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Colorado Matters
March 19, 2026: Colorado's Italian connections; Kids kicking nicotine; Warm weather birding
00:49:24
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A
Mob bosses in the Mile High. If you think the Godfather only happened in New York, you might need to think again.
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They didn't all just come to New York and become thugs and gangsters. They were hardworking, indentured coal miners.
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A
Today, how a new historical novel is reflecting on Colorado's little known Italian connections with the little Rocky Mountain flair. Author and journalist Linda Stacey on how Sicilian immigrants helped shape the Centennial State. Then the conversation continues with one of the founders of the Dante El Aguierre Society of Denver delving deeper into the historical perspective of Italians in Colorado and how the society continues to keep the spirit and culture of Italian heritage alive in our state today.
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C
There is a group of young people trying to get that area designated as a historical area.
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It's Colorado Matters on CPR News and krcc. I'm Chandra Thomas Whitfield.
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I hope that we could come here and reason together.
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C
And as a reasonable man, I'm willing to do whatever's necessary to find a
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B
peaceful solution to this problem. Then we are agreed.
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C
The traffic in drugs will be permitted but controlled. And Don Corleone will give her protection
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B
in the east and there will be the peace.
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C
But I must have strict assurance from Corleone. As time goes by and his position
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B
becomes stronger, will he attempt any individual vendetta? Look, we are all reasonable men here. We don't have to give assurances as if we were lawyers. You talk about vengeance.
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C
Is vengeance gonna bring your son back to you?
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Or my boy to me? I forgot the vengeance of my son.
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A
It's a typical scene in the iconic Godfather series. But now picture it with, say, a fourteener in the background and maybe a little swooshing action on the ski slopes. Not what you would expect, right? Well, I'm just kidding around a bit. But seriously, my guest today says, not so fast. Her just released historical novel is shining a light on a lesser known chapter of Colorado's past. Award winning journalist and best selling novelist Linda Stacey joins us now to talk about her new book, the Descendant, which has been described as a sweeping family saga drawn from the true story of her Sicilian ancestors and the early roots of organized crime here in Colorado. Ooh, Fascinating. Linda, welcome to Colorado Matters.
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B
Thank you very much. Thank you.
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A
Your book explores how Italian immigrants helped shape the American west while enduring discrimination, dangerous labor conditions, and the upheaval of Prohibition. And as I noted in my introduction, your family has historical roots here.
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B
Yes, they do. Deep historical roots.
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A
Not everyone wants to put their personal story or their families out there. What inspired you to tell this particular Story rooted in Colorado history.
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B
You know, one of the things I call it unconscious bigotry when it comes to Italians, because people have no problem, like, coming up to me and saying, hey, goomba. It's like, what? Why would you talk like that? And I was in the newsroom once, and they said, hey, call Stacy. You're connected. Right, that I'm connected to the Internet. So I just decided that, you know, once and for all, I'm going to try to put my mark on this unconscious bigotry. And that was number one. And number two, what really, really inspired me was two things. One, people would always come up to me and say, what do you mean your mother rode a horse to school? Aren't you Italian? And I'd say, yes, I am Italian. And yes, my mother rode a horse to school. And secondly, my mother and my aunts were such rebels in a time when women weren't supposed to be rebels, and particularly because they came from an ethnic family with a root of a father. But they just went ahead and did whatever they thought they wanted to do. I mean, one of my aunts was an out and out lesbian. Others married black men. Another married tribal, and they just did whatever they wanted. Back in those days, it seems crazy to me, and I just wanted to write about how these strong women just beat the system.
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A
Although it's a novel, your book focuses heavily on Italian immigrants in Colorado. Can you tell us about the research that went into the descendant? How did you uncover these stories?
