WEEK OF NOVEMBER 7, 2024
VOLUME 22 | ISSUE 48
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Dougco settles on Meridian for probation services North county location has transit access, sets stage for new judicial district BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Joanna Kelleher was joined by friends and family at the Douglas County Parker Library to celebrate her 80th birthday on Oct. 19.
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Wife shares memories of late husband’s love for the community Parker woman honors husband with interactive painting displayed in library BY HALEY LENA HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
It was 1991 when Joanna Kelleher met a man named Mike at a singles dance at Cherry Hills Community Church. Little did she know it at the time, but Joanna had found the love of her life and would spend more than 30 years with Mike by her side. “We preferred each other’s company,” said Joanna Kelleher. “We both felt this was the love of our life.” Holding an art degree from the former The Art Institute of Colorado, Joanna filled Mike’s life with art. Their home became their canvas. He would thrift items and she would refurbish them. Mike passed away earlier this year, and when Joanna no longer had her
best friend by her side, she turned to art. She painted “Colorado Critters” in his honor, which will be displayed at the Douglas County Parker Library all November. “But it was done with love,” said Joanna. A white chair still remains on the front porch of their house where Mike would sit and admire Parker’s views and wildlife. Humming birds would come right up to him, said Kelleher. When he passed away, Joanna started painting a scene that included some of his favorite animals, including the state butterfly and bird, along with a rabbit, ladybug, snail and a grasshopper to represent the year of the grasshopper. Painting became therapeutic for Joanna. She would wake up at two or three in the morning and paint until the sun came up, she said. “For me, the painting took me out of my grieving,” said Joanna. “I would go in and start painting and the hours would go by.” While showing her paintings to others, she realized younger kids were pointing out the animals. This led her
VOICES: 12 | LIFE: 16 | CALENDAR: 19 | PUZZLES: 21
to include an accompanying picture “Can You Find…” to identify the animals in the painting. Joanna hopes the painting will be approved to be displayed at Children’s Hospital Colorado, where her grandson was treated for cancer. A community man
While serving as a pastor for 35 years, Mike traveled to places like Russia and Ethiopia and was known as the “Bible answer man” on a local radio program due to his extensive knowledge of the gospel, said Joanna. After he retired, Mike became a volunteer chaplain at the Life Care Center of Stonegate in Parker. “He was just a remarkable guy,” said Joanna. “He was so incredibly smart.” In addition to math and chemistry, Mike was a history buff and together, the couple would study everything they could to learn about Parker. Before Parker’s housing boom, Joanna said they would go on walks and find arrowheads, spear points and many more artifacts. Wanting to
After hearing loud opposition from Lone Tree residents, Douglas County’s leaders halted a plan to place an office that monitors people after they are convicted of crimes near a neighborhood. Now, the county has found a new location. County Commissioner Abe Laydon, who in May pushed Commissioner George Teal to back off the earlier Lone Tree-area spot, expressed support in October for the new location. Off Meridian Boulevard, south of the E-470 toll highway and east of Interstate 25, the newly selected location will offer probation services. “It is this perfect combination of a great deal for us fiscally — it’s in the perfect location right in Meridian,” Laydon said, adding, “There’s really no neighbors to complain or be upset about the adjacency, yet it’s a wonderful facility that will house some really significant departments within our county.” A change in the state’s court system drove the need for a new office. Colorado’s court system is made up of 22 judicial districts, and a new district is on the way. Today, the 18th Judicial District includes Douglas, Arapahoe, Elbert and Lincoln counties. But state lawmakers — driven by population growth and a political split in the region — decided to break up the district, moving Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties into Colorado’s first new judicial district in decades. As part of that retooling, Douglas County officials had been poised to add a probation office near the light rail station off Lincoln Avenue near I-25. Residents of the Heritage Hills gated community expressed wide opposition to the plan to place the probation office near their neighborhood, including at a community meeting in May with a frustrated crowd of more than 200 people. Area residents expressed fears about safety. The newly selected location, farther east, sits SEE PROBATION, P11
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SEE KELLEHER, P14
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