Roving Rabbis Light Up Mountain Village

By Julia Caulfield

Reuven Tanny lights the menorah in Mountain Village (Julia Caulfield/KOTO)

Across the globe Jews are lighting menorahs and celebrating with their families. But in Mountain Village, Colorado a group of “Roving Rabbis” are doing things a little differently. KOTO’s Julia Caulfield has more.

The sun is setting on the shortest day of the year in Mountain Village.

Blasting over loudspeakers is a pop dance beat, but it’s not a song you’re likely to hear on a Top 40 countdown.

It’s the 4th night of Hanukkah and a group of rabbinical students from New York City – the Roving Rabbis – are in town for a menorah lighting.

Over 100 members of the community and visitors brave the cold temperatures to celebrate and partake in the lighting. Rabbi Mendy Hirsch speaks to the gathered crowd.

“Tonight we join millions of Jews around the world who are making the fourth night of the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah,” Rabbi Hirsch shares with the crowd, “Families all across the globe are gathering together to kindle these incredible flames.”

The Rabbis are on a whistle-stop tour of Utah, Colorado, and Texas lighting menorahs and celebrating Hanukkah.

“Each one of us has the spark of God within us. We all have our menorah, we all have our light, and the goal that we came here tonight for, is to ignite that light, to make sure that light is revealed, to make sure we have that light, and that light stays with us,” Hirsch says, “We know that when we have a candle in a dark room, if you light even one candle, the entire room gets lit up. The same is with our soul, with our Godliness. When we add in light, and we awaken our Neshama – our inner soul, the light of God inside of us, that lights up our surrounding, that helps us through our challenges. That is how we celebrate Hanukkah.”

After a few words from Mountain Village Mayor, local resident Reuven Tanny gets up to light the first four candles of the Menorah, as Rabbi Shmuly Wudowsky leads the blessings.

The lighting complete, dance music returns, the rabbis serve latkes and donuts, someone’s dressed up as a dradle and is dancing.

For Tanny, the lighting is a beautiful expression of community and the joy of the season.

“It makes me love Telluride even more, to just see the holiday spirit. I know a lot of people don’t really know much about Hanukkah, and it’s great for everybody to get together and celebrate,” Tanny says.

The celebration continues as the sky lights up in a brilliant sunset…but soon, the Roving Rabbis will leave Mountain Village…heading to Crested Butte, then Texas, spreading the light and love of Hanukkah with more small communities across the West.

Local Law Enforcement Trains for Active Shooter

By Julia Caulfield

Telluride Intermediate/High School (courtesy of Telluride School District)

It won’t be long before the Telluride High School is once again bustling with students – going from one class to another, chatting with friends. But on a clear evening in August, the lobby of the Palm Theatre is bustling with law enforcement and paramedics.

“It’s unfortunate that it’s come to something that we need to train in our schools, for something like this. Having Columbine happened over twenty years ago, we’re expected to be proficient at these scenarios,” says Telluride Chief Marshal Josh Comte.

Officers from the Telluride Marshal’s Department and Mountain Village Police Department, San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office, and Telluride Fire Protection District are gathered together for an active shooter training.

Chief Comte starts with a debrief on how the training is going to go.

“We have two scenarios. We’re going to literally walking through these. So we going to walk through it, work on going through the motions, make mistakes,” he says.

The training on this night is focusing on getting a shooter contained in a location, moving rescue task forces into the building, triaging victims and getting them to safety – victims in this training are portrayed by pieces of paper with descriptions written on them – some say deceased, others describe how the individual is wounded.

“If you’re asking for stuff with unified command, ask for it. We’re not going to have dispatch repeating that, but we want to hear you guys voice what you’re doing,” Comte briefs, “If you’re asking for multiple helicopters, multiple units from other agencies, voice it as realistic as we can to get these agencies rolling.”

In the first scenario, a shooter is near the gym in the intermediate school.

“So it’s a Monday morning, say 11 o’clock. Jimmy’s our [Student Resources Officer], Jeremy’s our deputy working patrol,” Comte announces to the group. “Jeremy’s here for a meeting and we get calls of a ‘shots fired’ in the intermediate school on the north side.”