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B
Well, a lot of them were family stories, but, you know, people don't tell the whole truth in family stories because sometimes it's too brutal to tell the truth. Although my mother was very truthful about things. But I've heard about the Ludlow massacre and. And my family. And I didn't know anything about it until I really researched it. And I don't know if you're familiar with this, but the coal miners back in the day, particularly the Italians, they were these men called Padronis and Rockefeller, would send them into Sicily during the drought and after the terrible earthquake and so forth, looking for strong young bucks to work in the mines. But that's not what they said. They promised them free passage and that when they get here, the president of America will give you a farm and this. And that wasn't true. True. They were herded into cattle cars and sent to the mines of Colorado, the coal mines, where they were basically in bondage. They were paid in company script, so they had no money. They didn't speak the language. They were Illiterate for the most part. They even had to pay for their own pickaxes and clothing to go down in the mines. And they had no way of contacting their families to say, don't follow us. And their families were supposed to come for free and they were charged as well. So all of that went against their pay. So there was no way out, no way out for my family, my grandfather and so forth, my uncles, there was just no way out. And in 1914, United Mine Workers came in and called a strike. And so the United Mine Workers set up a tent city in Ludlow. And at night Rockefeller had hired the National Guard, the Colorado National Guard, as his own private militia, as well as this, a bunch of detectives from the private agency. And at night they would go in with an armored car with a machine gun, tear it on the top and start shooting. So the immigrants and the strikers, a lot of Italians and Greeks, built trenches under their tents for their women and children to hide when the bullets started. And then one night a gunfight ensued. And the Rockefellers men poured oil on top of the tents and set them on fire and burnt women and children and minors who came to try to rescue them to death. The government put out an official thing that said 23 people, but a female journalist went in there and she counted 54 and she said they were chopping the heads and the hands off so they couldn't be identified. So immigrants were always treated horribly in this country and that hasn't changed. But this was just an out and out massacre of women and children. It's a horrible stain on our American history. And I also felt it was very important to tell the true story. Not everybody looked like John Wayne and talked like John Wayne. They came from 30 different countries, just the people who worked in the mines in Colorado. 30 languages were spoken. Nobody talked like John Wayne, nobody looked like John Wayne. And all the immigrants were considered lowlifes and thieves and filthy pigs. It was just awful, awful. Even the New York Times called Southern Italians kinky haired dark skinned criminals that shouldn't be allowed in school with regular children.
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A
Now from what I understand, you relied on a combination of family records, archives, newspaper reports, oral histories. What fascinated you most when you dug into this research?
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B
You know, as a reporter by trade, it's very difficult to write a novel. So I actually teach a class at the News Women's Club of New York to journalists, learning to teach them how to write novels. Because we're taught to keep everything short and keep everything truthful. When you're writing a Novel. It's like, lay it all out, make it. You know, and then you can make stuff up. But I relied on the actual facts. I got a thousand books out. I did deep research online. I still had one aunt who was living, who fed me a lot of stories. All of my family sent me pictures and photos from back in the day. And I actually even hired a professor from NYU who was fluent in the kind of Sicilian language that was spoken at the turn of the 20th century. So I do make stuff up, but I'm also extremely tethered to the truth because of my background. My mentor was the great Nelson DeMille. He's the one who convinced me to write novels in the first place. So the first novel I wrote, the Sixth Station, I called him up late at night and I said, nelson, I think I made a mistake. I think I said, a cheese was manufactured in a place it wasn't. And he paused and he said, oh, for God's sakes, it's fiction. You can make up whatever you want. Which is very hard for me to understand as a reporter because I get my head chopped off if I actually made up stuff as a reporter. So it's like teaching a singer to dance, you know.
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A
Well, as you noted, the book is drawn from the true story of your ancestors and the beginning of the Mafia in Colorado, which is far from the usual and I would say, arguably the stereotypical New York narrative. Why was it important to highlight that Western connection?
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B
Well, I think it was very important to tell the whole true Italian immigration story. They didn't all just come to New York and become thugs and gangsters. They were hardworking, indentured coal miners. And if Colorado hadn't made prohibition four years before the rest of the country in 1916 and the labor strike hadn't happened, and these people were living wild in the mountains because they'd been fired, and they're living in shacks with their families and wild beasts and blizzards and no way out. So when Prohibition was declared in 1916, all these people said, well, geez, we know how to make wine, we know how to make booze, we know how to make sugar shine. And that's how they got themselves out of this horrific situation. And once that started, the government actually hired KKK members to become Prohibition agents. So they basically had a license to kill Italians and other immigrants who were making wine and liquor. And even if they weren't, they would just say, you are. And so they had a license to just do whatever they wanted. So, I mean, can you imagine the Kkk being deputized, and that's what it was in Colorado. So these people banded together against the government as they had in the 15th century in Sicily when there was something called the Mafiuso. All the people banded together to stop the French invaders. So that's kind of where that name came from, since they families banded together and then they started their own war against each other over distribution and so forth. Because think about it. They had four years to perfect their craft of wine and booze making before the rest of the country went dry. So they had all this stuff ready to go. That's how they managed to buy ranches and become cattle ranchers and everything from the bootleg money.
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A
You also emphasized strong women throughout this family saga.
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Oh, yeah.
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How central would you say women were to the immigrant story you uncovered?
