Category Archives: News

Craig Police have arrested a person who is charged with stealing some instruments from Craig Middle School. Those instruments are an alto saxophone, a clarinet, and some drum mallets. While the person has been arrested, the instruments are already gone, having been sold to someone in the Craig area. Police are asking for help in finding out who bought the stolen instruments, so they can get them back to the kids who own them. If you have any information, please call the school resource officer at 970-826-2360.

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Full-time equivalent enrollment numbers are up 7 percent at Colorado Northwestern Community College in Craig. Ron Slinger is the interim vice president and he says it is directly related to the offer of free tuition. Full-time enrollment on the Rangely campus is down 3.1 percent from the year before.

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The historic Swinging Bridge at Browns Park has been officially rededicated, in a ceremony Tuesday. It’s been a four-year process to restore the historic bridge. Back in 2014, a tractor owned by former Moffat County Commissioner T. Wright Dickinson partially broke the decking on the bridge, when the driver tried to cross. It took a week to get the tractor off the bridge, but the bridge was damaged and impassable. The Craig Press reports that there were 14 federal and state agencies who had to work together to get it done and pay for it, and it cost Moffat County very little.

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Famous country music singer Michael Martin Murphey was in Craig Monday. He wants to support the Museum of Northwest Colorado in Craig, and he also donated some rare maps.

Murphey is a Western History buff. He has founded the Murphey Western Institute. It’s a center for the education, preservation, and perpetuation of the arts, culture, history, and legacy of the American West.

Michael Martin Murphey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv-mN4tNinA&feature=youtu.be

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Near Maybell, the Boone Draw Fire continues to burn, and has burned close to 87-hundred (8,683) acres and was at 40 percent containment Sunday. Colorado 318 has stayed open, but Moffat County Roads 46, 52, and 67 were closed. The fire is burning in the southwest portion of the Sand Wash Basin Wild Horse Herd Management Area. The fire is threatening the wild horse and greater sage grouse areas. About 150 personnel are fighting the fire along with many engines, dozers, graders, and specialists, and two helicopters. The fire started last Thursday on BLM land. No word on how it started.

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Strong winds are fueling the Silver Creek Fire north of Kremmling. Huge plumes of smoke can be seen in Steamboat Springs, Oak Creek, and Hayden. The fire has grown to nearly 7,000 acres. Pre-evacuation notices have been issued in the Lake Agnes, Rabbit Ears Village, and Bear Mountain Ranch areas northeast of the Silver Creek Fire. And plans are being made to close Highway 40 if it is necessary. The cost to fight this fire was at $20 million dollars but that cost estimate is expected to go up.

Photo courtesy Teri Wall.

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Huge amounts of smoke can be seen in Northwest Colorado. It’s a flareup from the Silver Creek Fire, north of Kremmling, and about four miles from Highway 40. Calls started coming in Wednesday afternoon, with people thinking it was on Rabbit Ears Pass. Mo Demorat is the director of the Routt County Office of Emergency Management.

Fire officials knew it could happen as most of Western Colorado is under a red flag warning, which means conditions are ideal for a fire.

Hunters and campers near Forest Service Road 100 have been evacuated. More evacuations and closures are expected to happen.

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Fire conditions are critical in Northwest Colorado right now, as dry, windy conditions will develop through at least tomorrow evening. The National Weather Service in Grand Junction issued a red flag warning through at least Thursday night. A red flag warning means weather conditions are ripe for fire activity.

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Students in the Moffat County School District have exceeded the state averages for student performance. Superintendent Dave Ulrich says the district performed better than last year, with a slight increase in math scores. In English literacy, seven percent more students achieved one of the top two performance levels, which met or exceeded expectations. Moffat County students exceeded the state average in grades three through 11. In 4^th grade, four percent more students were higher than the state average.  The focus on reading has been helped by a grant worth a little less than $1 million over three years. It gave teachers and students in grades K through 5 access to the Wonders reading program.

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The Bender Mountain Fire in the Three Corners area near Browns Park is now at 70 percent contained. Geoff Liesik is the public information officer for the fire. He says it has burned just over 4,100 acres.

Liesik says the fire is human-caused.

No injuries to humans or livestock have been reported, and no structures have been lost, and there haven’t been any evacuations.

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The redistricting proposal will be on the November ballot. The Moffat County School District Board of Education has made it official. If it passes,  the measure will replace the current seven-district representatives with representatives from five newly drawn districts and two at-large positions. Board members also joined the Moffat County Education Association in support of Amendment 73, which is a statewide initiative that would increase taxes among high earners to boost education funding.

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The Yampa River has been placed on call, for the first time ever. It is because the water is so low in the lower stretch of the Yampa, near Dinosaur National Monument. The Division of Water Resources places a call on a stream when water rights owners do not receive the amount of water they have a legal right to. When a call is in place, some water users have to reduce or stop their use in order to send enough water downstream to fulfill the older water right. The Colorado River is also low, with the lowest amount of water flowing downstream in recorded history.

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