Issue73

Fort Lewis College News Magazine Issue 73

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FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK Dear Reader, Thanks for picking up this copy of Issue 73 of The Independent! It looks pretty visually appealing, doesn’t it? As Lead Print Design, my job is to figure out how to grab your attention with layouts, color schemes and typography that makes you want to thumb through the whole publication. Essentially, I’m here to make this thing look good for your enjoyment, dearest reader.

The Indy students from every deparetment get their content to my team of designers, and we put it all together in one document that I send to the printer. It does take time and a lot of trial and error to arrange everything perfectly, but the design team is equipped with our InDesign toolbelts and a decent amount of coffee, so we are usually ready for anything.

If you ever have a story idea, feedback, submissions or anything else, be sure to email us or stop by the Ballentine Media Center in the Student Union.

Thanks Readin�!

FOR

Cover Photo by Sean Summers: Brian Paulk, who has been homeless for the past 20 years, sits down for an interview with Jamie Draper for her story “Addressing the Issue of Homelessness: Local Ethic Has National Implications.” A chihuahua named Skakes sits on Paulk’s shoulder.

Hanna Maddera Lead Print Design hlmaddera@fortlewis.edu

EDITORS & STAFF

EDITOR IN CHIEF Trevor Ogborn

ASSOCIATE EDITOR IN CHIEF & PRINT EDITOR Luke Perkins

BUSINESS DIRECTOR Emma Vaughn

COPY EDITOR Carter Solomon

ONLINE EDITOR Lauren Hammond

LEAD PRINT DESIGN Hanna Maddera

ONLINE DESIGN EDITOR Julia Volzke

PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Sean Summers

VIDEO PRODUCTION EDITOR Nic Hassinger

SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Catherine Wheeler

BUSINESS: Madison Carman Blythe Curry COPY EDITING: Jarred Green DESIGN: Allison Anderson Camden Smith PHOTOGRAPHY: Brent Balone Nate Obici SOCIAL MEDIA: Mike Gertsen-Rogers REPORTING: Brandon Castle Jamie Draper Archer Gordon Keenan Malone Kelkiyana Yazzie BROADCASTING: Deanna Atkins Lindley Gallegos Haylee Knipple Allie Kruchell

CAMPUS

Psychology: A Capstone Experience - 3 Story by Kelkiyana Yazzie

Overachieving & Over Budget - 4 Story by Archer Gordon

COMMUNITY

Bringing State News to the Orphan County of Durango - 5 Story by Keenan Malone

Fire Chief Turnover for Durango- 7 Story by Keenan Malone

COVER

Addressing the Issue of Homelessness: Local Ethic Has National Implications - 9 Story by Jamie Draper

OUTDOOR

Fighting Over Wolf Creek - 13 Story by Archer Gordon

Exploring the Wild: Going Out and Coming Back - 14 Story by Brandon Castle

HEALTH

Things to Remember While Young and Indestructible - 15 Story by Keenan Malone

SPORTS

Fort Lewis College Cycling: A Cornerstone of the Community - 17 Junior Staff Opinion by Ryan Simonovich

OPINION

Putting Faith in Skyhawk Football? - 19 Opinion by Trevor Ogborn

Not Fully Coming Back -19 Opinion by Julia Volzke

Duty - 20

Opinion by Luke Perkins

ENTERTAINMENT

Horoscopes, Indy On The Street, and Creative Works by Students!

Photo by Nate Obici: On Faces page 15, Durango El Keenan Malone Nino, Page 14. Story by reports on working Brandon Castle, Photo correctly. by out Nate Obici.

CAMPUS

PSYCHOLOGY: A CAPSTONE EXPERIENCE

Photo provided

by Brian Burke: Two psychology students dicuss their research topics with Brian Burke, professor of psychology.

Story by Kelkiyana Yazzie

Photo provided by Brian Burke

This article is a continuation of The Independent’s coverage of the senior seminar capstone experience for the various majors offered at Fort Lewis College. enior seminar is the capstone to a student’s education at Fort Lewis College and is underway for senior psychology majors this semester.

The capstone of an endeavor is its pinnacle or culminating event, and that is how the psychology department views its senior seminar class, Brian Burke, professor of psychology teaching the senior seminar course this semester, said.

The senior seminar course is normally taken during the final semesters before graduation, Michael Anziano, chair of psychology department, said.

A fundamental portion of the capstone experience for any major is the final projects students complete while in senior seminar, which are selected in one of three main ways, Anziano said.

One method is the professor choosing a research topic from a subfield of psychology in which they have a personal interest and having students do research projects along the lines of that topic, he said.

Currently, the most common method of project selection is students’ choosing a legitimate topic in the field of psychology that interests them and conducting an empirical study, he said. This study is a synthesis of existing literature and can be qualitative or quantitative research.

“Empirical research means students

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Design by Hanna Maddera

will do a literature review, design an experiment and then collect data using a variety of methods ranging from surveys and interviews to physiological measures,” Burke said.

Another method is a service learning project where students have the option of doing volunteer work in the community instead of research, he said.

Students who choose this option often write a paper based on their experiences working with their selected local agency, Anziano said.

Currently, students may produce research proposals, literature reviews, or entire research projects in psychology senior seminar, depending on the instructor, Burke said.

“One of our fervent goals as psychology professors is to teach our students the value of research into the way humans think, feel and act,” he said.

Senior seminar provides each student with first-hand experiences with real life phenomena while under the direct supervision of faculty and community partners, he said.

This semester, all of the students in senior seminar who are not doing volunteer work are researching terror management theory, which looks at how people deal with the fear of death, Burke said.

“I am focusing on whether self-compassion can lessen negative reactions to thoughts of death,” Tyler Jimenez, a senior in Burke’s senior seminar class, said.

A big challenge he faces is recruiting enough participants due to FLC’s small campus size, Jimenez said.

Three main goals Burke has for his students in senior seminar are development of the ability to conduct or apply psychological research to form science-based opinions of current events or relationships, an understanding of the real-world relevance of psychological science and identification of the steps required to progress along their chosen career and life path, he said.

Learning these key things enables students to apply critical thinking skills to the claims about psychology, communicate effectively and prepare career-related materials that will be immensely valuable to students after college, Burke said.

The course also provides support for graduate school applications so students can show they have interest and experience in conducting research, Anziano said.

“The capstone experience is one avenue that helps students go from a senior at Fort Lewis into the world of work or graduate school,” he said.

Shift in Curriculum Starting in fall of 2016, PSYC 496-Senior Research Experience will serve as a replacement for senior seminar, when the amount of credits for the course curriculum will go from four credits to three credits, Anziano said.

In senior research experience, students will each be doing independent empirical research that involves data collection and analysis in different subfields of psychology depending on the instructor they take the class with, Burke said.

Each semester there might be three or four different classes focused on a certain area of psychology, Anziano said. This will allow students to know what the focus will be for individual classes due to the professor’s research specialization in it.

