February 2023

First-grade student RedSky Lang draws on the whiteboard during a Ute language vocabulary game led by Betty Howe, a tribal elder and Ute language teacher. (Shannon Mullane, Special to The Colorado Trust) To read more of Mark Stevens' article, please click here. Twelve miles south of Cortez, in the southwest corner of Colorado, a right turn on Mike Wash Road leads three miles up to the town of Towaoc on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. Towaoc is pronounced toy-awk . The town is due east of...

Image: (dragana991/istock) To read more of Ann Schimke's article, please click here. Roxana Alvarado Martinéz, a high school sophomore, had told only close friends she was seeing a therapist to help her with anxiety and insomnia. Roxana is part of a generation that has grappled with unprecedented mental health struggles over the last few years amid a pandemic that stoked stress, fear, and isolation for people young and old. She’s also one of thousands of Colorado youth taking advantage of a...