NEWS: AmeriGas faces state probe after complaints, A13
COMMENTARY: Cheers to the women of the Gunnison Valley, A4 VOL. 142. 14 42. NO. 10 | THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2023 | $1.00
The edge of affordability High interest rates and market boom puts pressure on Lazy K project Bella Biondini Times Editor
Abby Harrison
Girl Scouts corner cookie market Virginia Murdza and Ember Reign Arnold, two Brownies in Troop 15070, sold all varieties of Girl Scout cookies at the front of Ace Hardware in Gunnison on March 2. The girls kept tabs on the number of boxes sold, and stored their earnings in empty cookie boxes. Those passing by couldn’t help but stop and buy at least a few boxes from the young businesswomen.
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COMMUNITY: Local women try ice fishing for first time, B1
Seefried heads to Front Range, Hanks to start new district role Gunnison Middle School Principal Andy Hanks and Gunnison Elementary School Principal Michael Seefried will both depart from their positions next fall, leaving the Gunnison
OBITUARIES A3 OPINION A4-A5 CLASSIFIEDS A15-A17 SPORTS B9 ONLINE GUNNISONTIMES.COM
Lazy K A6
Gunnison schools to lose two principals
Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
SPORTS: Spring Preview inside, B9
Shadow boxes filled w ith tiny, hand-painted figurines of Dungeons and Dragons characters hung in Don Lansford’s new living room. They were hidden away in boxes before he moved to Lazy K because there just wasn’t space. Even though the home isn’t much larger than his previous place at the Holden Village mobile home park, it feels that much bigger, he said. “I don’t feel like Gandalf in a hobbit house, I’ve got room for stuff now,” Lansford said. “It just feels more like a home.” Lansford moved to the Gunnison Valley to attend Western State College in 1996, and has rented for the past two decades. He always dreamed of buying a house, but struggled to save up for a down payment, as home prices crawled upward. He had begun to consider leaving the valley when he stumbled across the City of Gunnison’s first affordable housing development, Lazy K.
Watershed School District with two important vacancies to fill for the 2023-2024 school year. Superintendent Leslie Nichols said the district will look to hire internally before expanding the search to non-district employees. “I think we have some fantastic talent of young leaders rising in our district … It’s hard to know how any hiring process will unfold, but I am hopeful that we'll have some strong internal candidates,” Nichols continued on A10
Abby Harrison
Andy Hanks will start as a special administrator in the fall of 2023.
County hires cheatgrass coordinator Treatment workshop marks start of busy mitigation season
Bella Biondini Times Editor
With funding secured and a new cheatgrass coordinator in place, county leaders are taking steps to build awareness and slow the spread of the invasive weed’s expanding range in the Gunnison Basin.
Approximately 40 community members gathered at the Fred Field Center on March 1 for a free cheatgrass treatment workshop designed to help landowners understand the impacts of the noxious weed. Although not the first of its kind, this workshop was the first event organized by Petar Simic, Gunnison
County’s new cheatgrass and habitat restoration coordinator. The event was hosted by Gunnison County in partnership with the Gunnison Conser vation District and the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies. The all-day workshop covered a wide range of topics Cheatgrass A8