Features

HistoriCorps and Jeffco Open Space have teamed up again this year on a project to restore the historic Baehrden Lodge in Pine Valley Ranch Park.

“We’re restoring history,” said volunteer Douglas Fowler. “I’ve always been a service-oriented person, and this is just another way to serve the community.”

Every April, Safeway stores around the country raise money for people with disabilities. Cashiers ask customers if they want to “round up” their totals to the nearest dollar to donate.

But this year, the Conifer Safeway decided that, along with “rounding up,” it would do some “pushing-up” to raise funds for Easter Seals and the Special Olympics. 

It was a melding of old and new as students from Parmalee Elementary School helped re-enact the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Saratoga on Friday at Bear Creek Lake Park.

The old: Students marched in formation wearing costumes of 18th-century British and American soldiers, participating in battles, firing their mock weapons and pretending to die on the battlefield.

EVERGREEN — It's been nearly a month since Mike Fera moved out of the home he shared with his paternal grandparents, Ken and Judith Fera, into the Dakota Ridge Apartments in Littleton.

He didn't have to move, but since the 18-year-old Conifer High student-athlete was going to be partially footing the bill for the apartment with two roommates, one of whom is his girlfriend, Lizzie, he wasn't going to pay for something he wasn't using.

“Can I get a couple of two-by-fours?” called Adrienne Patenaude while standing on the roof a home under construction in Kittredge.

An AmeriCorps builder, Patenaude was working with Evergreen volunteers helping to complete a Blue Spruce Habitat for Humanity home last Thursday.

Robert Tobor and Melissa Duley of Evergreen-based Green Apple Supply were among those who came to the volunteer workday sponsored by the Evergreen Area Chamber of Commerce.

“I feel like I’m doing something for my own neighborhood,” Duley said.

Evergreen author Mike Delany has released his second book chronicling the semi-mystical adventures of an outdoorsman in the Alaskan bush.

Delany released “The Moose Jaw — Book II, The Darkness and the Light” at the end of January. The self-published novel follows Fergus “Gus” O’Neill, a character introduced in “The Moose Jaw,” which Delany released in January 2012.

Bailey already is known for its natural beauty and quaint downtown, and Bailey resident Joe Morris hopes to add public art to his hometown’s persona.

Morris is spearheading a plan to create a community mural annually in Bailey similar to a program in Ocean Beach, Calif. The project would include collaboration among local artists, residents and business owners — and Morris hopes it will bring the community together.

Andy Bauer detests the term “world music.” 

That may sound odd coming from a musician who started out in Conifer and who now incorporates the cultures and languages of China, Japan, Russia, Vietnam and more into his performances.

Bauer performed Feb. 8 at Swallow Hill Music in Denver, joined by his cousin’s group, Animal/Object. When Bauer performs, he sings in several languages. He intertwines the deep thrumming vocalizations of Tuvan throat singing with the sounds of a more typical indie rock singer/songwriter.

The question Juliet Johnson wanted to explore was a little gross. A little icky.

But science can be a little gross and a little icky, so she asked it anyway.

How dirty is the human mouth, really?

Juliet, a 12-year-old seventh-grader at West Jefferson Middle School, swabbed the mouths of kindergartners, seventh-graders and high school seniors to see whose was the nastiest.