Ear to the ground

“Oh, so you’re a moaner.”

“Yeah, well you’re a drooler.”

– An early morning exchange between two yoga students in Durango

Colorado’s billions

Daddy Warbucks is no stranger to the West. The website www.NewWest.com recently dissectedForbes magazine’s list of the 400 wealthiest people in America, and discovered that the West boasts an abundance of billionaires with Colorado housing the most of any Western state.  

A total of six billionaires call the Centeniall State home. Denver’s Phil Anschutz topped the list of the Colorado rich with his $6 billion in net wealth. Anschutz’s various businesses and investments earned him the number 37 slot on theForbes list. In spite of the honor, Anschutz is currently embroiled in a bit of scandal. The billionaire’s company AEG has been accused of attempting to profit from the death of Michael Jackson. Jackson had been due to perform at AEG’s Millenium Dome in London, and Anchutz has tried to issue “souvenir tickets” rather than refunds for the 750,000 tickets sold for the event.

North of Colorado, Wyoming took honors for the most billionaires per capita of any Western state. As NewWest.com noted, each resident of Wyoming would walk away with $44,493 if the state’s three richest families gave all their money to fellow Cowboy State residents. Wal-Mart legacy Christy Walton and family now call Jackson Hole home and earned marks for the wealthiest Wyoming family and the wealthiest Westerners. Walton’s net worth is $21.5 billion.

Only two Western states dodged the Forbes list altogether. For some strange reason, billionaires have passed up both New Mexico and Utah.

The great denim drive

Durangoans can give their dusty dungarees new life in coming weeks. Cotton Incorporated has launched a nationwide denim drive – “Cotton. From Blue to Green” – to help communities adversely affected by hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. Locals can assist the effort by dropping off their tired Levis and Wranglers at Vanity, located in the Durango Mall.

The goal of the drive is to collect 100,000 pairs of donated jeans from Vanity customers around the country. Those old blues will be recycled into environmentally-friendly

cotton fiber insulation for communities in need. For every 500 pairs of jeans collected, one home can be insulated. Donations also offer much more than good Carhartt karma. In exchange for giving their old denim a second life, customers can receive a 25 percent discount on any pair of new pair of Vanity jeans. For more information, visit www.CottonFromBlueToGreen.org.