This will allow students to repeat the senior research experience course more than once as long as they take the course under a different subfield, and present them with an opportunity to gather more research capital before they leave FLC, he said.

“Our students will be better consumers of scientific research because of the opportunity to conduct their own research projects as undergraduates,” Burke said. “They will have a clearer grasp of what science is and how our civilization uses this bias-reduction mechanism to increase our knowledge of the world and propel us toward a brighter future.” i

Photo by Nate Obici: Allen Thigpen (#15) is the quarterback of FLC’s football team. He throws a pass to his teammate during an after school practice.

Overachieving & Over Budget

Story by Archer Gordon

Photo by Nate Obici

Design by Hanna Maddera

his year the Fort Lewis College football team has attained an increased level of success, but this has been accompanied by a budgetary deficit for the team.

Justin McBrayer, faculty representative to the FLC board, said the team currently has a shortfall of $236,000.

The team spent $42,000 more than expected and took in $92,000 less than expected in the fiscal year 2014-15 which ended June 30, McBrayer said.

This information was presented at the recent board meeting, McBrayer said. FLC is required to report its financial status to the board at the end of every quarter.

McBrayer said a short-term solution being implemented is a shifting of funds.

Money is being moved from the President’s Fund and FLC’s reserves into the Athletic Fund to make up the deficit, McBrayer said.

Multiple factors have contributed to the deficit, Gary Hunter, athletic director at FLC, said.

The team has had a difficult few years in terms of revenue, Hunter said. Last year’s fee decrease along with underperforming fundraising have hurt revenues.

The team added about 40 players this year, Hunter said. This increases the cost

of food, transportation to games and other expenses.

Most athletes are not on scholarship, meaning that the addition of players increases FLC’s revenue from tuition and fees, Hunter said.

Student athletes make up about 10 percent of FLC’s enrollment this year, he said.

The school would do the same things as always to correct the budget, Hunter said.

They will try to cut expenses, raise revenues and attempt to produce a reserve for the athletic department, he said.

Michele Peterson, associate vice president for finance and administration at FLC, said the administration is carefully watching the budget situation.

The athletic department will be working hard to increase fundraising, Peterson said.

Peterson said the athletics department helps bring money into FLC’s General Fund.

Hunter said this year’s success should aid fundraising efforts as it is much easier in general to raise money when a team is winning.

As of Oct. 8, FLC’s football team had won four straight games and was looking forward to facing the number two and 10

ranked teams in the nation in the next two weeks, Hunter said.

Since then the team has lost to Colorado State University-Pueblo, the defending Division II national champions, dropping the Skyhawk’s record to 4-2.

The season’s opener against Montana State, a Division I-IIA or Football Championship Series school, helped add money to the budget while giving the team a chance to improve, Hunter said.

He said games against teams like Montana State give FLC a great chance to play against better funded schools and in front of larger crowds.

“It’s a great opportunity to play up,” Hunter said.

The athletic department has other revenue streams, Peterson said. These include student fees, gate revenue, concessions and FLC’s General Fund.

Administration is not overly concerned with the budget deficit, Peterson said. Many budgets are benchmarks that have been in place for many years.

McBrayer said the board will continue to monitor the budget situation and help ensure the college lives within its means. i

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COMMUNITY

BRINGING STATE NEWS TO THE ORPHAN COUNTY OF DURANGO Story by Keenan Malone

Photo by Brent Balone

Design by Hanna Maddera

hile many Durango residents with cable have access to Channel 9 News out of Denver, those without cable have no access to a television news station from the state of Colorado and instead have to get their news from stations out of Albuquerque.

“It’s been something that’s been discussed for decades now,” Jack Llewellyn, the executive director of the Durango Chamber of Commerce, said.

Before being involved in the Chamber, Llewellyn worked in the local media industry for 15 years through organizations like Clear Channel Radio and KDUR. Llewellyn said many Durango residents with this problem will go as far as to list their address in Pagosa Springs, which receives Denver news, along with most other southern Colorado towns, so they may also receive front range news in Durango.

As part of his former media business career Llewellyn worked for KREZ, a Durango-centered sister station of Albuquerque’s KRQE News 13.

“KRQE was a CBS affiliate out of Albuquerque that had a sister satellite station in Roswell called KBIM and then KREZ in Durango,” he said.

Llewellyn said this was before KREZ lost its funding.

“It’s business, and when you can’t generate enough revenue to cover the costs, they’re going to cut the station and that’s what they ended up doing,” Llewellyn said.

At the time this Durango-based Albuquerque station was still in existence, it was easier for those outside the range of Denver 9 to get the local and state TV news coverage they needed, Llewellyn said.

“Back when KREZ had a full station here we had a device that could drive around to check signals with,” he said.

Those who, as determined by the device Llewellyn described, proved to be unreachable by KREZ’s signals would receive a free waiver from KREZ, he said. This waiver would provide them with Denver news or even an East Coast feed of local news depending on the individual.

Doug Lyon, senior corporate and foundation officer for Fort Lewis College and former mayor of Durango, said many people in the La Plata area feel disenfranchised and disconnected from the rest of Colorado because they may not have access to Denver TV. “My own personal watching habits are

adequately met through access to 9 News and Denver Broncos games, both of which we acquire through our cable package,” Llewellyn said.

Lyon ultimately supports the proposed Denver TV broadcasting outreach to Durango but would like to maintain access to Albuquerque TV, he said.

This is because Albuquerque news extends farther into the localities surrounding Durango than Denver news often does, he said.

Albuquerque’s news coverage through KRQE actually covered more state news than any other state news station in the country when Llewellyn was with them, Llewellyn said.

Lyon said Albuquerque news also holds itself as more relevant than Denver news, but only in the sense that the city of Albuquerque is the closest metropolitan area, in-state or not, to the city of Durango.

“Front Range news is important, but it’s also six to seven hours away,” Lyon said.

News from Albuquerque stations also provide nightly week-by-week weather forecasts for Durango while Denver stations do not, he said.

“I imagine plenty of Durango citizens, students and otherwise, would love to know what’s going on in Denver,” Lyon said.

While it would be beneficial for Durango to have easier access to state news, Lyon does not think inhabitants of Durango would see much news from La Plata County on the Denver news stations based on their history of coverage within the state, he said.

Mayor of Durango and City Council member Dean Brookie said he believes the flow of news between Durango and Denver would be a one way street, leading only from Denver to Durango, if this change were to be implemented.

Even if Durango had public access to Denver news, New Mexico would retain the historic grip it has had on news coverage in La Plata County, Brookie said.

While we would lose neither the availability, nor the local coverage advantages of Albuquerque news, stations like KRQE would lose a large section of their ratings from those in La Plata County who would switch to Denver news coverage, Llewellyn said. i

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Photo by Brent Balone: Albuquerque’s KQRE News 13 is a CBS affiliate offered news program to Durango residents without cable.

