10 years ago

• Loveland Fire Rescue Authority Lt. Rene Macias was preparing to travel to Seattle to represent Loveland — and all of Northern Colorado — in the 2013 Scott Firefighter Stair Climb, a race to the top of the 69-story, 1,311-step Columbia Center to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

• The Big Thompson Kiwanis Club marked its 25th anniversary. On Feb. 24, 1988, the Big T Kiwanis Club had been chartered, making it the third Kiwanis club in Loveland.

• Loveland city councilors, after seven hours of public comment and debate, narrowly voted to approve a city ordinance regulating oil and gas production in the city. Council members Hugh Mckean, Dave Clark, Daryle Klassen, John Fogle and Chauncey Taylor voted for the ordinance, while Mayor Cecil Gutierrez and councilors Ralph Trenary, Joan Shaffer and Phil Farley opposed it. The ordinance featured incentives for oil companies to adhere to higher standards than state regulations required, while not imposing conditions that would meet with court challenges from the state. Fifty-one people, mostly Loveland residents, spoke during the public comment period; about two-thirds of them opponents of oil and gas development.

• A study from a Colorado State University research team showed homes in neighborhoods that featured protected open space commanded prices 20% to 29% higher than those without open space. The study, funded by the National Association of Realtors and CSU’S School of Global Environmental Sustainability, evaluated home sales in more than 200 developments across Colorado in Larimer, Chaffee, Douglas, Mesa and Routt counties.

• Ryan “Cowboy” Ehmann, a former professional rodeo cowboy who became a fitness entrepreneur and owned the Firm Body Boot Camp in east Loveland, landed a spot on an episode of ABC’S “Shark Tank.” He made a deal with “shark” Daymond John for $120,000 in funding, the amount he requested, and in return for the investment agreed to turn over 25% of his company to John.

• The Thompson School District took a small step closer to the proposed High Plains Academy, awarding a contract to Fort Collins-based RB+B Architects to design the school.

• God’s Country Cowboy Church opened in the former location of the Ferrell Auction House, 5505 W. Eisenhower Blvd., Loveland, pastored by Pastor Greg Deal and his wife, Mitzi Deal.

• Conrad Ball Middle School science and social studies teacher Lynn Gilbert was named 2013 Educator of the Year in the Thompson School District. “The best thing about teaching middle school, they still have enthusiasm and curiosity. Science is fabulous to teach that, to get them excited about the world they live in,” Gilbert said.

• Thompson School District officials reported that, as of March 1, 2013, the district had 394 students from early childhood students to 12th grade who were homeless, representing 2.5% of the total student population. The economic downturn was the major cause of the increase, the district’s homeless liaison said. “Just like the larger community is starting to feel it, we’re definitely starting to experience it in our schools,” she said.

• Fort Collins officials said residents there would be limited to watering their lawns two days per week under regulations that would go into effect April 1, 2013. Loveland water officials said they were looking at future restrictions but did not expect any action before June.

• In a plea agreement signed in U.S. District Court in Denver, a California man admitted to causing a 2010 cyberattack that shut down Larimer County’s computer system. In July 2010, the man had pleaded guilty to driving while ability impaired in Larimer County, for which he was sentenced to a 12-month term of probation. Two months later, Larimer County’s website sustained the first of two denial of service attacks. Between Sept. 22 and Sept. 24, servers received more than 100 times the average amount of traffic. A second wave of attacks took place between Oct. 4 and Oct. 6, according to court documents.

25 years ago

• District Attorney Stu Vanmeveren said local investigations into gas price-fixing came up about every five years, but he had yet to find any wrongdoing. The local DA’S office was not investigating any gas

price concerns at the time, but an investigation was underway in Grand Junction.

• Work started on an effort to create new program called Restorative Justice after the 8th Judicial District received a state grant to add a staff member, computer equipment and supplies and training.