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Well, this immigrant story I'm telling you is about my mother, her brothers also. There were 10 kids. But it's about the six sisters who were completely rebellious and just went their own way. And you're thinking, now this is in the early turn of the century, in the 1920s and so forth, and they were cattle drovers and they were riders and they did what they wanted and they rode horses and they were in the rodeo. And they were completely unlike what you would expect Italian immigrant girls to be. Well, first generation to be like that. A few of them were born in Italy, but most of them were born in Colorado.
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A
There has long been fascination with stories like the Godfather. Your family's time in Colorado has even been suggested as possible inspiration for parts of that mythology featured in the iconic series. How did that history influence your storytelling?
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B
Well, I hadn't known anything about that history until I started investigating it. And I knew that my Aunt Carrie was married to someone who was murdered in a gunfight, but that's all I knew. And when I started investigating it, I came across my long lost cousin, whose name is Sam Carlino, and he's like the barbecue king of San Jose, California. He's written a book, too. And we got to talking, and then I realized, well, my aunt was married to Charlie Carlino. Charlie Carlino had three brothers and a sister, and their name is Carlino, as opposed to Corleone. Their father's name is Vito Carlino, as opposed to Vito Corleone. Charlie himself was murdered when the rival gang family came in a car behind him on the bridge and murdered him with machine guns. It was the longest gunfight in Colorado history, some people say, and it was similar to exactly what happened to Sonny Corleone crossing the Jones Beach Causeway in the book. So I thought, wow, Brothers Corlino Corleone, the favorite, was killed by a rival gang in the same kind of situation. This is too many coincidences to just be not real. And I realized that, you know, back in the day, there were all these newspaper articles in the 1960s or 70s when the Godfather was written, that were on file in the New York Public Library. So I was wondering. I mean, there's no way of ever knowing, but it just. I mean, he could have looked up all those stories on microfiche as he was preparing his story. Just seemed too coincidental to me.
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What do you hope Colorado readers will take away from the descendant?
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I hope they take away from the fact that American history has been rewritten and whitewashed, literally whitewashed, so that some of these things that were done to immigrants and the miners and the workers were just horrific and that the west wasn't settled by John Wayne, it was settled by immigrants. And I hope that the people of Colorado re look up their history of some of these things. That's very, very important to know the truth about who actually helped settle the west and who was responsible for a lot of the good, some of the bad, but a lot of the good. And I really hope that these stories get back in the history books. The Ludlow massacre is still the most horrific labor incident in history, in American history, and it's not in the books. People don't even know about it. The people in the National Italian American foundation and the people in the Columbus Citizens foundation didn't know about it until I looked into it. And then I was appalled and shocked. And then the fact that some of the laborers were arrested and all of the people who did the shooting and the killing of the immigrants all got off. And Rockefeller showed up at Congress because they had a congressional hearing on it. And he basically said, well, they had no right to strike. You have to do what you have to do. Really.
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A
Have you been able to get a sense of how Colorado's Italian community is in present day?
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B
Well, I know that it is very active. And this was an astounding thing to me that 90% of the young men in my grandparents village of Luca Sea in Sicily were recruited to Pueblo. 90% of the young men. And that's why there's such an active, still active Italian communities all around Colorado, which people outside of Colorado don't even know. They just think it's, you know, cowboys. My uncles and my aunts rode the range. My uncles were drovers, they were cattle drivers, you know, it's like, no, but they're Italian. And I said, yes, but there were 30 languages spoken on those things. Can you imagine they weren't just saying, hey, padra, let's cook up some beans? No, not even close.
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A
Well, Linda, this has been absolutely fascinating, as expected. And I find myself saying this all the time when I'm sitting here in this interview seat. Colorado history is not one to disappoint.
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Yeah.
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Really? Absolutely. And I just think it's fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. And I hope everybody gets to learn about the Ludlow massacre and the immigrants and all the truth.
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Thanks for sharing this lesser known history with us. And hopefully, as you said, it inspires others to dig in and learn a bit more about this.
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B
I hope so. Thank you so much, Chandra. I really appreciate it.
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A
Linda Stacey's new novel, the Descendant explores the hidden history of Sicilian immigrants here in Colorado. When we come back, the conversation continues with one of the founders of the Dante Alighieri Society of Denver sharing a historical perspective on Italians in Colorado. And we'll talk about how the society continues today, working to keep the spirit and culture of Italian heritage alive in the Rocky Mountain region. I'm Chandra Thomas Whitfield. You're with Colorado Matters on CPR News and krcc. Welcome back to Colorado Matters on CPR news and krcc. I'm Chandra Thomas Whitfield. Today we're talking about the history of Italians here in the Centennial State. Before the break, we were joined by author Linda Stacy, who talked about her newly released historical novel based on her family history. The story follows Italian immigrants in Colorado and Brooklyn from 1915 to 1941. Now we'll continue the conversation about Colorado's Italian connections with Veronica Goodrich, one of the founders of the Dante Alighieri Society of Denver, which for just over 40 years has focused on keeping Italian culture alive in our state today. Veronica, thanks for being here.