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COMMUNITY

Fire Chief Turnover for Durango: Durango Fire and Rescue’s Tumultuous Past and Bright Future Story by Keenan Malone

Photos by Brent Balone

Design by Allison Anderson

aniel Noonan of Durango Fire and Rescue is retiring from his position as chief after 39 years of service in La Plata County.

Noonan’s firefighting career began when he first came to Durango with his wife in 1975, ready for work as a construction worker, he said.

“I actually came out here to build the resort of Tamarron, but that job had slowed down when I arrived,” Noonan said.

Upon coming to Durango, a 19-yearold Noonan had been working an odd construction job when a volunteer lieutenant for the Animas Fire Department approached him, he said.

He asked Noonan to come to a volunteer firefighter meeting to consider being a volunteer firefighter, he said.

“I had never in my life thought about being a volunteer firefighter so I went and it was kind of all-encompassing,” Noonan said.

Noonan became a career firefighter in 1986 after almost 11 years working for the Animas Fire Department as a volunteer.

Noonan said he has no plans of leaving his two sons and four grandkids, all of whom reside in Durango.

Noonan’s years as a firefighter changed his outlook in that it made him appreciate

how fragile life is, he said.

“I know a lot of people plan their life, I’m one that believes you can only plan so much in your life,” he said.

Noonan said he does not yet have any specific plans for retirement, but that he wants to approach the aspect with an open mind.

“Life’s a journey, and you can plan all you want but sometimes life will take you in different paths”, he said.

Replacing Noonan will be Hal Doughty, deputy chief of Durango Fire and Rescue.

Doughty has been gradually trained under Noonan’s supervision for most of his six years with the department, Noonan said.

“I support Doughty one hundred percent as the new fire chief,” he said.

Noonan said he watched Doughty for years in his previous job as a battalion chief in Farmington before making the decision to hire him.

Noonan noticed Doughty’s characteristics as an educator in his ability to teach others how to be good officers, operational tactician as well as how to make good strategic decisions, Noonan said.

“I very much enjoyed his drive, his dedication, his passion, his commitment,

this is a job where you have to have all those to be successful,” he said.

Doughty said he very much looks forward to the new opportunities open to him moving forward, particularly after the merging of three different fire departments in La Plata county to one epicenter of fire and rescue.

“While Noonan was fire chief, he was in a situation where he had five boards he had to report to.” Doughty said. “He was in many situations where one of the partners could pull out and we just wouldn’t be an organization.”

The issue of having five different boards to report to often lead to unrest in the department regarding funding, he said.

Kathy Morris, a volunteer board member for Durango Fire and Rescue, said Durango Fire and Rescue was consolidated in 2002.

Before this consolidation the fire and rescue services for the county were distributed amongst the Animas Fire Protection District, Hermosa Cliff Rescue and Durango Fire Department, Morris said.

The ambulance service was originally run through Mercy Regional Medical Center before being brought into Durango Fire and Rescue Authority, Morris said.

“It used to be five governing boards,

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Photo by Brent Balone: Local Fire Department, making adjustments to job positions.

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Photo by Brent Balone: The local Fire Department truck parked outside of the station. now it’s just one board of volunteers, along with the municipality with the city,” she said.

Within the relationship between the board and the main fire department, it is the board’s responsibility to hire the fire chief and to provide a budget, Morris said.

When the five separate governing boards of the fire department merged in 2014, budget concerns, among other issues, became easier to manage, Doughty said.

Morris said the final decision to merge the five boards was made after three separate democratic attempts to gain acceptance by the public.

“I mean when we went out the third time all of us were kind of second guessing ourselves because you’re asking the voters a third time for virtually the same thing,” she said.

Morris said during the department consolidation in 2002, Animas Fire Protection wanted to leave Durango Fire and Rescue.

She said they wanted to stand alone with their equipment and their volunteers.

“This really didn’t make sense financially and realistically for the community.

We are all, in fact, serving the same com-

munity,” she said.

The formation of this single board has made life easier for the department, particularly now that the chief has a single board of five members and not the 25 board members of five different boards to answer to, Doughty said.

“I don’t think I have the ability to do the same things Noonan did, but he’s left the organization in a place where I don’t have to do the same things he did, the battles of his day are over,” Doughty said.

Morris, as a board member, only works with the chief, she said.

“Noonan reports to us every month and really provides us the information we need on how the agency is doing,” Morris said.

Morris said the chief needs to keep the board informed because they could be approached at any time from one of their constituents in the community regarding a call that did not happen the right way or someone who suffered a loss.

Noonan said he is very confident in Doughty’s abilities as the new chief.

“When I hired Hal almost 6½ years ago, I needed a strong deputy chief. This is somebody who manages what’s going on in

the field on emergency calls.” Noonan said.

Noonan said he had been training Doughty within six months of Doughty’s hire.

Once Doughty said he would like to be chief he came to all board meetings, was involved in all decisions and was involved partially in allocating annual budgets, Noonan said.

“It gave him a lot of good background experience, the value of that is that he’s a known element in the organization and now that he’s stepping up to be fire chief, his job will be different, but he knows all the challenges of the organization,” Noonan said. “He understands the community and the community knows him.”

Doughty credited Noonan as having done an unbelievable job of putting the organization in shape for the future.

Noonan said at this point he wants to close one door, breathe and then determine where to go in life and where life is going to take him.

“The first thing I want to be able to do is finish my job here, and finish it well,” he said. i

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COVER

Photo by Sean Summers: Brian Paulk sits outside of Open Shutter, a photography gallery on Main Street, next to a photograph that was taken of of him and Shakes, his dog.

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Story by Jamie Draper

Photos by Sean Summers and Nate Obici

Design by Hanna Maddera

omelessness is an issue nationally and locally. Durango residents have a particular set of obstacles when it comes to housing insecurity, but the issue is ultimately one of national scale and concern.

“Our numbers doubled between 2007 and 2014,” Kathy Tonnessen, executive director of Manna Soup Kitchen, said.

During this time period Manna went from serving 35,000 meals to serving 70,000, Tonnessen said.

Numbers at Manna are down in 2015

by about 10 percent, she said. Fewer people are in need of food, a sign of an improving economy.

Economic Disparity From a Marxist perspective of social theory, a capitalist economy increases profits by relying on an undercompensated population that are desperate for work, Becky Clausen, associate professor of sociology at Fort Lewis College, said. This group is often those who are unemployed, underemployed and facing housing insecurity.

“Our economy does ‘better’ when we have a certain pool of unemployed people that will always accept low wage, minimum wage jobs,” Clausen said.

Even with reports of an improving economy, it is only improving for those of wealthy class, she said. Conditions and wages have been stagnant for those of the lower class and working poor.

