Telluride Inside... and Out

Your Ah Haa Moment: Phenomenal Women's Week showcases local talent, 3/11

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Megan Rood]

Megan Rood

Telluride's San Miguel Resource Center presents an Artists' Showcase & Open Mic Night, part of the continuing celebration of International Women's Day and Telluride's homegrown Phenomenal Woman's Week. The event takes place Thursday evening, March 11,  6– 8 p.m. at Tellurie's Ah Haa School for the Arts.

The suffragettes. Their names come back to us in waves, like way distant echoes. Even the name Betty Freidan, the woman who presided over the birth of modern feminism, resonates like some fire-breathing dragon of yore, which she was, in a way. Freidan's compatriots and love children, Gremaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Wendy Shalit, Katie Roiphe, Naomi Wolf, and Susan Faludi all paved the way, but still, women continue to struggle to find the ideal mix between feminism and femininity. Except perhaps in Shangri-Las like Telluride, where no one has a problem with women having it both ways. In Telluride, we paint our nails and break them too. In Telluride, where women run companies and mountain trails, a poet is a mom, a singer, and helps run a family orchard; KOTO's musical director writes music herself and plays a flaming guitar;  and a gallery director moonlights as a lead singer in an all-women's rock and roll band (with the music director).

"Who Killed Jim Clark?" Murder Mystery Theatre at Telluride's Museum

It's a night at the museum - but not that town, not that actor, and not that movie. In 1895, Jim Clark,"the toughest man in Telluride," was murdered on Colorado Ave. Who offed him? What events led to Jim's dramatic demise?

The Telluride Historical Museum is throwing itself a party, a hair-raising fun-raiser. Get yourself tricked out in period garb, feast on appetizers, and sip wine as this local murder mystery unravels before your eyes.

Become a Museum member and join the in-crowd for another night of merriment and mayhem. (I know: does sound a lot like the film, but promise, no dinosaur skeletons will be doing a jig. Only skeletons on hand tomorrow night are the ones the baddies stashed in the closet.) Call 728-3344x2 for details.

Telluride Medical Center hosts its annual FEAST, 3/13

The online auction for the Telluride Medical Center's Operation F.E.A.S.T. (Fund for Expanding And Supporting Telluride's Medical Center) began March 1 and continues through March 11. Prizes range from get-a-ways to exotic trips to tickets to Colorado experiences, such as the destinations pictured: Australia, the Smith Fork Ranch, and half-day fly-fishing with Telluride Outside.

What's it all about?

Shambaugh keynote speaker for Telluride Women's Week

[click "Play" to hear Rebecca Shambaugh's conversation with Susan]

Editor's note: Shortly after interview, in which we encouraged the community to attend, Telluride Inside...and Out learned from the management at Capella Telluride that the event is sold out. No room at the Inn. Period. With luck, that is not the end of the story. Perhaps Rebecca Shambaugh could be convinced to deliver a series of local talks on the subject of women and leadership. Stay tuned... 

The air in Telluride will be redolent of estrogen in the coming week.

Women's Ski Week, March 6 – March 11, coincides with International Women's Day, March 8, and the San Miguel Resource Center's Phenomenal Women's Week in Telluride, March 8 – March 15. Appropriately enough, on International Women's Day, Women's Ski Week welcomes keynote speaker, nationally known leadership strategist/author/CEO Rebecca Shambaugh, by all accounts a phenomenal woman.

Shambaugh is speaking on the topic of "Resilience: A Time for Reinvention." Her sold-out event starts at 8 p.m. in the Ballroom at Capella Telluride in the Mountain Village.

Telluride Adaptive Sports Program goes Cowboy, March 5

[click "Play" to hear Courtney Steucheli speak about the event and why support TASP]

Telluride Adaptive Sports Program hosts it's Winter fundraising event, "Goin' Cowboy at the Opera" Friday, March 5, 2010 at the Sheridan Opera House.

A silent auction will be open from 6:00-9:30 pm, and the live auction featuring some great prizes begins at 7:30 pm. Auction items can be previewed on the TASP website.

Great music for listening, dancing or just singing along will be provided by local favorites, The Anders Brothers Band.

Wear your best dude duds or your ranch work clothes, kick up your heels, enjoy the good food and cash bar. See ya there, pardner!

For more information, listen to TASP's Executive Director, Courtney Stuecheli's podcast.

Telluride AIDS Benefit fashion show: new director, new direction

[click "Play" to hear Scott Grossman speak about his direction of the TAB Fashion Show]

Scott Grossman

It's the pitch perfect tribute, Robert Presley to a "T": "Out of Your Comfort Zone/Step Out of the Box," director Scott Grossman's theme for the 2010 Telluride AIDS Benefit no-holds-barred fashion show. The annual event takes place at the Telluride Conference Center in the Mountain Village, Thursday, February 25 for the Sneak Peak and Saturday, February 27, for the super nova explosion. Doors, 7 p.m. Show time, 8 p.m.

Outrageous. In your face. Fearless. Talented, Funny. Smart. Generous. Those are just a few of the words Presley's friends used to describe the man who inspired the AIDS awareness event and major bash that manages to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for HIV/AIDS interventions and prevention education around the globe.

Telluride AIDS Benefit: VZF's electric bike

[click "Play" to hear Jake Spaulding's conversation with Susan]

Jake Spaulding

Dateline: Shanghai. It's there and all over China, where it began. About 120 million of them on the road and counting.

Dateline: Telluride. It's coming.

We are talking about a great alternative to a car. We are talking electric bikes, increasingly the vehicle of choice from bike messengers in New York to postal workers in Germany and commuters all over the world. While sales were relatively modest in the American market last year (only 200,000 were sold) interest is picking up.

Telluride AIDS Benefit: Baerbel's art auction

The girl can't help. For 16 years, Baerbel Hacke, director of the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, has put together a silent art auction for the Telluride AIDS Benefit. This year's event takes place Friday, February 26, noon – 9 p.m. at the historic Sheridan Opera House.

Ever notice that the word "pain" is embedded in "painting?" The Telluride AIDS Benefit's auction, however, is a wonderful way to transform pain into gain for the nonprofit's six beneficiaries.

Telluride AIDS Benefit: beneficiary CHIP participates in auction

The Telluride AIDS Benefit has grown every year since its grassrootsy beginning in 1994. And since that first year, the Western Colorado AIDS Project has been the event's primary recipient, because the Benefit's muse, Robert Presley, determined to keep WestCAP, his medical provider in time of need, healthy. TAB's generosity, however, extends way beyond WestCAP all the way to Africa, with stops along the way on the Front Range, home to the Denver Children's Hospital Immunodeficiency Program or CHIP.

CHIP began providing specialized care for HIV+ children in the Rocky Mountain region in 1991. CHIP remains the only entity in the region providing comprehensive, coordinated, family-centered services to infants, children, youth (13-24), pregnant women, and parents of HIV-infected children.

Telluride AIDS Benefit: aiding Brother Jeff

["click "Play" to hear Brother Jeff speak about his partnership with TAB]

The relationship between the Telluride AIDS Benefit and Brother Jeff is a prime example of the whole being greater than the sums of its parts.

The Telluride AIDS Benefit casts a long, wide shadow that extends all the way from the Western Slope to Africa. One of TAB's success stories on the Front Range is Brother Jeff's Health Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of African Americans living with HIV/AIDS regardless of age, faith, background or sexual orientation. With the help of TAB, the Initiative now reaches thousands of people each year through HIV conferences, summits, workshops, presentations at high schools, universities, and at various health-related institutions.