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C
Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure.
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A
Can you help our listeners out there understand the arrival of Italians in Colorado and the historical impact they've had in this region?
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C
They came mostly to work in the mines. There were some in the Denver area, but huge camps in southern Colorado, which would be Las Semis county and Wherefeno County. And as these people came in, other people came to follow them, but the people in the mining community, if you read any of Linda's book, you hear how the people lived. They were poverty stricken. They lived in mining camps where they had very little money. They were paid and companies stripped. So part of that then hooks up with the labor movement in Colorado, which culminated in the strike of 1913 where all the mines in Colorado were closed. And many of the organizers of that strike were Italians. I remember my step grandfather was part of that movement. My grandparents were kicked out of the mining camps because they were union organizers.
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Now I understand that by 1922, roughly 1 in 5 Coloradans was Italian American.
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C
That is correct. There was a huge Italian population. You know, in all fairness, there's a lot of prejudice against Italians at that time.
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Tell us more about that.
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C
Well, my father got registered for the draft in 1941. Informed when he registered, to be sure he did not say that he was white because he wasn't white. Italians were not considered white. And I assume this also was true of Greek people. But there was a lot of prejudice. And yet Italians were doing a great deal for Colorado. They had formed businesses in the Denver area. There were, you know, neighborhoods that were thriving with businesses. Yes. There was also the Mafia, which is one of those things that happens when people are pushed down, then suddenly they fight back. So you had a real cross section of things going on.
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A
Well, I've heard it said that these Italians formed tight knit communities. And Denver even had a Little Italy community.
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C
Yes, they did. Roughly 32nd and Navajo. And there is a group of young people trying to get that area designated as a historical area. One of the first American saints, Mother Cabrini, started schools here in Colorado and lived in north Denver. In fact, the house is almost next to Mount Carmel Church. It belongs to someone privately now, but she did live in the community.
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A
Wow. So interesting. And from what I understand, History Colorado had a special exhibit on this rich history back in, what, 2002?
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C
Yes, they did. And there's a fantastic woman who was in charge of that. Her name is Alicia DiGiacomo. I think she's retired now and she's written an extremely good book about the history of Italians in Colorado.
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Now this historical perspective is again fascinating. But what inspired the founding of the Dante?
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C
The Dante was inspired by some of the leading intellectuals in Italy to preserve the language and the culture so that no matter where people went, there was an organization that would keep that culture alive. And then it was working with the immigrants. Now we have all kinds of people who come to the Dante because they love Italian culture and they want to learn more. And before they go to Italy, they want to know how to be able to speak. So our classes take care of that. It's interesting that in like 1940 ish, there was the original Dante group in Trinidad, Colorado, and it Lasted a few months, and then the war came on. Being Italian was rather unpopular, but I remember my grandmother belonged for a short period of time. Fast forward to 1985. Many of us in the Italian community found that there was really a lack of a chance for our culture. And myself, I had children who wanted to learn Italian. And thanks to a remarkable two people, but one in particular, a man by the name of Giulio Marcantonio, who was an immigrant who came over in the early 60s. They got the idea of bringing the Dante to Denver because there wasn't a chapter, because they wanted a chance to have people celebrate Italian culture and the language, not just get together for a bunch of social options. We wanted to bring something actually to the Denver community. And Giulio was a fantastic man who did this. So we got about 10 of us together who were interested in that, and we formed the Dante. And we began in the fall of 1985. We also give scholarships. So in 86, we gave scholarships to study in Europe or in Italy. Since then, we've probably given close to five or six hundred thousand dollars in scholarships. Other things we've done, we've brought groups in from Italy. We did a program with the 10th Mountain Division, the soldiers who trained in Colorado at Fort Hale. Those soldiers fought in Italy and formed a bond with Italians. So there was a young man here from Italy who's done a whole series of historical videos on that particular part of what happened in World War II. So these are all things that Sidante tries to bring to the Italian community.
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A
What other events do you all have year round to keep the spirit of Italian culture alive here in Colorado?
