Gunnison Valley Audio Journal

Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley and the Resiliency Project

A unique exploration of the Gunnison Valley for your ears, brought to you by the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley and the Resiliency Project.

  1. TICtalks: Wisdom of the Elders - George Sibley

    07/31/2023

    TICtalks: Wisdom of the Elders - George Sibley

    CFGV TICtalk recorded live in the Black Box Theatre at the Gunnison Arts Center on July 31, 2023: George Sibley is a freelance writer and retired educator who has lived in the Upper Gunnison River valley most of the time since 1966 – in Crested Butte, in Gothic, in Gunnison (except for a few years in Crawford and then Ft. Collins.)  Writing is the thread that runs through his life: as owner/editor of a  newspaper in Crested Butte he realized that journalism is more interesting when you can write about things that could or should happen as well as what has happened, and he found himself collaborating with a number of local people making new things happen: the Crested Butte Arts Festival, the Crested Butte Mountain Theater, the Crested Butte-Gothic 4th of July half-marathon, and the end-of-winter Flauschink festival, all still happening. In Crawford, George wrote the centennial pageant and started the theater program that continues today. After returning to Gunnison in 1988, he worked a dual job for two decades at Western Colorado University teaching writing, journalism and environmental studies; and organizing and running community-interaction conferences. Following his retirement from Western, George served on the board of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy for 13 years, and on the Gunnison Basin Roundtable (working on the Colorado Water Plan). He currently is working on a blog – www.sibleysrivers.com. His books include Water Wranglers; Dragons in Paradise (essays on contemporary mountain life), Long Horn & Short Tales (Crawford area history); Part of a Winter (memoir of years in Gothic and Crested Butte); and essays which have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Technology Illustrated, High Country News, Colorado Central and the Mountain Gazette.

    13 min
  2. TICtalks: Wisdom of the Elders - Ronda Connaway

    07/31/2023

    TICtalks: Wisdom of the Elders - Ronda Connaway

    CFGV TICtalk recorded live in the Black Box Theatre at the Gunnison Arts Center on July 31, 2023: Colorado-born Ronda Connaway’s time in the Gunnison Valley – to which she came in 1994 – has been marked by public service and community activism. She was a founder, and board member, of Habitat for Humanity, served on many Health & Human Service Department committees and task forces, was a founder of the Gunnison Congregational Church, helped start the hot meals program at Gunnison High School, and most recently retired from the Gunnison Valley Health System Board of Trustees. On that Board, she served for 12 years, including several years as Chairperson, and during that time led the Board in the design and building of the new Senior Care Center. She’s served as a STEP advisor for the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley and was a key researcher in the recently-published Basic Needs Resource Guide for the Gunnison Valley. All of this activism here has drawn from her work elsewhere: From 1974-94 she was Professor and Dean of the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky in Lexington; she was Professor of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis; she’s been a Child Welfare Worker for the Division of Children’s Social Services in St. Louis and before that a Social Caseworker for Lutheran Children’s Services there. Ronda holds a BA in Sociology from Anderson University (Indiana), an MA with honors in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis, where she also received her Doctor of Social Work degree in 1964.

    10 min
5
out of 5
7 Ratings

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A unique exploration of the Gunnison Valley for your ears, brought to you by the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley and the Resiliency Project.