High-speed internet gets mixed reviews
CRESTED BUTTE – Part of 2009’s Recovery Act earmarked $7 billion in subsidies for delivery of Internet to underserved areas, including mountain communities.

Nearly four years later, that connectivity is arriving in Western Colorado, but with criticism left and right. For years, Crested Butte thought it needed to get better Internet access to draw people to live there. Now, a Colorado-based firm called Eagle-Net is using federal money to install microwave-based technology to boost Internet connections in Crested Butte and Gunnison. But the local governments, reports the Crested Butte News, prefer fiber-optic.

“We’ll take microwave for right now if that’s the only option,” says David Clayton, a councilman from Mt. Crested Butte. Both his town and adjacent Crested Butte say they want to have the same bandwidth found in cities.

To the southwest about 80 miles in Ouray, the same company is delivering fiber-optic installation, but existing cable operators and telephone companies say the federal stimulus money is being used to “cherry pick” schools and libraries.

But for those institutions, the new fiber-optic line is wonderful. It’s like going from “an old jalopy to a brand-new Corvette,” Ouray schools superintendent Scott Pankow tells the Telluride Watch.

Giant gourd defies odds in Jackson
JACKSON, Wyo. – Jackson Hole averages altogether 60 contiguous frost-free days each year. It’s not the first place you’d think of as being home to giant pumpkins.

But with a great deal of coddling, Greg Hahnel coaxed a 401-pound gourd from a community garden this summer. He tells the Jackson Hole News&Guide that he ordered $50 worth of Dill’s Atlantic Giant seeds from somebody in Oregon. Of the 10 seeds he received, only four germinated and two flourished. But the seeds were certified from a strong lineage of monsters. “My pumpkin’s got papers,” he said.

The pumpkin was planted mid-May, and along the way Hahnel swaddled the plant with blankets on nippy nights. But even after a hard frost hit Sept. 13, the pumpkin gained 45 pounds. He then loaded the gourd into his pickup and drove to Salt Lake City, where he entered it into a contest. But there, others are far larger. The winner weighed 1,600 pounds.

Celebration of singer ends after 15 years
ASPEN – The singer John Denver died in the wreckage of small plane in Monterey Bay in October 1997. Every year since then, friends, family and admirers have gathered every October in Aspen to celebrate his life and music. But after 15 years, the organizer of the tribute, Mark Johnson, says this year’s will be the last.

“All things must pass,” Johnson told the Aspen Daily News.

 Johnson remembers first hearing the song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” while driving from Florida to Chicago. At first, he, he thought the song stunk. “By the time I got to Chicago, I had heard it six times and I loved it.”

Philanthropist offers up art collection
WHISTLER, B.C. – After sitting in a prison in the American south during his college years, Michael Audain spent his early career in social work before turning his hand to real estate development in Vancouver.

Now 75, and with a sense of the advancing years, Audain and his wife, Yoshiko Karasawa, have chosen Whistler as the site for their art collection. The collection includes several hundred works by artists such as Emily Carr, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol and Diego Rivera.

Audain told the Globe and Mail that he plans to have an architect selected soon, shovels in the ground by next year, and completion by the end of 2014. The museum is expected to be located on a site across from the Whistler municipal offices.

“This is a game-changer for Whistler and I am just absolutely thrilled,” Whistler Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden said. “The hair on my arms is standing up.”

In addition to Audain’s collection, the new museum would also commission new works and host traveling exhibitions.

Audain is the great-grandson of one of British Columbia’s industrial titans but says that he was not born with a silver spoon. Even so, he grew up in the United Kingdom, studying at the London School of Economics before he was a political science student at the University of British Columbia. Doing field research about sociology in Memphis in 1961, he was arrested for refusing to leave an area described as the “coloured” section of a restaurant. He spent several days in jail.

Later, in his 40s, he made a fortune in real estate in Vancouver and elsewhere in B.C. as chief executive of Paragon Homes.

“Ideally, it will all be gone by the time I die,” he said in a 2009 article about his fortune. Like Warren Buffett, he finds the notion of family dynasties distasteful. His own two children stand to inherit just a few favorites from his collection. “I’m just a temporary custodian of these works,” he said.

Aspen pushes for mid-range hotels
ASPEN –Aspen Skiing Co. continues to advocate for more mid-range lodging options in Aspen’s downtown commercial district.

For years, the city has discussed – and sometimes cussed – the idea of taller buildings in the Victorian-themed district. In general, the city has distrusted new buildings that would change the character. Most of the older buildings are two or three stories tall. Around the edges of town, especially against the mountain, some lodging properties are taller.

Earlier this year, the council voted to cap redevelopment at 28 feet, effectively killing the third-floor penthouses that have been popping up.

In a recent appearance before the City Council, ski company CEO Mike Kaplan outlined his vision for more mid-size hotels of about 100 rooms. He called for more limited-service hotels, similar to the relatively economy-minded Limelight, which the ski company bought and redeveloped. Aspen, said Kaplan, needs to look beyond baby boomers, who have been the resort’s staple. To stay competitive, Aspen needs to focus on creating more lodging opportunities, particularly geared for younger age brackets.

– Allen Best