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C
Just a few months ago, we had our 40th anniversary. We have our scholarship, which is every year in May. We also have an award that we give to women who have contributed to Italian culture. So every year we give one to a current person, and also often we give a posthumous one to people who contributed but are no longer living. We're planning to connect with another group in May and do a walking tour of north Denver and the area particularly that might become an historical area.
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A
Now, these scholarships you mentioned, they are to study abroad in Italy?
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C
They are to study in Italy and they go through the universities. Most of the people are either from DU or cu, occasionally from Metro or Greeley. And we also give a music scholarship on occasion when we find someone who really wants to study abroad and study music.
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A
How does the society involve the broader community and invite participation from people who may not have Italian heritage?
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Well, a lot of our members are not Italian, but they love Italian culture. So we're open to anybody. To be a member of the Don Que, you only have to love Italian culture.
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And I know cuisine has got to be a large part of this.
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Yes. And we have Italian cooking classes at least once a month. We have a couple of people who are part of the organization who are professional chefs. Something else that we have been involved with and that we're promoting is that Pueblo is about to have the first Leonardo da Vinci museum in all of North America. Wow. They're in the process of building it now, so as soon as we know they're opening, we're planning a trip down.
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A
That sounds pretty awesome.
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You want to check into that because it's really amazing. There isn't going to be another one anywhere in the Northern hemisphere atmosphere. And can you imagine getting something like that in Pueblo?
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Wow.
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And Pueblo has a huge history of Italians. And in particular, there's a large, large population in Pueblo from one town in Sicily, which is mentioned in the book, Linda's book. I noticed it in the early pages. Her characters come from Luca Sicula. A lot of Pueblo people are originally from Lucasicola.
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As we wrap up, what do you want people to know about Colorado's Italian community and culture?
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C
Italians gave a great deal to Colorado, as did many other nationalities, but we're very proud of what we did. They were simple people who came and they grew here and their children grew up and continue to contribute to the history of Colorado. We've had senators, we've had people at the universities. You can't find anything in Colorado that hasn't been touched by the Italians. I'm sure other nationalities can say the same, but definitely Italians contributed a great deal to Colorado.
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A
Veronica, thank you for sharing your insights on both the historical significance and the continued vibrancy of the Italian community here in Colorado.
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C
Oh, well, thank you so much, Chondra.
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A
Veronica Goodrich, one of the founders of the Dante Alighieri Society of Denver, talking with me about the long and rich history of Italians in Colorado and the Society's ongoing work to preserve that heritage across the Rocky Mountain region. For more information, we'll share a link to the Society's website when we post this segment to the Colorado Matters page on our website, cpr.org hey mambo mambo
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C
Italiano hey, hey mahmbo mambo Italiano Coke,
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B
milk
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A
One final reflection about the Italian mafia's roots in Colorado. Back in 2012, my co host, Ryan Warner, spoke with Matt Feeney, the North Denver homeowner and his family Made some intriguing discoveries during a home remodeling project starting in the kitchen.
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D
We were doing demolition work. You know, we were hitting the wall with the hammer, tearing it down. And we kept smelling matches, a very distinct smell. So we stopped and we looked closely and embedded in the plaster were several matches. And we could see the heads of them that we had been striking. And they were lined up maybe half inch to an inch apart. And so we started scraping away more of the plaster and we saw fuse coiled up piece of paper with black powder in it. And it led all the way to behind the cabinets where we found canvas packets and they contained folded up newspaper. Feeny says it was like a booby trap or something.
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The oddities didn't end there.
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Later they were renovating a sunroom and we discovered a big void underneath the sunroom floor. So it was a big room that we could not find a way to get into from any other part of the house. You know, we stuck some long measuring tapes and some different two by fours and it went all the way down. It was a full size room. It was about the same time that we were doing that work. An older gentleman stopped by the house because he had lived there. And he's the one who told me that the house belonged to the small Doan family, Denver's connection to the mob. That same day we went into the cellar and we started looking for ways that we could get through the wall that was there. And we actually discovered a door. It was a very serious door. It had big giant 8 inch metal hinges that it rested on. So we opened the door, we saw that there was a mechanical locking device. So we instantly knew that this room was probably used to hide something. And so when I started doing more research, I actually stopped by Gaetano's restaurant, which was owned by the mob family for a long time, and ended up speaking with an old lady there who was their oldest employee. And she took me in the back room and showed me a picture of my house with the family standing in front of it. So all these dots are being connected. And I started doing more research. And it turns out that there was a major event where they got in trouble for bootlegging out of their house. We're pretty sure they were hiding money and booze there with such a significant hiding space. And so we figured that the matches we had found with the fuse leading to the newspaper packets in the case, where they might have been raided or had to get rid of the house or the evidence, it was probably a quick way for them to be able to light the wall with a candle and get it going. Burn down the house. Living in the house has been very interesting, but one thing I've never felt was any weird vibes or energy. It does feel like home.
