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The creativity weapon: Loving the crooked man
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Devotional, National, Top Stories

The creativity weapon: Loving the crooked man

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice When I was little, one of my favorite people ever was Grandma Ivy, still is. She wasn't famous. She never stood behind a pulpit or wrote a book. But she was a superhero. During many of my toddler and elementary years, she was my guardian, my safe place, and my greatest teacher. Like so many grandmothers, she had a way of turning ordinary moments into lasting memories. One of those memories was a simple nursery rhyme she taught me: "There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile. He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile. He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, and they all lived together in a little crooked house." Back then, I thought it was just a funny rhyme. I smiled because everything in...
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Nick Shirley’s message to Colorado: Follow the money. Knock on the doors.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Nick Shirley’s message to Colorado: Follow the money. Knock on the doors.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Nick Shirley spent Saturday night walking the Freedom Fest audience through the questions that have taken him from hotels near Denver International Airport to empty daycare centers in Minnesota and apartment complexes in Aurora. Interviewed by Jeff Hunt, co-host of the Jeff and Bill Show on Denver's 710 KNUS, Shirley spent less time talking about what he uncovered than how he uncovered it. Colorado was one of the first places he looked Long before a Minnesota daycare investigation made him nationally known, Shirley found himself in Colorado after repeatedly hearing migrants at the southern border mention the same destination. Denver. He came to look.  "You guys are from Latin America? It's cold in Denver," he remembered asking....
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The award wasn’t the greatest gift of the weekend
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Don't Eat Toast Naked, Approved, Commentary, State

The award wasn’t the greatest gift of the weekend

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Don't Eat Toast Naked Drake Hunter reflects on receiving Rocky Mountain Voice's Trailblazer Award during RMV Freedom Fest and why the weekend's greatest lesson came after the applause ended. Some weeks are so full you don’t know where to begin. This was one of those weeks. For more than two years, I’ve had the privilege of serving alongside the incredible team at Rocky Mountain Voice. What began as writing a weekly devotional has grown into friendships, opportunities, and experiences I never could have imagined. Over the past several months, that journey has taken me to places I never expected—including attending Turning Point USA in Phoenix with Heidi Ganahl, flying on a private jet for the first time, and helpi...
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How one volunteer connected the dots at RMV’s Freedom Fest
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

How one volunteer connected the dots at RMV’s Freedom Fest

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice After Freedom Fest ended, Pueblo resident Randy Thurston was still talking his way through the weekend. Not in order. One speaker reminded him of another, and a story from Saturday connected to something he had heard Friday. He was not replaying the event. He was still putting it together. "I still don't know how she pulled it off," he said, meaning Rocky Mountain Voice founder Heidi Ganahl. "I don't know how she even had that vision and then the ability to manifest it. Do you know what it took to get everybody there on the weekend before the Fourth of July? That in itself was impossible." A little later, after talking through several of the presentations, he came back to it again. "Any one of these speakers, I would've driven a thousa...
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright makes the case for data centers, and admits they’re not for everyone
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Rocky Mountain Voice, National, Top Stories

Energy Secretary Chris Wright makes the case for data centers, and admits they’re not for everyone

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright sat down on stage at Douglas County Fairgrounds and told a Colorado crowd that the data centers many of their neighbors are fighting will help cure cancer. Wright, the former Liberty Energy CEO turned 17th U.S. Secretary of Energy, joined Heidi Ganahl for an onstage interview at RMV Freedom Fest on June 27.  Most of the conversation covered familiar Wright territory: oil prices, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Iran.  But when Ganahl turned the conversation to data centers, Wright gave a more layered answer than the typical political pitch, one that conceded real tradeoffs while still landing firmly on the side of building. The comments come as Colorado works throug...
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They almost stayed home: What a Douglas County couple took away from RMV’s Freedom Fest
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They almost stayed home: What a Douglas County couple took away from RMV’s Freedom Fest

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice By Saturday morning, Russ and Deb Minary were home, a refrigerator due to be delivered and an ordinary weekend resuming around them. They couldn't stop replaying the day before. They almost hadn't gone. Their Friday had cleared at the last minute, and they drove over for day one of Rocky Mountain Voice's two-day Freedom Festival, marking America's 250th birthday and Colorado's 150th. "It's frightening when you see how easily our elections are being changed and manipulated," Deb said. "But it's also encouraging to know there are people trying so hard to fight for our freedom." The day had split in two for them—what frightened them, and what gave them hope. https://twitter.com/TheRMVoice/status/2070592878896717919 They...
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Lara Logan: Why ordinary people still give her hope
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Lara Logan: Why ordinary people still give her hope

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice A few weeks after walking out of a Colorado prison, Tina Peters will take the stage at RMV Freedom Fest. Lara Logan will follow her to the microphone. After decades covering wars, terrorism, government corruption and some of the biggest stories in the world, Logan still talks most about people like Peters. A county clerk. A whistleblower. A parent standing before a school board. An ordinary person who decides staying quiet is no longer an option. "People like Tina Peters ... she was just a mom," Logan said. Logan is no stranger to the state. Over the past several years, Colorado has kept showing up in her reporting through Tina Peters' case and the election-integrity disputes that followed. For Logan, Peters' story fit a patte...
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Lee Habeeb: “Storytelling is urgent work”
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Lee Habeeb: “Storytelling is urgent work”

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Lee Habeeb is coming to Castle Rock this month, and he's not telling anyone what he's going to say. "A good storyteller always likes surprising the audience," he told RMV. He did offer one detail. The crowd at RMV's Freedom Fest will hear a song they all know and love. They just won't know the story behind the man who wrote it. Not until Habeeb tells them. Habeeb speaks on the main stage Saturday, June 27 at RMV Freedom Fest at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock. What his grandfather taught him Some lessons get taught at the dinner table. Habeeb's grandfather taught his in a courtroom gallery, watching strangers become citizens. "My grandfather made me go to these immigration ceremonies to see first-ha...
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From dope dealer to hope dealer: Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell brings message of redemption to Colorado
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

From dope dealer to hope dealer: Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell brings message of redemption to Colorado

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice He walked into church on April 18, 1999, with a bruised brow, money in his pocket, and murder on his mind. By the time he walked out, Lorenzo Sewell had given his life to Christ. That same day he went to his drug boss and quit. That day, and that decision, is the foundation of everything Sewell has built since.  The senior pastor of 180 Church in Detroit will bring his story of redemption and his message of civic faith to the RMV Freedom Fest, where he will speak on the main stage and give the invocation at the Mountain Majesty Gala on Saturday, June 27. A student of the street Sewell grew up on Detroit's east side in a home marked by abuse and instability. His father is in prison for murder. At age eleven, ...
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Colorado calls its elections a model. Mark Cook says voters have lost oversight of them
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado calls its elections a model. Mark Cook says voters have lost oversight of them

By RMV Staff | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado's top election officials call the state's voting system a national model. Secretary of State Jena Griswold has described it as the "gold standard," pointing to first-in-the-nation risk-limiting audits, bipartisan checks and ballot tracking. Mark Cook argues that the people the system is supposed to answer to — voters, and the county clerks closest to them — have lost meaningful oversight of how it runs. Cook made that case during a recent appearance on Unleashed with Heidi Ganahl, where the conversation ranged from election transparency and county clerks to Tina Peters and Gov. Jared Polis. Cook's claim is not that one party rigged a result. It is structural: that administration has drifted upward over time, from county clerks to state...
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