An economic structure which can only continue to grow if a large number of people are poor and homeless needs to be ad-

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Photo by Nate Obici: Two Pints, which is this man’s nickname, exposes his ankles, and comments that he can not afford to buy a matching pair of socks.

dressed, she said.

Many people with stable housing had their homes foreclosed, and many with stable employment were laid off tied to economic collapse in the past four to five years, making housing insecurity applicable to a larger demographic, she said.

“There is becoming a bigger disparity between the upper class and the working poor,” Tonnessen said.

In Durango’s tourist economy, it is hard to make ends meet even by working two or three jobs, she said.

Housing Insecurity In Durango There is a high amount of capital required to obtain secure housing: first month’s rent, last month’s rent, and cleaning deposit, Clausen said.

Compounding this issue is the need for a job to generate this capital, which generally requires a permanent address to get in the first place, she said.

“A lot of these cycles spiral in on each other,” she said.

The price and structure of renting can also be prohibitive, Brandt said “Landlords can make a lot more money renting the place nightly than renting it monthly,” she said.

This practice pushes up rental rates, she said.

“Right now in Durango, it’s becoming less and less economically diverse,” she said.

Brian Paulk is a chainsaw carver, rock carver, dream catcher weaver, drummer and has been homeless for the past 20 years, he said.

“These are all things that help, but none of them put a roof over my head, and that’s what I’m really looking for here,” Paulk said.

Paulk is making steps to secure hous-

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ing, but it is difficult to progress up the waiting list for housing until after winter has passed, he said.

The Individual The issue of homelessness expands beyond individual cases.

Larger systems of economy, institutions, culture and government are implicated in the issue of homelessness, Clausen said. ”As a culture we look at homelessness as a problem of the individual. We fail to see the ways in which homelessness is structurally produced,” Brandt said.

“AS A CULTURE WE LOOK AT HOMELESSNESS AS A PROBLEM OF THE INDIVIDUAL, WE FAIL TO SEE THE WAYS IN WHICH HOMELESSNESS IS STRUCTURALLY PRODUCED,” KERI BRANDT A sociological perspective, rather than simply placing blame on individuals, must look at a global economy, what kind of jobs are available, the pay level for those jobs that are available and the overall cost of living, she said.

“We just put the individual at the microscope,” Clausen said.

Individuals have agency, but the choices one has in society are often very structured, she said.

Psychological problems and general poor mental health caused him to be homeless, Paulk said. He lives with the physical injuries from a car accident that broke his back, hip, ribs and both collar bones.

With the lingering effects of these injuries, getting through the winter is harder, Paulk said.

Manna Soup Kitchen Manna Soup Kitchen formed in 1985 after a woman at La Plata County fairgrounds died in a horse stall from starvation and exposure, Tonnessen said. The side of the stall was inscribed with the words, “no one cares.”

A group of Christian community members decided that should never happen again and started serving food to those in need, Tonnessen said.

Manna Soup Kitchen is focused on providing food, she said.

“In a community of plenty, no one should go hungry,” she said.

Many people currently depend on the services offered by Manna Soup Kitchen, Tonnessen said.

“My goal would be to work ourselves out of a job, but I don’t think that’s probably ever going to happen,” she said. “It would be nice if people didn’t need a soup kitchen.”

What Manna does not have is a housing program, she said. Durango is lacking a service that provides total security to break the cycle of homelessness.

“Putting a roof over someone’s head alleviates the mental anguish associated with being homeless,” Colin Cramer, intern at Manna Soup Kitchen and senior in sociology at FLC, said.

Relegating the issue of homelessness solely to organizations like Manna is to outsource a need the nation-state should attend to, Brandt said.

When the federal government turns away from social issues, it falls on the backs of the volunteer citizen to fix a problem the state should be addressing, she said.

What Manna does is part of the solution, and they provide a vital service, she said.

“The rest of us need to be doing the work on the structural changes that need to take place,” Brandt said.

Strategies to Address Homelessness There needs to be federal, state, county and city guidelines that create affordable housing, Brandt said. Something comparable to the Affordable Care Act could be created around the issue of housing.

“We need to address the minimum wage,” Brandt said. “It is egregiously low across the nation.”

Fast food workers across the country have protested in the last two years, making the argument that wages should start at $15

per hour worked, she said.

A nonprofit can provide immediate relief services, but cannot redistribute resources in an economy or challenge the polarization of wealth, Clausen said.

“Addressing the roots of the problem might not come through traditional funding sources,” she said.

That means breaking down stigmas of homelessness, and understanding that none of us are insulated from these travesties, Clausen said.

People do not realize how easy it is to become homeless, Cramer said.

“Working on the ideals of empathy, compassion, trust, in whatever setting you’re in; that’s how we begin to not see this as normal,” Clausen said.

Support should be given to progressive social policy and working with mechanisms in place to make them better, for the short-term, Clausen said. But getting to the roots of the problem will come from outside the system.

“It’s a really complex problem, and there is no one solution,” Brandt said.

“There is going to be no one cure.”

Stigmas of Those Who Are Homeless There are stigmas surrounding those dealing with housing insecurity, Clausen said.

When trying to secure short-term housing, it is assumed that people paying nightly rents do not know how to make a budget or just are not good with money, she said.

It is a cultural myth that people who are homeless do not work, Brandt said.

In reality, many homeless individual work, some even work full time, she said.

“I’ve always been a hard working guy when I can,” Paulk said.

There is also a stigma placed on people who are homeless with pets, Brandt said.

People who are homeless are judged for having pets when they themselves are economically unstable.

“IN A COMMUNITY OF PLENTY, NO ONE SHOULD GO HUNGRY,” KATHY TONNESSEN A chihuahua named Shakes sits on Paulk’s shoulder.

She fell asleep there the night they met, this became her preferred perch from then on, Paulk said. This keeps her up high and out of harm’s way, especially from other dogs.

“She keeps me from being sad, she reminds me that I’m not alone,” he said.

Just because people are homeless does not mean they should be excluded from having animal companions, Brandt said.

“Now after carrying her there for 7 years, I’ve got a pain in my neck I’m starting to worry about a little bit,” Paulk said.

“We love our animals so much, it’s hard to put her down.”

Pets can be central to a person who is houseless for emotional support and a sense of home and place, Brandt said. ”It’s really interesting the ways in which people who are homeless create a sense of home despite being houseless,” Brandt said.

Food banks are starting to offer dog

and cat food, Brandt said. However, many homeless shelters do not allow pets, so a lot of people go without shelter because they prioritize their companion animal.

Transportation In and Out There is not reliable and affordable transportation infrastructure around the remote area of Durango, Clausen said. ”It’s expensive to live here, it’s expensive to get out of here,” she said.

The bus system maintains high price tag for users, due to the fact that it lacks national subsidies which would allow mobility for those who are not an individual car owner, she said.

“The structural economy of our nation’s transportation has funneled everybody into being an independent automobile owner,” Clausen said.