• Loveland City Council unanimously approved a $114 increase in the fees developers had to pay for each new home developed. It would bring the total fee per home to $446, money the city would transfer to the Thompson School District to buy property for new schools. Dennis Miller, from the school district, told the council the fee developers paid had funded 28% of the $767,000 the school district had paid for 65 acres at the southwest corner of Eisenhower Boulevard and County Road 9, where a new high school was being built.

• The Thompson School District Board of Education decided to name the district’s newest middle school for 85-yearold Loveland native Lucile Erwin, who had spent decades teaching physical education at Garfield, Lincoln and Washington schools, then working as a counselor at Bill Reed Middle School. “She gave her life and her heart to ‘her kids,’” a former school nurse wrote in a letter to the Reporterherald. “When her age forced her to retire, we all suffered a great loss.”

• About 50 people turned out for the Downtown Development Authority’s annual meeting, where plans for remodeling downtown, a low-interest loan program for building renovations and a new tourism brochure were on the agenda. The downtown plan would have installed a row of trees down the middle of Third Street from the Civic Center to Railroad Avenue to connect downtown and the Civic Center. But a tree island would change the parking configuration on Third from diagonal to parallel parking. “If we lose more parking along Third Street, I’d say the heck with trees,” one business owner said.

• Loveland veterinarian Caroline Griffitts, owner of The Traveling Vet, a mobile veterinary service in Northern Colorado, was providing her services at checkpoints along the 1,150-mile Iditarod sled-dog race in Alaska.

• In its 11th week at the Metrolux 12 Theatres on Denver Avenue, the film “Titanic” was still drawing Loveland fans. “I learn something new every time I see it,” said a woman who was watching it for the fourth time. A 12-year-old who was seeing it for the eighth time explained her reason was to watch Leonardo Dicaprio. “He’s really cute,” she said. The theater manager said the weekend showings of the film had sold out every weekend since Dec. 19.

• Johnstown’s new comprehensive plan called for the town to grow to the southeast corner of U.S. 34 and Interstate 25. Loveland had intergovernmental agreements with Fort Collins and Berthoud to coordinate growth on their borders with Loveland, but had not had any talks with Johnstown about its plan, City Manager Brian Moeck said. “Johnstown sees this area is going to be a burgeoning area and is jumping in now while the jumping is good,” Loveland Mayor Pro Tem Kurtis Loomis said. “I hope cooperation will take place, but I don’t see them extending any hands.”

• The Little Thompson Science Foundation was looking for help to ensure an observatory would open at Berthoud High School in the fall of 1998. The group had raised $15,000 in cash and gotten $163,000 in in-kind donations, but needed $15,000 more to complete the project. The Berthoud Town Board pledged $7,500 up front and another $7,500 in matching funds.

50 years ago

• A group organizing an effort to provide a trail along the Big Thompson River from the old fairgrounds west to Namaqua Park said they would contact landowners along the proposed trail to seek permission to make an exploratory walk. Members of the Board of Realtors, City Recreation Department, Larimer County Horsemen’s Association, Larimer-weld Regional Open Space office and chamber of commerce were among the organizers.

• Ted Thompson and Elbert Dallemand from Loveland attended a public hearing on Northern Colorado airport planning. The committee was working on future airport needs in Northern Colorado. Use of satellite airports to relieve congestion at Stapleton International Airport was suggested, and the Loveland-greeley-fort Collins area could be a site for it.

• The 500-acre Lewis and Morey Ranch, southwest of Loveland on the west shore of Lon Hagler Reservoir, was named the outstanding conservation effort in the Big Thompson Soil Conservation District. During 1972 the ranch had installed 6,000 feet of concrete ditches, leveled 37 acres, planted two acres of trees and completed 20,000 feet of new fencing.

