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Last-minute voter? Your refund might be on the menu
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Last-minute voter? Your refund might be on the menu

By Rocky Mountain Voice Editorial Board Still sitting on your ballot? You’re not alone—Colorado’s full of last-minute voters trying to make sense of Propositions LL and MM before the drop box closes. Both deal with “Healthy School Meals for All,” a free lunch program with a not-so-free price tag. And depending how you vote, your refund might just end up on the menu. How we got here Back in 2022, voters approved Proposition FF, the “Healthy School Meals for All” program that promised every K–12 student a free lunch. It sounded simple until someone had to pay for it. The money came from a new tax on Coloradans earning $300,000 or more—along with wage hikes for cafeteria workers and a nudge to use more local ingredients. Fast-forward to 2025, and the legislature realized there’s e...
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The hardest place to practice peace is where it’s needed most
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Devotional, Top Stories

The hardest place to practice peace is where it’s needed most

By Pastor Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” ~ Matthew 5:9 ~ Over the past few weeks, we’ve explored how planes and trains remind us to rise above and stay on track, and now, with automobiles, we see that peace isn’t meant to stay parked—it’s meant to move and spread wherever we go. During a trip to Florida, Sherrie and I experienced just how true this is. We reserved a car through a lesser-known rental company that promises convenience and low rates but often hides headaches in fine print. From the moment we arrived, it was a nightmare. We had planned to rent an SUV to make travel easier for Sherrie, who, as many know, is battling Stage 4 brain cancer and finds it hard to move around. But when...
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Free speech tested: Fort Lewis TPUSA students persevere with faith, composure—and resolve
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Free speech tested: Fort Lewis TPUSA students persevere with faith, composure—and resolve

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The first Turning Point USA event, “Debate a Conservative,” took place Oct. 16 in the Fort Lewis College Student Union, where police stood at the doors as a steadying presence. Jonah Flynn, a senior studying philosophy and Spanish, along with Charlie Parke and Isabella Trevino, who were working to start a TPUSA chapter on campus, had braced for hostility but insisted on dialogue. “People with opposite views asked hard questions, but we all talked,” said Zen Moreno, a first-semester transfer in environmental conservation and management who joined the chapter after attending the event. She said she felt compelled to step in, hoping to turn hostility into conversation and connection. Flynn recalled how tension turned to civility. “People came...
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The Colorado Pastor Rwanda Calls a Terrorist: Christine Coleman’s Fight for Truth and Faith
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The Colorado Pastor Rwanda Calls a Terrorist: Christine Coleman’s Fight for Truth and Faith

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice When Pastor Christine Coleman opened a message from a friend in Belgium earlier this month, she didn’t expect to find her own name on Rwanda’s new Domestic Terrorist List. “She texted me and said, ‘Christine, they released a list of terrorists, and you are one of them,’” Coleman recalled. “At first, I was shocked. But then I had a deep joy—because when wicked people hate you, it means you’re doing good.” The document, issued on October 14, 2025, by Rwanda’s National Counter-Terrorism Committee, named twenty-five individuals accused of supporting or financing terrorism. It accused her of “supporting the FLN and inciting terror acts against Rwanda.” Coleman flatly denies the charge. “They cannot find one proof,” she said.&nb...
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Anatomy of a Coloradan Addicted to Making Political Donations
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Anatomy of a Coloradan Addicted to Making Political Donations

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice America may be the land of the free but it is also the land of addictions. The 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicates that 28.2 million Americans have a “drug use disorder” and the National Council on Problem Gambling reports that approximately 2.5 million Americans have “severe problems” gambling and an additional 5 to 8 million have mild or moderate issues. The dangers of addictions to drugs and/or gambling are well known, highly publicized, and well studied, but the dangers of being addicted to making political donations aren’t. At least until now. Addictions generally seem to be a bigger problem for the young than the old. The American Psychiatric Association reports that people over the age of 60 are...
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The Real “Trick or Treat” in D38
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The Real “Trick or Treat” in D38

By Amy Stephens | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice In Lewis-Palmer District 38, voters are being asked to choose between transparency and trickery — between a school board candidate who respects parents and one who shuts them out if they dare disagree. That’s not hyperbole. It’s the documented history of union-backed activist Jackie Burhans. Burhans markets herself as a champion of “parental rights.” But look closer and a pattern emerges: she defends rights only when parents share her ideology. When they don’t, she dehumanizes them — mocking, marginalizing, and labeling them, often accusing them of the very tactics she uses to silence dissent. We saw this in the now-infamous images from La Burla Bee, a downtown nightclub in Colorado Springs. There stands Burhans — holding ra...
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Durango’s School Board Debacle: Radical Rot, Predator Blind Spots, and a Herald Hug
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Local, Top Stories

Durango’s School Board Debacle: Radical Rot, Predator Blind Spots, and a Herald Hug

By Heidi Ganahl | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Durango used to be the kind of place where families felt good about sending their kids to school. But things shifted over the years —and not in a good way. With a critical school board election just days away, parents are speaking out. And what they’re saying is hard to ignore. What I learned from the families who helped shape the Durango Dirty Dozen series was both heartbreaking and hopeful. They painted a clear picture of a district losing touch with its mission—and of a community ready to fight back.  They told me about confusing bathroom rules, lavish DEI spending, and a media outlet more interested in enabling coverups than accountability. Their message was clear: kids are being left behind. Let’s start with bathrooms...
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While she fought cancer, a Durango teacher moved in on her child
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

While she fought cancer, a Durango teacher moved in on her child

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice When Colorado mom Cindy Stein sat before state lawmakers last spring, she was still recovering from cancer—and from losing her child to a teacher’s influence in a system that no longer sees parents as essential. “While I was fighting for my life, this teacher inserted herself into my daughter’s world, convincing her to reject me and her family,” Stein told the Senate Judiciary Committee.  https://twitter.com/OffThePress1/status/1917709537177424184 The clip spread quickly online. A month earlier, the Daily Wire broke the story, exposing what she says Durango schools tried to keep quiet. When a teacher’s comfort crossed a line Stein says her 16-year-old met Durango High School math teacher Joanne Smotherman while she was enduring...
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The Case of Ian Roberts: A Slap in the Face to Law-Abiding Citizens
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

The Case of Ian Roberts: A Slap in the Face to Law-Abiding Citizens

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The arrest of Ian Roberts, former superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, is more than a scandal. It is an insult to every law-abiding citizen who plays by the rules, pays their taxes, and expects their government institutions to uphold the law with fairness and integrity. Roberts, an undocumented immigrant with a final deportation order, was entrusted with the leadership of Iowa’s largest school district. For this role, he collected nearly $300,000 a year in taxpayer money. Parents who struggle to pay rising property taxes funded his salary and benefits, even while their children’s classrooms lacked resources and their teachers went without competitive pay. How could this happen? According to federal filings, Roberts...
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