From the Ouray County Herald, Ouray County Plaindealer and the Ridgway Sun

October 4, 1973 – For the first time, the Jeep given away every year by the Ouray County Chamber of Commerce, will stay at home…and not just in Colorado but in Ouray. Generally speaking, the community rejoices, though slightly green with envy, that Steve Frazier, Ouray’s police chief, won it. Furthermore (eat your heart out) he got lucky with one ticket, purchased at the last minute before the drawing Saturday night at the Chipeta Theater during Color Week wind-up festivities.

Yes, the tickets are thoroughly mixed; no, we won’t hear of any suspicion of someone trying to make Brownie points with the local cop. He’s merciless, anyway.

Everyone in the family was thrilled, and expects to enjoy the Jeep a whole lot here in some of the best Jeep country in the world.

40 YEARS AGO

October 6, 1983 – From The Voice of Troy: When asked the reason why she decided to change from teaching pre-school to teaching high school, Nancy Nixon replied, “I was tired of Play-dough.” Nancy Nixon, the new teacher at Ouray School, began her employment as the instructor of high schoolers on Thursday. Most of her life was spent in Kansas City, Kansas.

Nancy attended college in Chicago at Northwestern University for two years, then transferred to UCLA in Los Angeles.

Nine years ago, she moved to Ouray and has been here ever since. After teaching six years of elementary and six years of pre-school, you can see why this big step into the higher grades can be challenging and new. The subjects taught by Nancy in a regular school day are as follows: 7th grade Colorado history, 7th grade math, 9th grade English, 7th and 8th grade art and high school math. When academic work is put away until the next day, Nancy likes to use her spare time to run, sew, read, ski and eat; but most of all she likes being with her kids.

30 YEARS AGO

October 7, 1993 – EDITORIAL: After hours of painstaking work the staff of the Plaindealer has tallied the results from the recent readers’ poll on affordable housing in Ouray County. Out of those polls returned to the newsroom by the deadline only one person believed that housing was a problem (and no it was not written by any of the reporters at the Plaindealer). In fact, only one poll was returned at all. Martha Robinson of Ouray was the only reader who took the time to fill out and return the basic questionnaire. Perhaps certain government officials are right and the lack of response is due to the fact that there is no perceived problem in the community, or perhaps the biggest problem facing Ouray is not affordable housing but apathy. Or it could be that folks are working too hard to pay their property taxes and rent to be able to take the time to fill out a questionnaire. Whatever the reason, there exists a problem which needs to be solved. There are a significant number of fully employed people who can’t find a place to call home. Most are young singles and families just trying to get their start. If a community loses those folks, it is no longer a community, it is a retirement village. – Matt Milios

20 YEARS AGO

October 10, 2003 – COUNCIL COLUMN by Mayor Pam Larson: EQR COMMITTEE met and recommends only minor changes in the code for water and sewer charges. The committee advised the council to pursue the installation of water meters and the formation of a committee to begin this process. HUNTING IN THE AMPHITHEATER? Should this area be restricted from hunting for the safety of hikers and campers in this area? To be discussed at the next regular council meeting. CHIEF ZORTMAN IS RETIRING. We will let you know when we honor him with a reception. Please let him know how much his years of service to our city are appreciated.

10 YEARS AGO

October 3, 2013 – Phone calls to regional federal offices rang unanswered this week as federal employees across the state remained on unpaid furlough due to the federal government shutdown. In addition to loss of income for these federal workers, local programs that depend on federal involvement have also been affected, such as the BLM-administered Ridgway Area Trails group trail building work session scheduled to start on Oct. 14. RAT President Rodney Fitzhugh explained a 10-person crew from the Southwest Conservation Corps, which had planned to provide 400 hours of trail building labor over the week of Oct.

14, had been turned away, as the project could not proceed without BLM staff on site to direct the crew and other volunteers.