Today's Features

The words became more difficult as the spelling bee progressed at Paul D. Elementary School last week. And the younger kids began to drop out.

But third-grader Austen King finished in the top three and stood with fifth-graders A.J Larrañaga and Connor Houdek, who won took first and second places respectively.

In all spelling bees, there are lessons learned even when kids misspell a word. For example, one of the younger children spelled “honest,” O-N-E-S-T, which makes perfect phonetic sense, and was a lesson in silent consonants and vowels. 

Wendy Armijo doesn’t claim to be a teetotaler. And she won’t tell you to never drink.

But she draws the line at drinking and driving.

For the last eight years, Armijo has served as the coordinator for the San Miguel County DWI Planning Council. She says she comes to that role with an understanding.

The dapper gentleman wearing a steel-gray ascot that matches his suit waits at his front door.

I fumble with my writing tools, exit the car and cross the street. Per his cachet of impeccable elegance, he kisses my hand in true gentlemanly fashion. I feel that “I have arrived.” I had looked forward to talking with this couple — the word was out that they are the essence of the true meaning of volunteerism.

There are a few vantages from which to view our current economic malaise.

Some see it as an isolated bump in the road that can be fixed by the gummint doling out largesse to Wall Street and other failed ventures.

Others, like myself, see  our current economic troubles as the first, spreading crack in an edifice on the verge of collapse.

Let me tell you why.