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Matt Feeney speaking with my co host Ryan Warner back in 2012 about discovering that his north Denver home used to be owned by an Italian mob family. I'm Chandra Thomas Whitfield. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News and kr. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News and krcc. I'm Chandra Thomas Whitfield. Kicking the nicotine habit can be tough, even for a person new to smoking or vaping. CPR health reporter John Daly visited a school that's trying to help at Century
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Middle School in Thornton. Like a lot of schools, administrators struggle to respond to some, perhaps many students consuming nicotine, like vaping or using nicotine pouches. Principal Kristin Devlin says it's becoming more
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B
popular, much more common, and I don't
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even think that there's like really the attempt made to conceal them anymore, and
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kids are picking it up younger, she says in her office. I spoke with a shy student wearing a cap. Chloe Munoz when were you first aware of kids vaping or, you know, you using nicotine?
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I think in the third grade.
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E
Third grade?
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Wow.
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Third grade.
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She remembers a friend vaping with a couple of other classmates under a slide on the playground.
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She would like, steal her mom.
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They would just hide it under there, chloe says.
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She's seen where that can lead.
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It's just hard for them to stop,
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especially if they've been addicted for a while.
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It's stories like this that caused the school to invite a guest to speak to students. That visitor is Kyle Wimmer, a high school art teacher turned motivational speaker. He wears a Denver Broncos jersey and backwards baseball cap. On a table, he displays a variety of vape devices and pods. All of these vapes up here have
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all been turned into me by students
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after they've heard me say, he says. They can turn in their vapes free of judgment and punishment. By the time I'm done talking today, my goal is to have one person
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that's strong enough to come up and turn their vape in.
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Wimmer's presentation is an educational whirlwind. He talks about his own struggles with alcohol and also about health risks, corporate tricks to lure kids, peer pressure and addiction.
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When you're stressed, you hit your vape. When you're happy, you hit your vape. Before you go to bed, you hit your vape.
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Afterward, perhaps A few dozen students come up.
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Did you like it?
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E
To share stories of their challenges and successes.
- [37:04]
F
Congratulations. That's awesome.
- [37:05]
B
Thank you so much.
- [37:06]
E
And Wimmer hands out wristbands, different colors, signifying quitting for 24 hours, 24 days, 24 weeks.
- [37:14]
B
Which one?
- [37:14]
F
Which color bracelet would you like?
- [37:16]
E
They serve as both a reward for quitting.
- [37:18]
B
Technically, I made it a year and
- [37:20]
E
a pledge to keep it up.
- [37:22]
B
Look at me. Look at me doing good.
- [37:23]
E
The simple act of turning in a vape helped Maddie, a junior at Mountain Range High.
- [37:28]
B
Well, it started out of peer pressure, as it usually does. My friends started doing it, and they told me that I should do it, so I did it.
- [37:37]
E
Maddie says she got hooked her go to the Brand Geek bar and honestly, any flavor. But she didn't like the way it made her feel. She'd get chest pains and shortness of breath. As a student in an art class Wimmer taught at her school, Maddie heard his presentation, felt she wasn't alone, and had support. So she decided to turn in her vapes.
- [38:01]
B
It gives you a sense of power over the situation, because when you're addicted to nicotine, it has power over you,
- [38:08]
A
very strong power over you.
- [38:10]
B
So feeling like you have power over it helps a lot.
- [38:13]
E
Back in the principal's office at Century Middle School, Kyle Wimmer says urging students to turn in their devices started out of the blue.
- [38:22]
F
I really didn't mean for that to happen, but it happened, and I noticed that there was a thirst, like they want to share their stories.
- [38:27]
E
He says students fall into consuming harmful products like nicotine for a lot of reasons. A weakness, a curiosity. And they benefit from talking it through as they consider quitting.
- [38:39]
F
Kids want to share. They want to connect. They want to relate to somebody about this thing that they're going through.
- [38:44]
E
Century Middle School principal Kristin Devlin says she thinks teenagers often aren't great at thinking ahead.
- [38:51]
A
I speak to them about this all the time as far as, like, actions or you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.
- [38:57]
E
But her hope is that warning of the dangers and giving students solutions will plant a seed. So they can say, I can stop.