A Human Rights Issue It is a human right to have safe and secure housing if one chooses, Brandt said.

“These are violations of human rights that we are allowing to continue,” Clausen said.

Society needs to look at how human rights of food, clean water and medical attention are granted, Clausen said.

It comes down to these glaring paradoxes: there is so much food going into landfills and people who are hungry, and there are houses being left empty to foreclosure nationwide and people that need housing, she said.

“I’m hopeful for change as people come to see these paradoxes clearer,” Clausen said. i

Photo by Nate Obici: Taz (right) nicknamed after the Tazmanian Devil tattoed on his shoulder, keeps a positive outlook within his homeless circumstances. He insisted on posing to demonstate this happiness.

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OUTDOOR

Story by Archer Gordon

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Photos by Camden Smith

he purposed village at Wolf Creek experienced a new setback when the Federal Court for the District of Colorado ruled that the U.S. Forest Service must reanalyze its approval of the land swap with Leavell-Mccombs Joint Venture.

For almost 30 years developers and environmental groups have battled over the land and the building of the potential village set to be next to the Wolf Creek Ski Area.

The court’s decision was based on evidence that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Freedom of Information Act in its approval of the land swap, Matt Sandler, attorney for Rocky Mountain Wild, said.

This court ruling forces the U.S. Forest Service to release a number of previously unreleased documents, Sandler said. These documents are important to the environmental impact study.

Rocky Mountain Wild, an environmental nonprofit based out of Denver, teamed up with other nonprofits to sue the U.S. Forest Service, after the organization’s objection to the land swap was rejected, he said.

Rocky Mountain Wild’s grievances include ignoring environmental impacts and incomplete analysis of those impacts, he said.

The lawsuit, Rocky Mountain Wild v.

13

Design by Camden Smith

Dallas, referenced by Sandler, alleges that the U.S. Forest Service did not consider alternatives or include outside review in their report on the land swap and that the U.S. Forest Service illegally withheld documents from its report, he said.

The proposed land swap would trade 205 acres of federal land for 177 acres of private land owned by the Leavell-Mccombs Joint Venture, according to the U.S. Forest Service’s website.

This is the Leavell-Mccombs Joint Venture’s third land swap proposal, Mike Blakeman, public affairs specialist for Rio Grande National Forest, said.

According to Rocky Mountain Wild’s lawsuit the U.S. Forest Service analyzed only the direct environmental impact of the

Photo by Camden Smith: Between Wolf Creek Ski Resort and the upcoming village is a gap of forest land.

land swap.

Blakeman said analysis was conducted on the building of a village not just the swap itself.

Sandler said the development has multiple environmental impacts.

One impact is that Wolf Creek Pass is an important part of the habitat of the threatened Canadian lynx, Sandler said.

The proposed development would intersect migration pathways for the lynx.

The development would increase road kill, which already accounts for a large number of lynx deaths, he said. Other species would also be harmed by the development.

Sandler said the development could also affect the water table for the region as the San Juan and Rio Grande originate in this area and supply water to downstream communities.

The court ruling does not stop the land swap from occurring, he said. It instead states that the U.S. Forest Service has until Oct. 30 to issue a complete report on the land swap.

It is important to remember that the U.S. Forest Service is neutral, Blakeman said. This is a situation where the U.S. Forest Service cannot come out on top. i

Photo by Camden Smith: At the start of fall, Wolf Creek Ski Resort overlooks a cloudy pass. To the left, Wolf Creek Ski Resort plans to build a 177 acre village for out-oftown skiiers.

Story by Brandon Castle

V

Photos by Camden Smith

enturing out into the wild, writing about the experience and changing society are all possible achievements not too far from campus. Fort Lewis College students and even famous authors participate in this experience regularly.

Here at FLC, the adventure education degree is a form of outdoor education, Aaron Ball, operations coordinator of adventure education at FLC said. The tenets behind adventure education focus on self discovery, relationships with other people and being in an environment greater than oneself.

Safety is key when stepping out into the wilderness, Ball said. The first and foremost plan to consider is where you are going.

“Google Earth is a good resource or talking to friends and forest service can help,” he said. “Find out basic information.”

Setting yourself up for success and having the skills with the correct mindset is a key factor in wilderness exploration, he said.

“There is a strong belief that these disciplines are often times facilitated through the exposure to wilderness,” Ball said.

Outdoor Pursuits One of the ways that FLC facilitates this exposure to wilderness is through the Outdoor Pursuits Program.

The means of adventure and getting students to apply what they learned to their life is the most important aspect of OP, Tom Whalen, assistant coordinator of OP at FLC, said.

“We want to help foster people getting out into wild places,” Whalen said. “We are about supporting back-country pursuits for

Design by Camden Smith

students.”

The OP program has multiple ways of assisting students with their adventures, he said.

“We have equipment for students to utilize in order to get out there,” he said. “That’s one of our support structures.”

Students with OP memberships can participate in the various trips offered throughout the semester, he said.

“We realize that some people that come to FLC may not have a lot of experience,” Whalen said. “We offer trips at beginner levels like day hikes or entry level backpacking.”

Students undergo social development while in the outdoors, he said.

When traveling in groups students establish a sense of community, build confidence and develop their individual character, he said.

Environmental Literature American authors, like Henry David Thoreau, reference the ways in which exposure to the wilderness has affected their individual development.

“In wildness is the preservation of the world,” Thoreau wrote.

There is a reoccurring theme amongst American environmental writers of the importance in trusting yourself and your instincts above societal norms, Larry Hartsfield, chair of English department at Fort Lewis College, said.

The biggest challenge people face in the wilderness is themselves, Hartsfield said.

“The idea is that one goes into the natural world as a way of finding some kind of

healing to the corruptions of civilization,” he said.

While in the natural world, they learn something that they can bring back to civilization, he said.

Returning to civilization can become a challenge especially when explorers want to change the society they live in, Hartfield said.

“It’s less of culture shock, but more of an attempt to change the culture,” he said.

Writers like Terry Tempest Williams became involved with social activism once they returned from their time in the wild, he said.

Williams’ time in the outdoors influenced her to become involved in activism against nuclear testing, Hartsfield said.

Thoreau’s influential essay on wilderness exploration has influenced people like Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King in their civil disobedience movements.

People return with a larger sense of selfworth and share their gained knowledge, but others can take a different approach, he said.

“Some individuals try to keep themselves separate from culture,” he said. “They want to change themselves, instead of trying to change everyone else.”

Personal Experience Much like Thoreau and WIlliams, FLC staff members have undergone similar wilderness explorations and came back with a shift in mentality and a new appreciation of nature.

The longest Ball has been in the wilderness was a full month, he said.

“It was amazing. Life was pretty simple,” he said. “When we came back from that trip we got back to our house and opened up all the windows, we didn’t turn on any lights and we would walk around with our headlamps on. We slept in our sleeping bags.”

