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Tag: Rural

Is Prop. 129 the answer to the veterinary shortage in rural Colorado?
Rocky Mountain Voice, State

Is Prop. 129 the answer to the veterinary shortage in rural Colorado?

By Lindy Browning | Contributor, Rocky Mountain Voice It’s a rare occasion indeed when we see Gov. Jared Polis and Heidi Ganahl, former rivals in the 2022 governor’s race, agree on much of anything.  Proposition 129, on your general election ballot, is just the thing that they could speak about in one voice. Prop. 129 asks voters to approve a new mid-level veterinary practitioner, equating the mid-level practitioner to a physician’s assistant for humans. The duties of this newly proposed veterinarian professional associate (VPA) would overlap between those of the veterinarian (DVM) and those of a traditional vet tech. The proposed VPA would be able to diagnose, recommend treatment and perform some surgeries under the supervision of a DVM. If Prop. 129 passes, it would not go into ...
A mysterious monolith appeared in rural Colorado. Do we really want to know where it came from?
Local, The Colorado Sun

A mysterious monolith appeared in rural Colorado. Do we really want to know where it came from?

By Parker Yamasaki | The Colorado Sun On top of a hill prickly with dry grass and cacti is a four-sided structure that looks like the sky, the hills and the small crowd of people standing next to it, but it’s none of those things. It’s not a riddle, it’s a monolith. Perhaps the 247th spotted worldwide since 2020.  It appeared unexpectedly on Sunday in Bellvue, northwest of Fort Collins, on the expansive property of Rob and Lori Graves, who own Morning Fresh Dairy Farm, a Noosa Yoghurt factory, and the Howling Cow Cafe. A cafe manager spotted the structure in the distance as she arrived at work in the morning, but didn’t think anything of it until a customer came in and asked to be pointed toward “the alien structure.”  The Howling Cow has been part of...
Rural “cowboy up” culture has led to high suicide rates. How can the state improve mental health in ag?
State, The Colorado Sun

Rural “cowboy up” culture has led to high suicide rates. How can the state improve mental health in ag?

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun San Luis Valley cattle rancher George Whitten was halfway through a mental health workshop when he let himself tally up a figure he had never wanted to know — the number of people in his life who had died by suicide.  It was eight.  “You just sort of file that away in a gray box, a place in your mind that it’s there, but it’s not something you want to revisit,” said Whitten, who is 71 and runs 150 cows on land outside Saguache that has been in his family for 140 years. “There’s still a lot there that I really haven’t unpacked.”  All eight of those relatives and friends were from the rural, agricultural community, starting with Whitten’s cousin, who died at 18 after he was sent from the family’s ranch to Brigham Young Universit...