January 1, 2002

A nostalgic yet tragic incident occurred last summer, when horses pulling a tourist stagecoach full of passengers charged out of control in Mancos Canyon. The coach overturned, launching its occupants onto the road. One man was seriously injured in the wreck and others sustained bumps and bruises. While the injury was tragic, it served as a reminder that the spirit of the West is still alive in our rich traditions.

Speaking of the Wild West, White Mesa, Utah, a satellite reservation community of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, made headlines when two feuding families living on Cowboy Street exchanged gunfire in broad daylight last January. One man suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder.

A local man decided to use his Bobcat to crush his girlfriend’s car in the midst of a heated domestic disturbance. The man claimed he hadn’t really done anything wrong because the car wasn’t worth much. The girlfriend disagreed. No one was injured.

On the lighter side, Comedy Central’s "The Man Show" made its way to the Four Corners last summer when it taped an episode at Dunton Hot Springs. Babes in bikinis bounced on a trampoline while the stars of the show bad-mouthed mothers-in-law and ate "cooked" fish they had "caught" in the hot springs.

A local "bad boy" sparked community interest when he was seen sitting on a bucket wearing a hard hat and orange vest in the middle of the baseball field at Cortez Middle School last summer. The boy, a student at CMS, was "sentenced" by administrators to spend the day sitting on a bucket as a last-ditch discipline before expulsion. The boy’s grandmother charged the boy was left outside without water or sunscreen in the hot summer sun.

With the spring thaw came the discovery of the bones of a prehistoric creature that roamed this area nearly 150 million years ago. Somewhere within the San Juan National Forest lie the remains of a dinosaur, affectionately nicknamed "Dippy." The dinosaur was classified as a garden-variety Diplodocus — a type of herbivorous dinosaur.

All inmates who appear in local courts are now required to wear shackles and chains because of an escape at County Court last winter. The inmate, who was facing sentencing, hurdled over a deputy and out into the cold, where he stripped off his black-and-white stripes to brave the snow in just his boxers. The inmate went from door to door until he found a pair of pants. He remained on the lam for several months until he was picked up by law officers in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Six people wanted for an armed robbery of the Cortez Comfort Inn did not stay on the loose for long. The alleged criminals had conveniently filled out a room card at a sister motel, the Days Inn, 15 minutes before they made off with less than $300 from the Comfort Inn. The robbers wrote down their names, address, phone number and license-plate number, which led police to Aztec, N.M. There they arrested four juveniles and two young adults. All of the juveniles were charged as adults and have entered plea agreements. The two adults have pleaded not guilty and await trial.

A local Colorado Division of Wildlife director didn’t need a tip to catch a group of roommates suspected of poaching wildlife this winter — he could see the remains of poached deer hanging from a shed as he drove by it last January. Seven people, including five juveniles, were charged with numerous offenses that eventually boiled down to various plea bargains for poaching and then wasting the meat of a cow and bull elk, two mule-deer bucks and a wild turkey hen. They were also ordered to make donations to Operation Game Thief and lost their hunting privileges.

An evening at McPhee Reservoir turned bloody for a Dolores man who was attacked by a stranger with an ax in May. The victim told police he was in the House Creek area when a person came after him with an ax, striking him three times in the back and once in the neck. The man was treated and his assailant is still unknown.

The sanitation district shoved Cortez into the limelight when a Denver Post columnist heard of the board’s iron-fist disconnection policy and dubbed Cortez "the town without pity." The controversy eventually led to the recall of three board members and the resignation of the sanitation-district manager.

And a callous cleanup at the local cemetery also fired up a number of people after a woman reported her late son’s toy cars had been swept away from his headstone. A new employee was blamed for the act and eventually the mother had her son’s body exhumed and relocated because of her disgust with the cemetery.

Scantily clad women on the covers of magazines at the grocery store were too much for one young man from Cortez. The 22-year-old was so disturbed by the seductive magazines that he made it his mission to lobby local churches to protest the open and accessible placement of the magazines. The man eventually succeeded in getting some of the stores to put a slipcover on some of the magazines.

The District Attorney’s Office raised a few eyebrows when a subpoena was sent out to a 2-year-old who was the center of a Mancos incident. The child’s father allegedly tackled the child’s mother and ran off with the child to Louisiana following the Mancos High graduation ceremony in 2000. The DA’s office said the subpoena was sent out by accident but that they wanted the child in the courtroom to elicit jury sympathy. The child will not take the stand.

Copyright © 2001 the Cortez Journal. All rights reserved.
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