Ball said this was when he truly experienced culture shock.

“We drove back to where we were the next weekend,” Ball said. “We went back to camp for another four or five days.”

Whalen said it is important to connect with nature because it is so life changing.

“When you’re out on the edge of a cliff, looking out at a beautiful sunset, why does that stir us?” he said.

He said that there are many wonders as to why nature affects us the way it does.

“It might be because we are physical beings that are a part of the physical environment,” he said.

In nearly all cultures, people’s abilities are tested by nature, Whalen said. By the end of their arduous journeys they bring back something to share.

“It’s a huge thing to think about. You can think back to the bible. It’s very spiritual,” he said. i

14

HEALTH

THINGS TO REMEMBER WHILE

Photo by Nate Obici: Nick Daily, a personal trainer on campus, demonstrates the proper bench pressing technique.

Story by Keenan Malone

Photos by Nate Obici

Design by Hanna Maddera

xercise is considered to be a more appropriate approach to relieving stress than other popular alternatives. However, too much of any stress relief method can be unhealthy, even if this method happens to be going to the gym.

Physical activity is often seen as more of a solution than a problem, and is therefore harder to identify as a problem when it is, more often than not, dismissed as a healthy activity, Nicole Dohm, a trainer at the Durango Recreation Center, said.

While it is true that exercise is generally good for the human body in almost every setting or context, the potential for trouble that is often overlooked comes from the popular habit amongst college students of over-exercise, Dohm said.

Magaly Torres, a senior athletic training major and zumba instructor at the Student Life Center, said she reads her course material more effectively when she is doing anything other than being stationary.

“The blood flow actually helps me take

in the material as opposed to just sitting and reading something,” Torres said.

While exercise offers a healthy alternative to other vices, adventure education majors such as Ryan Lynn, a junior at FLC, need to be aware of the reality and danger of over-exertion, Lynn said.

In college it can often be tempting to push exercise rituals to the extreme, while these extremes are often dismissed as healthy or at least typical of the adventurous culture at FLC , he said.

Over-exerting oneself can often feel like a character and endurance building experience, especially when it yields visible and immediate results, Lynn said. Even so, such exertion can increase the chances of an injury.

“I've hurt my shoulder a couple times, but when that happens I just back off for a couple of weeks and then I'm good,” Lukas Kerr, a sophomore biology major at FLC and staff member at the Student Life Center, said.

The endorphin reward process that comes with physical activity can aid into the emergence of exercise habits, Dohm said.

She said frequent and habitual exercise can be attributed to an individual's fixation on his or her body image.

This, along with the physical rewards of increased endorphins and noticeable physical changes, may allow young people to work beyond their limits, she said.

“You see the same people coming into the SLC every day, sometimes twice a day,” Jenna Krizo, a senior athletic training major and staff member at the Student Life Center, said.

This brings into question the issue of what separates a regular exercise routine and an unhealthy pattern that may lead to injury.

“Stress fractures are more common amongst college-age people,” Dohm said.

Injuries like this can be avoided through specific exercise classes, and the

E

15

YOUNG AND INDESTRUCIBLE

Photo by Nate Obici: Connor Cafferty, a personal trainer on campus, trains a student on a bicycle machine. He uses energetic music to pump up his client. knowledge of one’s own physical limits that comes from cumulative experience, she said. Lack of this experience is why youth are more likely to unknowingly exceed their own limits.

Students with goals of becoming more active should generally start slow, Krizo said.

“Just do something to keep moving,” she said. “Even just walking around campus is better than nothing.”

Torres warns against exercising daily and stresses the importance of rest days.

“You can exercise every day, if you're not doing the same thing every day,” she said. “Mix upper body and lower body, if you're running, mix endurance running and sprinting because you'll be working different muscles, you're also just giving your body rest while you do this.”

Torres said an injury she suffered prevented her from being able to teach her six zumba classes.

“I couldn't even teach my classes that I was supposed to teach because I wanted to exercise all the time,” she said.

Torres attributed her injury to overexertion while exercising.

Dohm said issues of body image can also play a role in over-exercise among students.

The lack of recognition many young people have of their limitations, combined with body image issues, may put them in a higher risk to be injured than someone older who might exercise more within their limitations, Dohm said.

This is not to say that body image insecurity is exclusive to young people, she said.

“There are different stages of self perception that people go through as they get older,” she said.

For example, Dohm noticed very specific issues of self-perceived body image among patrons in their 50s.

Dohm said patrons in this age group start to notice the effects that gravity has had on them over the years, and this is when they start coming in to try to get back to their previous physical state.

“I've worked here for two years now so it's weird to see the transformations

amongst different people,” Krizo said.

From her perspective as a SLC staff member, Krizo observed similar patterns in men and women who were interested in changing or customizing their body image through certain workouts, she said.

“It's more common in females but men also have this perception of body image,” she said. “You see them with their protein supplements, trying to bulk up.”

Kerr said he mostly lifts weights and does cardio when he can but mentions that it is harder to do both. Exercise is simply about a specific type of self improvement, he said.

“I'm not sure it's helped me as a student so much,” he said. “It's just helped me as something else to do beside studying, you're bettering yourself in a different way.”

Kerr looks at his exercise more as a long term commitment than as an intensive physical change, he said.

“You have to be doing it in way where you can keep doing it.” i

16

SPORTS Photo by Brent Balone: FLC cycling having a practice session near Durango BMX course.

FORT LEWIS COLLEGE cycling: A CORNERSTONE OF THE COMMUNITY Junior Staff Opinion by Ryan Simonovich

Photos by Brent Balone

Design by Allison Anderson

Ryan is a freshman in the English department, and a member of the Fort Lewis College cycling team. Ryan came to FLC with 4 years of competition experience in cycling and has been drawn to this sport due to the adventure aspect and joy of being outdoors. here is a familiar sight at any Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cycling Conference race, a sea of blue Skyhawk jerseys on the start line.

Fort Lewis College is the most competitive collegiate cycling team in the country with over 20 national titles, Nick Gould, FLC Mountain Bike Coach, said in an email.

FLC competes in the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cycling Conference, which consists of 15 schools throughout Colorado.

Six are considered division I while the remaining nine are division II schools.

FLC is division I, so this means they compete against other division I schools at the national championships.

Cycling is not a National Collegiate Athletic Association sport. Rather, it is sanctioned by USA Cycling, the national governing body for cycling in the United States, Gould said.

There are individual conferences for different regions of the country, and at the end of each discipline’s respective season there is a national championship race to crown the nation’s best men and women.

The track season just ended with the national championships in Colorado

Springs.

Sixteen riders competed for FLC against competition from around the country.

In the team pursuit, an event where a team of four riders race to complete 4 kilometers the fastest, FLC came in second place behind Marian University.

Durango has quite the cycling heritage.

