Western Colorado

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Mesa State adds courses for high school students

Mesa State College and School District 51 will expand their academic partnership with new classes offered to high school students next semester. Professors from Mesa State will teach free remedial math and English classes to seniors at ...

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Falling natural-gas prices to reduce firm’s Western Slope investments

Delta Petroleum on Monday cited falling natural gas prices in announcing it will invest $85 million, and possibly less, in capital spending next year, down significantly from its initial plans. About 70 percent of that money will be invested ...

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Computer screen replaces chalkboard at school

Meaklo Montoya used technology that would probably stump his parents as he led his second-grade class in the reading of the morning message. Classroom mainstays such as the chalkboard are all but dinosaurs at Chipeta Elementary School, where ...

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Service honors Grand Junction residents who died without homes

Heather Tripler had two sons, blue eyes and a contagious laugh. On Oct. 9, Tripler, 34, died alone on a bench at Emerson Park. She was homeless. On Sunday, the Grand Valley Coalition for the Homeless held a memorial service for nearly a ...

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County’s most anonymous residents have ally after death

It’s easy to miss six modest gravestones pressed together on one plot in Grand Junction’s Orchard Mesa Cemetery. The flat markers in the midst of the cemetery’s more than 90 sprawling acres of carefully pruned trees and ...

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Homeless man beaten to death

A 43-year-old homeless Grand Junction man has been arrested on suspicion of beating to death another homeless man in Grand Junction, according to the Grand Junction Police Department. Michael Allan Bateman was arrested Saturday afternoon on ...

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More contractors bid for local jobs

The economy is slumping, but bids for local government contracts are jumping. One year ago Mesa County said it was struggling to get requests for proposals on service contracts and construction projects such as roads, bridges and buildings. ...

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Handymen seeing fewer repair jobs

Competition among larger contractors is heating up, but jobs for smaller contractors such as handymen seem to be drying up. According to local home-improvement and repair companies, the faltering economy is starting to hit home. Some are ...

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Prison sentence upheld in wife’s death in 2004

The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld a conviction for a former Grand Junction man accused of strangling to death his wife in 2004. Hector Omar Zambrano is serving a life sentence in prison after being found guilty by a Mesa County jury of ...

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Families gather for Hanukkah

Potato latkes sizzled in a pan shortly before people started showing up Saturday night for Congregation Ohr Shalom’s annual Hanukkah party. Blue, white and silver decorations hung above windows and blanketed tables. The children at the ...

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