In November of 2014 the citizens of Gunnison County gave our local public education system a shot in the arm. We agreed to pump up to an additional $2.5 million of property tax dollars annually into local K-12 schools, through a funding mechanism called a Mill Levy Override (MLOR).
There is a place, far up a mountain trail in the West Elk Wilderness that most people pass by without a thought. To reach it takes hours on foot or horseback. Most days start before dawn — hours of catching, saddling and loading horses, just to get us to the trailhead.
You may have heard this saying before, and if not you’re likely to hear it — probably with increasing frequency — in the near future: “Rural is the new urban.”
I came to the United States as a young child when my dad got a temporary faculty position at the University of Michigan. The original plan was to live there for a couple of years and then move back to Australia, where my parents grew up.
Let’s face it, child care and preschool in the Gunnison Valley are expensive, and for some families, that cost isn’t feasible.
Time to roll out again, with variation, an idea I trot out every decade or so, to general chuckles and indulgent sighs.
I’m not a religious man, but I’ve long considered the woods my church. It’s where I go to worship nature, contemplate troubles, remember those lost and work on becoming a better person.
Everything was in place for the ending you are supposed to dream of. Except dreams don’t always come true.
Editor:
To the friends of the Pitt family. Many of you who know Tyler, Casey, Brody and Jackson may have heard their devastating news. For those of you who have not, Tyler and Casey thought that they were dealing with a stomach/GI issue with which 6-year-old Brody had been diagnosed.
Spencer, my 15-year-old son, and I recently took our written driver’s test together. I went first and I failed. Learning from my mistakes, he passed.