The first ever mountain bike world championships were hosted in Durango in 1990, confirmation that the city has been a cycling destination for many decades.

FLC has produced numerous professional athletes over the years. Durango local and professional mountain biker Todd Wells attended FLC until 1996 and won two collegiate national titles.

Wells has since won multiple professional national championships, competed

T

Photo by Brent Balone: A showcase of FLC cycling jerseys hung up in the FLC Cycling building.

17

Photo by Brent Balone: The FLC cycling team lining up for a practice at Durango BMX course.

both domestically and internationally and is a three time olympian. He is also the current marathon mountain bike national champion.

On Sept. 12, Wells teamed up with fellow professional mountain biker and Durango resident Ned Overend to host a ride on Durango’s trails.

This event was called Todd and Ned’s Durango Dirt Fondo. Hundreds of mountain bikers set out on Durango’s trail systems to enjoy either a 30 mile or 50 mile ride.

A “fondo” is a European term for a mass start ride that is not technically a race, so riders can ride at whatever pace they choose.

Some riders choose to race and others to enjoy the views.

The Durango Dirt Fondo started downtown at the Powerhouse Science Center before continuing onto many of the trails in the Durango area, including Horse Gulch, Animas City Mountain and Durango Mountain Park.

Many mountain bikers on the FLC cycling team participated in the event wearing their Skyhawk uniforms and gaining exposure for the school’s cycling program.

FLC Cycling members help maintain some of the trails used in the event as well.

A part of why Durango has such a vast network of biking and hiking trails is because the community has organizations

who seek to maintain them.

One such organization who builds and maintains many of Durango’s trails is Trails 2000.

Trails 2000’s mission is the planning, building and maintenance of trails, the education of trail users and encouraging connectivity of trail users, Mary Brown, executive director of Trails 2000, said.

Durango has 300 miles of trails within 30 minutes of downtown on city, county, forest service, Bureau of Land Management and private land, Brown said.

FLC cycling team members participate in trail maintenance, and train on the trails all around town, she said. FLC classes such as geology also utilize the trails for educational purposes.

The Durango community and FLC Cycling also embrace the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic every year in the spring.

The Iron Horse began in 1972 with just 36 riders, and has since seen competitors from every state and a few countries, according the the event website.

The mountain bike event makes a loop out to Lion’s Den and around FLC, then comes into downtown where the riders race through Steamworks Brewing Company.

This year’s event was won by Todd Wells, and the women’s event by Hannah Williams.

On the road cycling side, there is a road race that starts in Durango and riders race

the Narrow Gauge Railroad, 50 miles to Silverton.

This year’s road race winners were Mara Abbott for the women and Keegan Swirbul for the men.

Durango is home to the largest youth cycling programs in the country in the form of Durango Devo, Jamie Wienk, administrative director of Durango Devo, said.

Durango Devo was started in 2006 as a way to develop the younger side of the sport, Wienk said.

“Its mission is to develop life long cyclists, one rider at a time,” she said.

The program works with 900 kids per year, ranging from two-year-olds to high schoolers, she said.

The organization has some full time staff, and FLC cycling team members also help with coaching, Wienk said.

While there is a competitive aspect, Devo is not all about racing.

“We’re not in it to win, we’re in it to educate,” she said.

The program brings out courage, commitment, and character in the kids, she said.

During summer and even in the winter Durango is a cycling paradise.

Spearheaded by programs such as the FLC cycling team and Durango Devo, the town has produced and been called home by numerous professional cyclists. i

18

OPINION

PUTTING FAITH IN SKYHAWK FOOTBALL? Opinion by Trevor Ogborn Skyhawk football has seen a relatively optimistic season thus far, with a 4-2 record at the time of writing. One of these tabulated losses was against Montana State, a NCAA Division I school compared to our Division II, which is notable. This is after a painful streak of win deficit, with 3-8 last year, 4-7 in 2013 and an excruciating 0-10 in 2012. Take a look at the yearly team stats on the Go Skyhawks website and you can see where we came from 4 years ago.

For the sake of honesty, I have never personally attended a football game at Fort Lewis College. I did, after all, come to FLC during that 2012 slump. I also generally could not care less about the NFL, and the Super Bowl is a time to sit back with friends and watch the commercials.

That being said, maybe it is time to start caring about football at FLC. The team brought on 40 additional players this year, and not everyone gets athletic scholarships from the college, as reported in “Overachieving & Over Budget” by Archer Gordon (page 4). With student fees up to $58.15 per credit hour, per student, the potential fees brought in by non-scholarship athletes could be fairly substantial.

Supposing 40 of the 98 football players are enrolled in the minimum 12 credit hours to be a full-time student, $27,912 in student fees would be collected per semester. Of course there are countless variables I can’t consider here, but $55,824 per academic year is a big deal. This is the money that goes towards our Student Life Center, Student Union, Health and Counseling Center, Outdoor Pursuits, intramurals, and student activities including Registered Student Organizations.

Okay, that’s only roughly 24 percent of the total $236,000 shortfall referenced in Gordon’s article, but the administration must see enough value there to justify bailing out the program.

19

Extending money from the President’s Fund and FLC’s reserves to temporarily amend the shortfall, I’m left to assume that they have faith the program can return on interest in the coming years.

Student athletes made up 10 percent of enrollment this last semester, according to Athletic Director Gary Hunter, so I am inclined to believe athletics plays a reasonably significant part in bringing students to this college.

With the team performing better than it has in years, there is better potential for it to bring in more students to this campus.

Perhaps rallying support for our team will help build that momentum and build interest in FLC athletics on and off campus.

With enrollment slipping at FLC, the amount of student fees collected are down and the overall funding of the previously mentioned facilities and services has gone down with it. The Independent has reported on the strain this has had, specifically on RSOs, before.

It can’t hurt to share in the newfound faith in our Skyhawk football program, especially if it can help benefit the rest of us in the coming years. Boosting enrollment boosts the funding available for the other resources we rely on as students.

Now we just hope they keep up their win-loss ratio; it certainly makes it easier to be a fan. i

NOT FULLY COMING BACK Opinion by Julia Volzke The idea of going out into the wilderness alone for an extended amount of time has always frightened and in a way challenged me.

To give you some context, I grew up going on family summer vacations to various national parks around the United States with my parents and siblings. We would be doing just little day hikes and exploring the natural beauty of the outdoors.

Nothing extremely strenuous or daunting by any means, but one year we did manage to hike 75 miles in a week, which in my opinion, was hell.

But the main reason for my discomfort

with the idea of being alone in the wilderness is the actual idea of being alone.

Your sole survival is in your own hands. Even though I find that the experiences made by doing this and the knowledge found is indeed pertinent, the safety and full extent of the type of situation you are putting yourself in does not fully hit many of us.

I’ve always hiked in a group whenever my family and I went out. We took full safety precautions and were always home by dark. We had adequate gear, food, and water and if needed first aid supplies all tucked away in our packs.

