By Patty LaTaille
Grief and Loss in the Valley
Alamosa High School senior class president Anisa Montoya, 18, would have graduated this month. Serina Sena,14, was an eighth grader at Sangre de Cristo, and Selena Mascarenas, 14, was an eighth grader at Ortega Middle School. All three would be alive today if Gilbert Onesimo Sanchez hadn’t driven drunk and run a red light resulting in the April 28 fatal crash in Pueblo, where the youths and their families had attended a church service that evening.
The three Alamosa teens were killed after Sanchez’s vehicle crashed into theirs at the corner of Northern Avenue and Pueblo Boulevard in Pueblo. The loss of these young people has devastated the Alamosa community.
Big Cuts for Del Norte Schools
The Del Norte Board of Education has proposed nearly $400,000 in budget cuts for the 2012-13 academic year. The cuts are being made to help keep services going with a rapidly depleting budget.
According to The Valley Courier, the district has been operating with a deficit for three years. The district will no longer offer culinary arts classes and will be cutting back on physical education courses. After a public meeting drew nearly 100 people, the board decided to reinstate the music program which had initially been dropped.
Valley Residents to be on the Big Screen
Over 50 SLV residents have been hired as extras in Disney’s “The Lone Ranger,” which is filming in Creede next month. According to The Valley Courier, Mary Hoffman of the Southern Colorado Film Commissioner said, “They have hired cavalry soldiers and mounted soldiers from the Valley. The 50 Chinese mine workers will come from Colorado Springs.”
The extras will be housed at Valley hotels and Adams State College dorm rooms.
In the film, Johnny Depp plays Tonto and Armie Hammer will play the Lone Ranger. But not in the traditional sense. Supposedly Tonto’s less than respectful treatment from the Masked Man particularly disturbed Depp because he is of Native American ancestry – most likely Cherokee or Creek.
According to Fox News 411, Depp said, “When the idea came up (for the movie), I started thinking about Tonto and what could be done in my own small way to try to – ‘eliminate’ isn’t possible – but reinvent the relationship,” Depp said. “To attempt to take some of the ugliness thrown on the Native Americans, not only in ‘The Lone Ranger,’ but the way Indians were treated throughout the history of cinema, and turn it on its head.”
SLV Water Plan Goes to Court
Surface-water users in the SLV have called on a local water court to alter the state’s approval of a new groundwater plan, arguing it lacks data and used a faulty methodology in producing a groundwater pumping estimate.
The plan was approved in May with the intention of reducing groundwater use through the fallowing of farm ground, and also providing water to senior surface water users who have been injured by groundwater pumping.
Did You Know:
The San Luis Valley’s geographic isolation, extraordinary solar resource and abundant solar generation puts it in the unique position to become the nations first energy independent region and a model for every community in Colorado. (Source: Colorado Energy News, Jan. 2012)