• School Superintendent Claude Stansberry said if the current growth rate continued, Berthoud Elementary might have 590 students in 1973-74, 200 more than the school had room for. Berthoud growth had had increased from 2% to 16%, and the growth rate in the Lincoln Elementary area in Loveland was at 27%. Mobile classrooms might be needed at Berthoud Elementary and Loveland High School, school officials said. Lincoln and Mary Blair schools also had space problems. “We need to quit having people moving in where we don’t have room,” the superintendent said.

• Parking places at businesses could be lost if U.S. 287 was expanded to four lanes, as was being planned, business owner Jerry Lebo told the Loveland City Council.

• The opening of the new Mary Blair Elementary School, originally set for Feb. 15, then moved to April 1, could be postponed again, the school superintendent said, due to bad weather that had prevented ground work and sidewalk installation.

• Preschool and ungraded classrooms opened at Foothills-gateway Rehabilitation Center, with a total of 29 students.

• The city of Loveland, which had a $1 a year lease on land beneath the KLOV radio tower on Madison Avenue, received notice of official cancellation of that contract from station manager Daryle Klassen, who said the station was being relocated to West First Street and Taft Avenue.

• County officials reviewed a request from the Colorado State University Department of Radiation Biology for permission to dump animal waste and carcasses contaminated by low-level radioactivity at the county landfill. A CSU radiation biologist said the amount of radioactivity would be minor. Federal Atomic Energy Commission regulations required it be buried under at least 4 feet of earth. Commissioners forwarded the request to the

County Health Department for a recommendation.

• Fort Collins City Council members were considering development of a U.S. 287 bypass to the east of the city. The council was looking for a solution to traffic problems caused by the route of 287 down College Avenue through the city. Loveland Mayor Jean Gaines said Loveland officials had looked at plans to develop a new arterial road on the east side of their city, starting at Colo. 402 and generally following Madison Avenue to 29th Street, but he said the presence of the Boyd Lake reservoir would prohibit a true bypass east of the city.

• Hewlett-packard adopted an experimental program permitting its Loveland workers flexibility in setting their work hours. They could begin work any time during a two-hour period, and could leave after completing an eight-hour day.

• Members of the Loveland and Fort Collins city councils and the Larimer County commissioners discussed pursuing a proposal for a two-county transportation district with Weld County. “We managed to keep Larimer County out of the metro Regional Transportation District about three years ago because we were told it would be the mid-‘80s before anything could be done in this area,” Commissioner William Manuel said, adding that the two-county proposal was in part an attempt to continue to stay out of the RTD program.

• Samsonsite Corp. officials signed a final agreement with Gabriel Industries Inc. of New York to let Gabriel purchase Samsonite’s toy product lines for an undisclosed sum. Loveland’s Samsonite plant would continue to produce the lines until production and marketing activities were transferred to Gabriel, with a period of several months of mutual cooperation included in the contract.

120 years ago

• “Negotiations have been in progress some time between our home people and the Carnegie public library factors — and this correspondence has now reached the stage where blanks have been sent our pushers. These blanks are to be filled out in detail — and give full particulars as to size of town, amount of money available to care for a library building if one should be donated, etc.,” the March 5, 1903, issue of the Loveland Reporter stated. “As a usual thing before Andrew Carnegie gives up a dollar he insists that the community to be endowed must make arrangements to appropriate ten percent of what he gives. This ten percent is for the care of the building, necessary repairs, additions, etc. Thus, if a gift of ten thousand dollars could be secured for Loveland — which would be plenty large and plenty good enough for the next twenty years — our people, either individually or as a town, must guarantee that $1,000 shall be appropriated each year for the library fund.”

• “A representative of The Reporter last Monday visited the new town of Johnstown, situated 14 miles east of Loveland at the Terminus of the Great Western Railway — now said to be a spur of the Colorado and Southern railway,” the March 5, 1903, issue of the Loveland Reporter said. “This location is an ideal one — being in the very center of one of the mostly thickly settled and best farming localities in this vicinity, and considering that the first building was put up rather late last fall, the growth of the town and the amount of business done by the merchants is indeed surprising.”