Features

Today’s high school freshmen weren’t yet born on Sept. 11, 2001. The youngsters climbed anyway.

Many who attended Sunday weren’t in New York, Washington or Pennsylvania on that horrific day, and don’t know anyone who was. And still they climbed.

Some participants weren’t firefighters and didn’t have any connection to first responders. And yet they climbed as well.

By Kevin M. Smith, For the Courier

Jeffco resident Mike Foster wrote the novel “This Above All” in a “fury of inspiration.”

That was 18 years ago. He published the book this summer.

Foster had experience writing research-based, nonfiction books and working with publishers. But he came up empty shopping around for a publisher to print this novel.

Conservation was the common denominator for two Evergreen icons inducted into the Jefferson County Hall of Fame on Aug. 24.

Sylvia Brockner, founder of what would become Evergreen Audubon and the Canyon Courier’s outdoors columnist for 45 years, and Dan Pike, an advocate for land conservation since 1976, joined three others in the induction.

This is the third year of the Hall of Fame, sponsored by the West Chamber of Commerce and Lakewood Foothills Rotary.

For Evergreen visitors, the lawn in front of the Lake House on the night of Aug. 10 was full of strangers. But for locals, it was a field of familiar faces — friends, neighbors, acquaintances from church and the gym, fellow PTA parents, clients and classmates.

The Evergreen Park and Recreation District’s Summer Concert Series, as organizers and concert-goers agreed, allows the community to come together to enjoy a free, fun Wednesday night outside.

The Mountain Area Pregnancy Center has a new name, a new look and new services for expectant mothers, couples and families.

Life’s Options will continue to offer free pregnancy tests, counseling and parenting classes and is looking to add ultrasound services in the coming months.

The nonprofit was previously located inside the Mother’s Closet at 27884 Meadow Drive, but now has moved into office space on the north side of the same complex at 27888 Meadow Drive. Mother’s Closet has been remodeled but remains in the same location.

To paraphrase a proverb: There’s a place for everyone, and everyone has a place.

No truer words could describe Mountain Community Pathways, an Evergreen program for adults with disabilities. The program, in its third year, provides a place for those with special needs to learn, grow and make friends for six hours a day, five days a week.

It also operates a home in Evergreen for three developmentally disabled clients and provides a home host provider network so developmentally disabled adults can live in homes other than with their families.

If there can be Christmas in July, why not New Year’s in August?

With all the ceremony of the giant ball in Times Square, a net full of nearly 4,500 yellow ducks dropped in Evergreen on Saturday to the cheers of spectators, kicking off the seventh annual Dam Ducky Derby.

For Evergreen High School graduates who attend the old-timers reunion each year, it’s about homecoming.

The grads catch up at a potluck lunch at Evergreen Lutheran Church. Saturday’s gathering, the 31st for the old-timers, was no exception.

“It’s about history and connections and seeing former classmates,” said Donna Long Beck, class of 1967, who attended with her mom, Betty Fields Long, class of 1942.

As her father walked her down the aisle, Jacqueline Davis saw her groom, Sean Toomey, and 30 family members and friends surrounded by the beautiful artwork of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Rather than a local ceremony or a tropical destination wedding, Catholic couple Sean and Jacqueline Toomey were married at the Vatican on June 6. The honor is a rare one, as only four couples from the United States wed at the Vatican each year.