LOCAL NEWS: Paonia K-8 students are beginning 2026 with significant academic achievements, earning statewide and national recognition in vocabulary competition while also being honored for outstanding classroom performance and character. This fall, Paonia K-8 seventh- and eighth-grade students competed in the National Vocabulary Bowl, where the school won the Colorado state championship in the middle/elementary Division 3 category, which includes schools with fewer than 500 students. Paonia K-8 also placed fourth nationally in its division.
The Ouray Community Forest Resilience Project which aims to scour dead and dying trees and underbrush around the city of Ouray to reduce wildfire risk in the area was recently awarded $500,000 in federal funding. According to a report in the Ouray County Plaindealer, the 93-acre wildfire mitigation project costing roughly $1.3 million dollars was being held up until the federal funding was released. The project is a collaboration with the West Region Wildfire Council, the city of Ouray, Ouray County, the U.S. Forest Service and the Colorado State Forest Service. Ouray County expects to receive the formal funding award in March and with the project funds following this summer.
REGIONAL NEWS: Now the Sundance Film Festival is preparing to leave Park City, Utah, and move to a new home in Boulder, Colorado. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Rachel Cohen reports from Sundance, where attendees are saying goodbye.
As immigration enforcement ramps up across the country, Indigenous communities are grappling with what the latest ICE crackdowns could mean for their citizens and for tribal sovereignty more broadly. Many tribes say aggressive enforcement has created fear and confusion, especially in communities where borders, citizenship, and federal authority are already complex. Indian Country Today's Stewart Huntington recently returned from a weeklong reporting trip to Minneapolis where he spoke with Native leaders, and he brings us this report.
