Can you represent a different perspective than the one of John, Jonathan and Roland? What would that be?

Having had a glimpse behind the curtain every now and again, I’m not sure anyone can say our county commissioners have “one” unified perspective; there’s a lot of disagreement that goes on behind the scenes. That said, as a woman, I bring a very different set of experiences than Jonathan and Roland that informs my collaborative and inclusive style of leadership. We know that governance is most effective when leadership reflects the people it represents, and I am amazed that my appointment makes me just the third woman to ever hold a county commissioner seat. I’d like to see how we can improve our efforts toward diversity, equity and inclusion, which are not formalized in our county strategic plan.

The hot political topic appears to be the county reaction to the coronavirus crisis. Do you think the county has handled it well?

Well first, my hat (or mask) goes off to Joni Reynolds for the work she has done to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. There’s no playbook or modern analogue to manage the public health emergency Gunnison County (and the world, for that matter) has endured, and I don’t find it productive to offer armchair critiques with the benefit of hindsight. I do want to hear people’s thoughts and experiences as we continue to navigate this pandemic. It’s important for us to keep open lines of communication with our community and visitors and to implement best health practices to keep each other safe and our economy open.

What do you see as the role of the commissioners in such an unusual situation?

Although the novel coronavirus presents unusual challenges, the role of commissioners remains to establish priorities and policies that ensure the general well-being of our community, especially when it comes to public health and the local economy. We have an obligation to listen to experts and stay abreast of new information about the virus, how it spreads and testing in this continuously evolving situation. Because our hospital doesn’t have an ICU, it’s even more essential for us to keep infection numbers down and to stop the spread. We also have to keep our lines of communication open to people in our community through events like virtual Town Halls, which have been taking place every Monday at 2:30 p.m.

How do you view the north end of the valley? Is it different from the south end?

There are important differences—too many to enumerate here—which is one reason the Gunnison County Democratic Party has adopted a co-chair model in recent years to better represent both ends of the valley. The change in ecosystems is evident in the short 30-minute drive, and while tourism and recreation are important countywide, they follow different calendars and draw different demographics. The south end of the valley relies more on the vitality of Western Colorado University.

Anything else?

I don’t know many people who haven’t been affected by COVID-19 in Gunnison County. My husband just lost his brother on Saturday, and we consider it a COVID-19 casualty: he did not contract the virus, but he struggled during the shutdown and his demise was directly correlated to it. Mental health is part of this pandemic too.

Having problems? You are not alone, and anyone can afford this counseling

By Dawne Belloise

To state the obvious, these are difficult times. COVID-19, unemployment, isolation, no hugging, restricted activities, cancelled events, fear, division and lost freedom to live the Crested Butte lifestyle. Depression and anxiety creep in and overwhelm us. Reality seems surreal.

Many who need mental health counseling don’t have the funds, or their insurance won’t cover it. Many don’t know how to reach out for help, or feel ashamed. The reality is, we’re all in this together and by no means are you alone.

Crested Butte State of Mind (CBSM) is a new non-profit organization created to help in the effort to reduce the rate of suicides in our community and valley; to connect those people in need of mental health services with the counseling they need; and to provide the financial resources for the services.

Executive director of Crested Butte State of Mind Meghan Dougherty explains that the community members started crying out, needing to do something about losing their friends. The group formed with the idea that something better could be done to help people in need of both mental health support and the finances for counseling. They formed the official non-profit to address some of the community’s biggest needs.

Dougherty says, “The biggest barriers are access to mental health services.” In a recent community assessment by Gunnison Valley Health, mental health rose to the top of the list for the second time. “So it remains a priority in our community,” Dougherty says. “More specifically, barriers to access due to affordability. Many insurances don’t cover it. Some do, but a lot of community members are not insured or underinsured.”

Crested Butte State of Mind is working on two things: increasing access and increasing awareness of resources. “We’re the mental wellness connector. The first program we’ve implemented is a therapy scholarship program so people who are uninsured or underinsured can apply. We’ll connect that person with 10 free sessions with a local provider, providing free access. We’ve connected 17 people to date since the beginning of April.”

Since COVID-19 hit the county, CBSM has seen an increase in the number of applicants. “When we launched the program in April, we were able to connect eight people in the first two months and then in June those numbers doubled,” Dougherty says.

The organization has seen daily inquiries and applications for the program. “The impact of the corona pandemic has really started to take a toll on people’s mental well-being. The stress from loss of income, isolation, lack of connection to community, and the uncertainty of these times is causing anxiety,” says Dougherty.

“I’m finding people who had underlying struggles that were once potentially manageable and are now being exacerbated by the uncertainty,” Dougherty continues. “We’re trying to reduce the stigma that surrounds asking for help. We’re trying to tell people that it’s okay to not be okay, and you’re not alone. It’s okay to not to be able to get through it on your own and Crested Butte State of Mind is here to be a resource to connect people to free mental health care.”

Crested Butte State of Mind currently has 19 scholarships available and has secured $60,000 over the last couple of months from private donations and grants. Some of those included a community grant from the town of Crested Butte, the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley, the Katz Amsterdam Foundation and the Colorado Covid Relief Fund.

Dougherty notes of the fund-raising, “Mental health is an essential need and people are starting to realize that and they stepped up to fund it. We’re now looking for more support financially from our community, to support your friends and neighbors. We’ve gained an incredible amount of support and it’s sustained us for now but we’re really looking to keep up with the increasing demand. We know people are struggling but any small amount donated can make a big impact.”

Their website, cbstateofmind.org, contains information and mental health resources on subjects such as how to talk to someone who is struggling; how to apply for the scholarship; and many useful contacts.

“There are also local and statewide resources beyond what we’re providing. We’re trying to be one central spot in our community where people know they can go to find the resources they need,” Dougherty says. “We’re really listening to our community in terms of what people need and trying to facilitate a process that addresses those needs in a way that works for our unique community. We know what the data tells us—Gunnison County has a higher ratio, nearly twice the rate of suicide deaths in the state. There’s a lot of different reasons, and it’s consistent across resort communities. CBSM is part of a network where we’re learning from other organizations and resort communities across the country on how to address these unique needs. We’re having shared learning platforms and conversations.”

Dougherty points out that within Gunnison County there is a lot of effort and many organizations working on improving the mental health system. “We’re really collaborating with those entities because this issue is bigger than any one person’s ability to address it. Crested Butte State of Mind is a little piece of the puzzle and our focus is to increase awareness and access of resources.”

Get yourself to their newly launched website at cbstateofmind.org or call Meghan Dougherty at (970) 596-4698 or email mdougherty@cbstateofmind.org.