- [39:05]
A
I can do hard things, and, oh, thank you.
- [39:08]
B
Appreciate that.
- [39:09]
E
As proof. The day of Kyle Wimmer's presentation, students at the middle school turned in four nicotine vapes, plus a pair used for cannabis. I'm John Daly, CPR News.
- [39:21]
F
So whatever that thing is, you've made it for two years. Congratulations. I'm gonna get you the white, purple, and red.
- [39:27]
B
I already got all the white ones.
- [39:29]
F
Rock and roll.
- [39:29]
B
You're Gonna complete the set.
- [39:32]
A
This is Colorado Matters from CPR News and krcc. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News and krcc. I'm Chandra Thomas Whitfield. There's pushback against the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle ncar. The national center for Atmospheric Research, the nonprofit that oversees the research facility in Boulder, is going to court to try to Prevent the breakup. CPR's Climate and Environment reporter Sam Brash has been following the complaint. He spoke with Colorado Today producer Madeline Rose.
- [40:03]
E
Sam, the Trump administration is being accused of closing NCAR to punish Colorado. I feel like this isn't the first lawsuit to make a claim like that. Help me understand what's going on here.
- [40:13]
F
Yeah, it's a little bit of deja vu. And if it feels like deja vu now, wait till I tell you that this is all about Tina Peters. If you'll remember, of course, Tina Peters is the former Mesa county clerk, currently serving a nine year sentence for tampering with election equipment. President Trump has never been a fan of the kind of climate research conducted at ncar. But the lawsuit claims he's now trying to break up the research hub because Governor Polis won't release Peters.
- [40:43]
E
So who's behind this lawsuit?
- [40:45]
F
So the weird thing about NCAR is that it's federally funded, but it's managed by scientists and universities. The people suing here is the management group that actually oversees the center. So what's remarkable is that you have scientists, you have universities that suing their funders. At the National Science foundation in the US Department of Commerce, even though a spokesperson for that university consortium didn't talk to me on the record, their lawsuit and press statement is pretty clear. They believe that ncar, which has been called the mothership of climate science in the US Is about to be, quote, collateral damage in a campaign of retribution against Colorado.
- [41:25]
E
And how do they back up that claim?
- [41:27]
F
So it's mostly about timing. Peter's name didn't come up specifically when the White House announced it was looking into breaking up the center. In December, White House Budget Director Russell Vogt posted on X that the center would be dismantled because, quote, it's a hotbed of climate alarmism. But that tweet came a day after Trump attacked Polis on social media over the Tina Peters issue. There's also a White House statement given to CNN about NCAR to explain why the administration was targeting the center. A spokesperson said, quote, may, maybe if Colorado had a governor who actually wanted to work with President Trump, his constituents would be better Served.
- [42:04]
E
Let's back up for a second and talk about the center. What kinds of things do they research and how far along are the plans to dismantle it?
- [42:11]
F
Yeah, so ncar, as the name suggests, focuses on atmospheric science and it coordinates research across a bunch of other universities and research institutions. It's often credited for massively improving forecasting. So we've gotten better at predicting hurricanes and wildfires thanks to some of their modeling and other research. They also help airliners avoid turbulence, things like that. As for the status of plans to break it up, it's a little unclear. We know that the federal government was until recently taking public comments on ways it might reorganize the center, whether to shift some of its assets and supercomputers and airplanes to other universities or the private sector. That public comment period recently closed. And according to the lawsuit inside NCAR has gotten really difficult lately. It claims the federal government has put NCAR's 800 plus staff under gag orders and onerous bureaucratic restrictions.
- [43:08]
E
Okay, so if the administration is successful at breaking up NCAR's work, what will happen to the lab itself? It's sitting on some pretty prime real estate above Boulder.
- [43:17]
F
Yeah, you're thinking of the MESA Lab, which is this iconic modernist building right below the Boulder Flatirons. Boulder itself is getting pretty creative with ways to make sure that that lab lab stays in federal hands, or it at least makes it really hard for them to sell it off. So NCAR gets its water from Boulder even though it's outside the city's normal service area. So potentially, if the city doesn't like what happens with the MESA Lab, it could cut off its water supplies.
- [43:46]
E
CPR's Sam Brash. Thanks, Sam.
- [43:48]
F
Thank you.
- [43:50]
A
Tomorrow is the first official day of spring, although it's felt like it for quite some time this year. The unseasonably warm weather this winter got some students wondering how birds are being affected. CPR's Ava Kayon found out.
- [44:04]
G
The first grade class in Wheat Ridge is colorful. Posters and pictures of birds line the walls of Ms. Mokami's classroom. It's the animal they're studying.