We never took risks and knew what we were getting ourselves into.

But the majesty of the natural world has claimed lives of those that did not fully comprehend the full extent of finding themselves and the emotional and mental challenges that would come along with this self-exploration.

An initial pair to think about is the explorers Lewis and Clark. Their exploration to the Pacific Ocean brought back new discoveries to the european inhabitants, not only of the natural world but a map of the vastness of what would someday become the future United States.

All great things, but one thing that they didn’t expect was the mental strain that also comes when you come back from such a journey. Luke Perkins, a fellow editor on The Independent and history major, gave me some further insight into the mental strain an explorer experiences. Clark never fully mentally came back from their exploration and because of this committed suicide.

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray, who is a Environmental Studies professor at Humboldt State University, explains in her article entitled “Risking Bodies In the Wild: ‘The Corporeal Unconscious’ of American Adventure” that much of our fascination with living in the wilderness comes from a rise in so-called “wilderness cults.”

We’ve pegged this idea that anyone with enough Patagonia gear and a simple knowledge of the outdoors and first aid could live in the wilderness for an extended amount of time with little consequence.

Bear Grylls who is a British adventurer and currently stars on his own television series, “Man vs. Wild”, sells this idea that anyone could go out and live in the wild alone for a week. When in reality he is not truly alone on his explorations due to the fact that he does have a camera crew along.

Les Stroud, who is a Canadian survival expert and filmmaker, hosts another similar television series known as “Survivorman.” In which he actually survives alone in the wilderness for an extended amount of time.

There is no camera crew or first aid nearby. All of the filming, and his survival, is in his hands.

But how many shows have we seen that romanticize this idea of living off your instincts and killing things with your own hands to survive? I mean have you seen Survivor?

Because of this many novices relate to these shows and think “Well if Bear Grylls can live in the wilderness for seven days, why can’t I?” This is not always the case.

Chris McCandless was an American hiker who ventured into the Alaskan wilderness in April of 1992. Four months later, his starved remains, weighing around 66 lbs, were found in a bus that had been converted into a backcountry shelter He had set out with very little equipment and food, under the impression that he would simply live off finding food by his own means and living in solitude for a time.

We see this “wilderness cult” as conquering the next frontier. That if needed we could live off of food killed by our own hands. That we are the ultimate human if we can live like our ancestors after we’ve already been accustomed to current technology.

But how many more will vanish from the fever of the “wilderness cult” before we truly acknowledge our limitations when it comes to surviving in the wilderness?

Apparently, not enough yet. i

DUTY Opinion by Luke Perkins “Duty” is a term that gets thrown around quite liberally, whether it is to describe a moral responsibility of an individual or the oft used “other duties as THE INDEPENDENT: FORT LEWIS COLLEGE’sis NEWSseen MAGAZINE on most job descripassigned” that PRACTICUM COURSE & RSO CLUB tions.

Practicum Director: LEslie blood - blood_l@fortlewis.edu But what is duty? And what causes an individual to develop a keen sense of, and desire to fulfill, some ethereal obligation that might ultimately be to the detriment of themselves?

I cannot speak for everyone, but I know at one point in my life I developed a sense of duty to the betterment of my community.

Perhaps it was just youthful idealism, but I felt it was my obligation to improve the little corner of the world that I lived in.

I feel that this is not an uncommon feeling amongst young adults. We probably all have something that we are very passionate about. Whether that be our community, our country, our heritage, the world we live on or any number of other things, we all have something that is of paramount importance to us and that we are willing to devote a portion of our existence to the pursuit of.

I found an outlet for the sense of duty I felt in the form of Durango Fire Protection District. In 2009 I joined DFPD as a rookie, and ended up serving the Durango community for just over 5 years as both a volunteer and paid firefighter.

Within this organization I found an opportunity to seek the betterment of my

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community without having to take up a badge or a gun.

DFPD, as an organization, preaches responsibility and accountability to its members and the community it serves above all else.

This accountability and responsibility is to be able stewards of the resources invested in them by the community and of the reputation members of DFPD have earned for the organization.

“It is on loan to us. We are its caretakers. It was built through the courage and experience of those who came before us,” DFPD’s Oath of Membership, which is given to incoming members as part of the rookie graduation process, says.

One of those who came before is about to put away the bunker gear and ride away into the sunset.

Chief Daniel Noonan of DFPD recently recounted his history in the fire service and decision to retire in an interview with Keenan Malone of The Independent (page 7).

He dedicated 39 years of his life to the fire service, including 29 years as a career firefighter, Noonan said.

Noonan has spent more years in the service of the community of La Plata County than most of the readers of this publication have been alive.

It is beyond my expertise to verify if Noonan has not only upheld the reputation of DFPD, but also improved upon it and returned it at a higher level.

What I can say is that the organization under his leadership offered an opportunity for at least one young man in the city of Durango to fulfill his sense of duty and better himself.

And for that opportunity I am eternally grateful. i

20

ENTERTAINMENT

INDY ON

THE

STREET

What is your favorite thing autumn activity?

KALIA THOMAS Freshman Anthropology “I like to play in the leaves.”

JESS REED Senior Exercise Science-Physiology Option “I like going back into the mountains because I like to see the change in all the trees, so I like going on hikes with my dog.”

DANE FOGDALL Sophomore Music Education “It used to be that I would cook with my great aunt. She taught me how to make pies when I was little.”

SASHA KRAMER Senior Art Major, Minor in Marketing “Drinking hot cocoa at night in the cold.”

ALEX DAN Senior Cellular and Molecular Biology “Skiing if there is snow on the ground, otherwise mountain biking or climbing.”

21

HOROSCOPES

An unoffical statement by an Indy staff member.

creative works by students

UNTITLED Comic by Jared Dillon

The Indy is now accepting creative content to be included in the next issue of The Independent. Please send in short stories, poems, interesting photographs (with captions) taken within the last week, digital art, and anything else you’d like to see in the third edition of the semester.

Creative submissions do not represent the opinions and values of The Independent.

If you have anything you would like to submit, please contact or send to Hanna Maddera, Lead Print Design. (hlmaddera@fortlewis.edu)

WORMCOMIC.JPG Comic by Hanna Maddera

OCEAN’S CURRENT Poem by Nathan Molai

Photo by Hanna Maddera

Floating wayward Helplessly in the unforgiving ocean Lightning flashes above Giving both an insightful vision and a terrible fright Who are we?

When we are being carried into the dark, savage, vicious ocean night Forces scheme to pull us under But we fight until our last dying breath to stay above the ocean’s pull We scream for help No one is present to hear We scream for god Rarely is god found in the presence of fear Creatures swimming below us Attempting to feed on our insecurities Creatures flying above us Too busy soaring to help us with our plight They do not sympathize Nor do they understand That we are simply trying to reach the safety of land

22

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