Two Marshal Deputies enter the scenario.

“As they’re passing, they’re main job is to go to the threat,” Comte explains. “We have our role players, which is our pieces of paper, with should indicate to them – with open doors as well – that this is where our first mass casualty incident is.”

Comte adds, “the way it should work, is they should start seeing these issues, start seeing that we have this room with a lot of people down. So this should be our first casualty collection point. We want [paramedics] to grab people, bring them in here, and then start treating them as best as they can. Law enforcement will provide cover on the windows and the doors and everything else.”

The scenario wraps in about fifteen minutes. Law enforcement set up a security corridor, paramedics carry victims to safety.

The scenario wasn’t completely flawlessly. There’s room for improvement, but Comte notes that’s the point – training to get better, and to be prepared for the unexpected.

“It’s all going to be game time decisions. My favorite quote is by Mike Tyson, ‘Everyone’s got a plan until you get punched in the face’. So we’re going to come in here with the best case scenario, and it’s going to change,” Comte concludes. “It’s always going to change.”

It’s all to ensure, Chief Comte says, they’re up to the task, if the unfortunate time comes.

Drag Over Easy with Aria Pettyone

By Julia Caulfield

Since the dawn of time, men have been dressing as women, and women have been dressing as men. But the art of drag has become more popular over the past years with drag queens taking the world by storm. On June 12th, The View at Mountain Lodge is hosting a Drag Over Easy brunch featuring Durango drag queen Aria Pettyone. KOTO’s Julia Caulfield spoke with Pettyone about the importance of drag, and how she got her start.

Lawson Hill Parking and Transit Center Officially Opens

By Julia Caulfield

The Lawson Hill Parking and Transit Center at Society Turn officially opened on Wednesday.

A small group of Telluride, Mountain Village, San Miguel County, and Colorado Department of Transportation officials met to celebrate the event on the warm morning, with only wisps of clouds in the sky. It’s a little different from when Nina Kothe, Administrative Assistant for San Miguel County, and David Averill first discussed the idea several years ago.

“When we came out here it was a blustery November day, and I remember standing over the hood of her car with a concept drawing and we’re holding them down so they didn’t blow away,” says Averill, Executive Director for the San Miguel Authority for Regional Transportation.

Back then, he was working for the CDOT. On a work trip to the area, Kothe brought Averill to lot by the Conoco to share her idea for upgrade.

According to Kothe, the area has always been a parking lot, but the County didn’t have enough money to even pave it. She thought there could be some funding from the state.

“It just turned out there was some money available in a pool, it’s called SB 228, that had to be used for transit. So it was almost like perfect timing, and there were no what they call “shovel ready” projects on the Western Slope except for ours, so we got the money,” says Kothe.

The timing of the project is something Mike McVaugh, Director for District 5 of CDOT, also notes at the ceremony.

 “This is only the second transit project to be completed in the state [with SB 228 funds], the first in Region 5, so we feel really good that everyone was ready, that timing was right, to really pull this together and take advantage of funding that was available statewide and we have this wonderful project here today,” McVaugh says.

San Miguel County got around $1.5 million of State funding to update the lot, although Kothe notes that they came in under budget.

The lot at Society Turn has been used as a parking lot for years, but now, the new transit center has around 120 paved spaces. It’s a stop for the Galloping Goose, SMART buses, and the Bustang Outrider. There are restrooms, and even several charging stations for electric vehicles, all powered by solar panels. Kothe says she hopes both locals and visitors alike will take advantage of the extra parking.

“The hope is really that people, even locals, they might opt to park here and hop on the Galloping Goose to get into town, because then they also don’t have to worry about parking in town. But mostly we envision it as a transit center for regional transportation, and maybe even a transfer station where people might get off a bus that’s come up from Montrose…and hope on a bus that will then take them up to Mountain Village,” Kothe says.

The Lawson Hill Parking and Transit Center officially opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony on May 29th, and bagpipes to mark the occasion.