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Feature

Spotlight on the Arts: The Closet Potter

When Joan Gibson-Bevier first sat down at a pottery wheel in 1976, she knew she had found her passion. Forty- nine years later, she runs her own busin...

July 23, 2025

Feature

Meet your neighbor: Robert Stoufer

Name: Robert Stoufer Age: 73 Lives in: Ouray When did you come to Ouray? I studied to be a geologist, but I never did geology for a living. I went to ...

July 2, 2025

Feature

Meet your neighbor: Amy Exstrum

Name: Amy Exstrum Lives in: Ouray Age: 61 What’s your profession? Well, I’m retired now, but I spent many years as a vocational home economics teacher...

June 11, 2025

Feature

Meet your neighbor: Rob Rose

Editor's note: During focus group discussions we held earlier this year, to gather feedback for our upcoming redesign of the newspaper, we heard from ...

May 14, 2025

Feature

Seed money helps teens sprout businesses

Neva Hines spent hours looking for internships her junior year at Ridgway Secondary School. She contacted at least eight businesses, and most of the t...

February 26, 2025

Feature

Students to showcase work at fair

The public will be able to view a showcase of student inventions, science experiments, art projects and beyond at the second annual Uncompahgre STEAM ...

January 29, 2025

Feature

Mexican eatery adds second location in county

Editor's note: The interview for this business feature was conducted in Spanish and translated by Chloe Kiparsky. A new taste of Mexico came to Ouray ...

December 25, 2024

Feature

Nature photography exhibit opens in Ouray

A new photography exhibit will transport viewers to nature landscapes at the Wright Opera House. Shanda Akin and Betsy Botsford’s photography show, "S...

November 6, 2024

Feature

‘Constitution’ play takes stage this weekend

Playwright Heidi Schreck earned her college tuition by traveling the country doing speeches on the U.S. Constitution for prize money. Her award-winnin...

November 6, 2024

Feature

ONCE TEAMMATES, NOW FRIENDLY RIVALS

The track and field and cross country athletes from Ridgway and Ouray who once were teammates now compete against each other. The split in the teams e...

October 23, 2024

Main

Factors behind the fire: What drove its spread?

Experts: Age-old forests, climate change, extreme drought created prime conditions for Gold Mountain Fire

By Chart Riggall

August 26, 2026

In the summer of 1879, the largest wildfire in Colorado history at the time tore through 26,000 acres of rugged forest about eight miles south of Silverton and presaged a vast shift in its landscape. ...

News

Tax districts approved for proposed project

Metro districts would fund improvements for possible 19-acre mixed-use Ridgway development

By James Hanlon

August 26, 2026

The Ridgway Town Council approved creating four metropolitan districts at its Aug. 12 meeting for a proposed residential and commercial development on 19 acres in north Ridgway. The development, Alpen...

News

Officials push Trump for disaster declaration

Polis: Federal funding needed to help pay for $17M in damages from Gold Mountain, Aspen Acres fires

By Chart Riggall

August 26, 2026

Federal, state and local officials pushed this week for President Donald Trump to issue a disaster declaration for the Gold Mountain and Aspen Acres fires that would open the door to additional federa...

Feature

New principal brings international experience

Michael Flaim named interim leader of Ouray preK-8 students

By James Hanlon

August 26, 2026

Michael Flaim, an educator who taught economics and social studies at international schools for nearly 20 years, has started as Ouray School’s interim preK-8 principal for the 2026-2027 school year. T...

News

Construction to control flooding begins

Work focuses on removing debris, building berms, barriers; project set to finish by Sept. 20

By James Hanlon

August 26, 2026

Crews from Haynes Excavation began work last week to repair and protect areas prone to flooding and debris flows beneath the Gold Mountain Fire burn scar. The $2.8 million Emergency Watershed Protect ...

By Chloe Kiparsky Plaindealer intern

Remote-triggered avalanche in San Juan Mountains

First responders receive first COVID-19 vaccines