- [44:12]
B
I saw a red tailed hawk. I saw some pigeons. I saw a bog eagle, a black capped chickadee. I haven't been seeing a bird, but I have been hearing one.
- [44:24]
G
The class is learning about how birds interact with with the environment. But I have a lot of questions. Particularly after Colorado's unseasonable warm winter.
- [44:32]
B
Have we been having to wear our really thick coats? No. No.
- [44:35]
A
Have we been having to wear Our
- [44:38]
B
hats and our boots and our gloves
- [44:39]
A
and our mittens and everything.
- [44:40]
B
No, I've been getting really sweaty. Kind of same yesterday. It was really hot.
- [44:45]
G
Colorado has 522 species of birds, according to the Colorado Bird Records committee, and about 50 of those are here year round. Like Canada geese, house finches and black capped chickadees, other birds fly south for winter. But this year, did the birds go
- [45:01]
A
or did they not go? Turn and talk with someone next to you, do you think all the birds
- [45:05]
G
that normally leave, I don't think to find the answer. My first stop was the Denver Audubon Kingary Nature center where I got to see a lot of the year round birds. And from this spot in Chatfield State Park, I could also hear lots of them.
- [45:18]
B
Black capped chickadees. They go, sweetie, sweetie.
- [45:22]
G
That's Don Hall, a volunteer at the nature center and a board member at the Denver Audubon. He's also a master birder. According to Don, some birds stayed this
- [45:31]
C
winter, birds that typically wouldn't because of global warming.
- [45:35]
D
We are seeing different birds come in
- [45:38]
B
that we don't usually see because it's warmer. Their trigger for migration is not hitting.
- [45:44]
G
That's what one first grader suspected because
- [45:46]
B
they like to get away from the coldness and they need to catch some food and they need some water to drink so they can stay alive.
- [45:58]
G
It's basically what Risa Conray with Colorado Parks and Wildlife says too. Maybe more succinctly, in general, a bird
- [46:06]
B
species that migrate is still going to migrate. They may not travel as far. They may leave Colorado later or come back to Colorado earlier.
- [46:17]
G
But one warm year might not make a big difference. Basically, some small flocks of certain species stayed, but there wasn't a massive change in migration patterns.
- [46:26]
B
I don't think that they're going to completely change their life history strategy because of one abnormal year.
- [46:35]
G
And this year, not all Colorado birds waited until March 20th to announce spring. That's according to Peter Gent, a longtime birdwatcher and a chair of the Colorado Rare Bird Committee. I met him for a walk around Stearns Lake in Boulder county on one of those warmer winter days.
- [46:50]
B
There are quite nearly always a good variety of birds here. And then in particular, this is one of the nesting locations of bald eagles,
- [46:58]
C
where they are fairly easy to see.
- [47:01]
G
These bald eagles are here year round. So are the red winged blackbirds, which definitely made themselves known, he Sundays. Just around 10 species or so stuck around, though, in small numbers. Things like small warblers that would usually migrate to central or south America. He knows this because of an app
- [47:17]
C
all the bird watchers submit their sightings to ebird.
- [47:21]
G
And some waterbirds, which would normally go south once the lakes freeze, have also stuck around. From where we stood looking at the lake, we saw tons of cackling geese, a species that he said stayed in larger numbers this winter.
- [47:33]
A
All right my friends, we are moving into birds. Our birds.
- [47:37]
G
By now, the first graders are birds pretty well versed in bird facts. Each student will present about one Wheat Ridge bird at the end of the year. In the classroom, the kids are still discussing the migration question, but they have even more questions about other bird related things.
- [47:50]
B
I was wondering if the birds are going to eat my garden. Do they also take the eggs if they have some? How do birds keep their clothes?
- [48:05]
G
I don't have all the answers here, but I think I see a new generation of bird watchers. Ava Kian, CPR News we're all bird nerds.
- [48:13]
B
Bird nerds.
- [48:17]
A
What do you wonder about living in Colorado? Ask your question@cpr.org ColoradoWonders and we may answer it on air and online. Thanks for joining us today and to the colorado matters team.
- [48:45]
E
Sandy batulga, tyler bender, carl bielek, anthony
- [48:49]
B
cotton, pete kramer, andrea dukakis, zan huckpechone,
- [48:54]
E
matt herz, tom hess, michael hughes, pedro lumbragno, shane rumsey, haley sanchez, ryan warner
- [49:03]
A
and I'm chandra thomas whitfield. This is cpr news and krcc.