OldeSchoolNews.com

A Denver area church has taken an open and welcoming stance with the Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community for over 30 years.

The church is the Metropolitan Community Church of the Rockies. It is located at

Last year I posted a post stating that myself and a few other students would be starting up a Gay Straight Alliance and now I’m letting you know that it’s happening. Our goal with the GSA is to build a community recognizing the LGBT community. We want to get students to feel comfortable talking about different things from sexuality to school to family. We want to have students and speakers share their experiences and feel comfortable doing so. The last goal that we came up with is we want to be able to socialize and build friendships.

An Olde Columbine student has taken a temporary vow of silence.

Jon Lee, a junior at OCHS, temporarily took a break from talking mostly, he said (via writing),  “just to see if I (can).”

This all started on the twenty-first of September. Jon clams being quiet, “teaches me about a different aspect of life . . . it has been something I have wanted to do for awhile.”

            On September 27^th Olde Columbine is going on a Fall Hike. The buses will be leaving Olde Columbine at 8:30a.m. and will get back at 2:15p.m.

            We will be going to Eldorado Canyon State Park, which is south of Boulder. This will give the students a chance to just get out and have fun along with the staff, according to Jan Hanks, who is coordinating the hike.

     In the movie the Hills Have Eyes; I thought it had a very good story line. A tiny village of coal miners and there families, were getting pushed out of village by the government. The government wanted to do nuclear atomic bomb testing in there Nevada desert. Of course it would affect the health and appearance of the miners and their families. The coal miners didn’t want to leave they had developed a life and a home for them and their families.

Trout Unlimited is trying to keep more water in the St. Vrain River.  Currently, much of the river water finds its way into irrigation ditches to fill irrigation lakes on nearby farms.  This causes problems, according to local representatives of TU, a national conservation group. 

According to Charles Howard, Colorado’s TU river committee chairman (and also my grandfather),  keeping more water in the river longer will cut the area’s mosquito population in half, which can lead to a decrease in diseases such as West Nile Virus.

    On three summer nights, people crowded the Boulder County Fairgrounds Lake, catching all the catfish they liked, with no limit.  The Boulder County Parks and Open Space sponsored three catfish nights at the Boulder County Fairgrounds Lake on June 28th, July 26th, and Aug 23rd. 

A new schedule at OCHS is a difficult transition for some older students.  The school began the new year with a new schedule, one that changed its traditional ten minute breaks into five minute breaks, with a fifteen minute break in mid-morning. 

I asked Alan Stroh, principal at OCHS, about the changes.  According to Stroh, his main reasoning behind and concern for these new breaks was “to reduce smoking habits or to help them quit their habit.”

                     The ban, passed in July, prohibits smoking inside public areas, including bars, restaurants, and other public places.  Casinos, cigar bars, and some private clubs were exempted.  Most Coloradans, about 80 percent, do not smoke, according to the Colorado Department of Health. 

    As most of you know we are about half way through our first quarter here at Olde Columbine, so that means it is time for Parent Night. The parent night will be held on September 14^th, which is this coming Thursday, it will start as a tour of the school and work its way to the CDC commons area where there will be pizza. It starts at 5:00 and is expected to end around 8:30 p.m.
    There will also be Parent Conferences the following week on September 20^th. That is more of a one on one meeting between a student’s parents and advisor. It starts at 5:00 and is also expected to end around 8:30 p.m.  To schedule a conference for that night, please call 720-494-3961.We would really appreciate it if you and your parents could attend these events.