Colorado Matters

Rob Kelley was a safety for the Saints. Emily Kelley, his wife, the unexpected turn her family’s life has taken. Then, genetic coding, isotopes and Bitcoin-like databases may be used to keep tabs on the origins of marijuana plants. Your Pomeranian is descended from wolves. And, how did the crazy Front Range housing market get this way?

The school shooting in Florida last week in which 17 people died broke Avery Griggs’ heart, because she lived through the Arapahoe High School shooting. Then, getting the word out to non-citizens about deportation dangers around working in the weed business. What it takes to resurrect and redevelop relics from Colorado’s sugar beet gold rush days. And we get a sneak peak inside Google’s new Boulder campus.

Luis Benitez, director of the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office, talks about what’s next for the outdoor industry. Forget the Gold Rush, what about the White Gold Rush in the late 1800s? Also, Thousands of immigrants detained in Aurora move forward with claims they were forced to work for little or no money. And Lois Fink of Fort Collins lost her colon to Chron’s disease. She writes about her new life in “Courage Takes Guts.”

Troy Riggs, Denver’s new director of public safety, talks about issues including police shootings, and abuse cases that have occurred in the Denver Jail. Then, Greeley reporter Mike Peters tells Colorado Matters there’s one story that’s haunted him for the past 40 years: The murder of a 7-Eleven clerk that’s only recently been solved.

Are Colorado’s schools safer after lessons learned from Columbine and Arapahoe high schools? Ecologist and climate scientist Jane Zelikova talks about her new documentary, “The End of Snow.” For poet Andrea Gibson, thinking about gender used to be painful, but now it’s become celebratory. And Henry Sakaguchi remembers the prejudice against Japanese-Americans in World War II and want to fight for his country any.

The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs oversight committee has more questions about the VA hospital under construction in Aurora. Then, a Boulder company’s app lets workers award small bonuses to their peers. We’re launching a cooking tour of Colorado. First stop: Denver’s Hop Alley. And, ‘We’ll Meet Again’ on PBS reunites a civil rights activist with her former colleague’s family.

Amid all the political noise about immigrants and refugees, in-state tuition is being proposed for those who have aided Americans in war zones and moved to the U.S. Then, Team USA’s gloves make news. Jim Thorpe, ‘America’s Greatest Olympian Of All Time,’ is featured on a new dollar coin minted in Denver. ​We meet a CU grad who tells LGBTQ coming-out stories in webcomics. And, ever heard an Electone? You can at the Denver International Electronic Music Festival this weekend.

After the gymnast sex abuse scandal, we talk with Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a gold medalist in swimming who is now a lawyer, and the founder of Champion Women, a legal advocacy group for girls and women in sports. Then, we thought that since it’s Valentine’s Day today, the timing was perfect for a chat about dinosaur sex.