WEEK OF NOVEMBER 28, 2024
VOLUME 53 | ISSUE 25
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SPECIAL HOMETOWN HOLIDAYS EDITION Clear Creek Schools Foundation receives $20,000 grant
REMEMBERING CLEAR CREEK COUNTY LEGEND GREG MARKLE
Community gathers for stories, laughter, hugs and a kazoo marching band
The grant from Shift Events is to encourage outdoor exploration for youth by hiking, biking and skiing BY CHRIS KOEBERL CKOEBERL@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
ing KYGT (The Goat) radio station, becoming a land surveyor for the Federal Bureau of Land Management and Clear Creek/Gilpin counties for more than 30 years, producing and directing several local full-length films and never missing an opportunity to make people laugh. “If someone was feeling down or there was tension, he would make a joke and sometimes it would fall flat, and other times it would be just what everybody needed to break the moment and move
A $20,000 grant from Shift Events to the Clear Creek Schools Foundation will provide future funding for students in the school district and establish the Sean Wood Education Fund in recognition of the former county commissioner. Shift Events, formerly Team Evergreen Cycling, made the donation to establish the foundation in the name of its former board member and Clear Creek County Commissioner Sean Wood. “We were looking for an organization in Clear Creek County that supports the community and our job with events is to build better communities through biking,” Shift CEO Executive Director Jennifer Barbour said during the check presentation at Clear Creek Middle and High School Nov. 14. Shift Events is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to producing world-class cycling events such as the Triple Bypass, the Hundo, the Blue Sky Hill Climb and Beti Bike Bash in Colorado, according to the organization’s website. The money raised from those events has already amounted to at least $252,000 given to nonprofit Colorado communities in 2024 alone, Barbour said. “Clear Creek Schools Foundation is thrilled to partner with Shift Events, whose generous gift will empower our students to learn through hands-on, adventurous experiences in both our class-
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SEE GRANT, P9
A kazoo band marches in Rocky Mountain Village in Empire Nov. 16 to celebrate the life of local legend Greg Markle. BY CHRIS KOEBERL CKOEBERL@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
A blanket of snow covered Easter Seals Rocky Mountain Village in Empire as cars filled the parking lots and lined the sides of gravel roads leading to a wooden lodge where more than 100 friends and locals gathered to celebrate the life of Greg Markle. For many longtime residents of Clear Creek County, KYGT radio pioneer Markle is considered legendary for his resonating commitments and achievements
in a county they say he loved. “He lived a life of adventure and we benefited,” his lifelong friend Rick Lewis said at the celebration Nov. 16. Markle moved to Clear Creek County from Pennsylvania in the early ‘70s, starting out his life in Colorado with meager means, according to Lewis. “He came here as a hippie living in abandoned mining cabins up on ‘Ohmy-God-Road,’ exclaiming, ‘You can live on a dollar a day,’” Lewis said. In the years that followed, Markle would do much more, including creat-
PHOTO BY CHRIS KOEBERL
VOICES: 10 | HOLIDAY EVENTS: 12 | PUZZLES: 19 CO
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