The Colorado Sun

My summer internship with The Colorado Sun was what kept me sane during quarantine. It helped me grow as a person and journalist and exceeded all of my expectations. As one of their interns, the whole team welcomed me with open arms, willing and ready to help me learn and improve. I was trusted with my first assignment on day one and improved throughout the summer. I wrote a variety of pieces, a long profile on a Colorado woman hiking diagonally across the state, analyzed data for a piece on the 2020 Election, traveled to the mountains to write about rafting businesses “staying afloat” and the first all-Black mural festival in Denver following the George Floyd protests. While it wasn’t the traditional newsroom internship so many get, I am extremely grateful for the work I did and the experience of learning from seasoned local journalists. A link to all of my work can be found here or the URL is posted below.

Featured pieces

How a new community of Black artists was born out of Denver’s police brutality protests

What started with volunteers spraying “Black Lives Matter” on temporary plywood boxes became a full-fledged exhibit in Denver’s Civic Center park

As volunteers cleaned up Denver’s Civic Center park after a night of protests against police brutality in early June, someone spray-painted the phrase “Black Lives Matter” on a piece of plywood put up to protect the base of a statue. 

The message caught the eye of a Denver Parks and Recreation employee. It also sparked an idea.

That night, a proposal was drafted to curate Black Lives Matter-related art around the park and it was approved within 48 hours. The following week, almost 30 artists began work on their own plywood boxes, the start of the first-ever Black Love Mural Festival. 

And it didn’t just stop there.

The creation of the Black Love Mural Festival sparked a network of Black artists and creatives of all ages, some of whom were invited to participate. Others insisted on being involved, spurred by Black Lives Matter protests in Denver after George Floyd’s death at the hands of a police officer in Minnesota in May.  

The Black Love Mural Festival has helped the work of Black artists be seen by the community and opened the door to opportunities for these painters, collage-makers, and other artists to express their opinions on the movement’s events, without having to be on the front lines of each march. 

Hiero Vega, @hieroveiga, who has collaborated with muralist Detour, aka Thomas Evans, on the Spray Their Names project in Denver, contributed this piece to the Black Love Mural Festival in Civic Center park. The work was initially part of a box protecting the base of a sculpture paying tribute to Christopher Columbus. Protesters toppled the sculpture in June, but protected this mural and three others. (Lauren Irwin, The Colorado Sun)

“It’s so cool to be able to create a piece of art that can convey a message that’s way louder than I could ever scream,” said Ki’erre Dawkins, who invited people who were passing by, some of them protesters, to leave their thumbprints in paint on his mural. 

When Robert Gray and his team at Rob the Art Museum reached out to various Black artists in the Denver area, none could have imagined the impact they were about to make. 

As the marches and vigils moved east to Aurora, where protests sprang up around the death of Elijah McClain after a violent arrest by police, the murals were completed and left to share their messages in the heart of downtown Denver.

“It’s manifested well beyond just the Civic Center park,” said Eryk Fisher, Rob the Art Museum co-founder and director of operations.

Fisher said one of the goals of Rob the Art Museum, a marketing services company, is to create artistic and economic opportunities for Black artists. This project did just that by paying each artist. 

But just asking the simple question of “Can I be involved?” led to new relationships and opportunities for Selah Ruckard, a 21-year-old who asked to be part of the project after participating in protests nearby.

“That was my very first piece that big, it has connected me to so many different things that I didn’t think it would do by asking a question,” Ruckard said.

Ruckard collaborated during the festival with Vincent Gordon, a more established artist. As they worked together on the spiraling background of Ruckard’s mural, the lifeline flowing from the feminine figure at its center, they began to seem like two peas in a pod, Fisher said.  

Selah Ruckard (@selah.v.art) participated in the Black Love Mural Festival after seeing the art in Civic Center while protesting downtown. She collaborated with Vincent Gordon (@vincentgordon) since this was the largest mural she had done. (Lauren Irwin, The Colorado Sun)

“Mentoring young artists has always been something that I’ve done and something I’m attracted to,” Gordon said about his work with Ruckard. “When you’re working on a canvas with somebody, it can be intimate.”

Gordon said the Black Love Mural Festival was extraordinary because it connected artists from all corners of the city, some of whom had never met. 

“We need more people that are thinking outside of the box because the current box that we are in just isn’t working,” he said.

Holly-Kai Hurd, an artist in her forties, has noted the lack of opportunities for artists of color in Denver. She says it has been an age-old issue that she and other minority women in her art collective, Innervision, struggle with. 

“That has always been an issue,” she said. “There are lots of white galleries, but lots of them don’t show an interest in showing the work of artists of color, especially if your subject matter is connected to political issues.”

Hurd, who often works in textiles, used her plywood mural to pay tribute to Sarah Collins, a survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by the Ku Klux Klan in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four other young girls. 

“In all of these situations, whether we’re talking about George Floyd or the civil rights movement, I think that people really just need to understand that this is a war, there are so many casualties of this war,” she said. “It’s a gaping wound that is also very old.”

Dawkins said he asked the community to pledge their commitment to equal opportunity by leaving their fingerprints in the stars and stripes in his mural. The images made up of the fingerprints of strangers symbolizes the importance of minorities to the United States.

Work by muralists at the Black Love Mural Festival in Denver’s Civic Center park. Clockwise from left: Stephen Taylor (@stephen_the_painter); Cassie Smith (@flowergirlcreative); Regine Cotton (@adore_regine). (Photos by Lauren Irwin, The Colorado Sun)

“Their thumbprint was basically their oath to give more opportunities to minorities,” Dawkins said. “We all have to do our part so everyone has equal opportunities in the United States.”

Fisher said Rob the Art Museum hopes to be on the “ladder side” of change, helping to provide opportunities for Black creatives in Denver. Creating the Black Love Mural Festival — which has been granted a third extension and now will remain in the park through the end of July and could become an annual event — was about using art to change the narrative, he said. 

“There’s a lot of chaos going on, and it’s hard to speak on history when you’re in the middle of it,” he said. 

Changing that narrative seemed to be a common theme throughout each artist’s murals. Hurd and Dawkins both encourage the community to not let this time of activism become a trend or a means of social media popularity, reduced to a few common hashtags. 

“I just hope that people actually want to see change,” Dawkins said. “Don’t do it because Black Lives Matter sounds cool, do it because you genuinely care about people.”

Eager to experience Colorado in a different way, a Boulder woman set life aside to forge a new trail across the state

Starting at the Oklahoma-Kansas-Colorado border and headed toward the state’s northwest corner, India Wood is more than halfway through her expedition. She wanted to see more than just the prettiest, most popular places.

There was a terrifying, wind-whipped storm on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. There was a run-in with a bear near Minturn. There have been blisters, and many reroutes.

But none of it has stopped India Wood from pressing on toward her goal of traversing Colorado from corner to corner, a more than 750-mile journey that has tested her patience, determination and hiking boots. 

Wood had realized her day job was quite literally crippling her and decided 2020 was going to be the year she put her body to the test. 

“Why not?” said Wood, a 54-year-old writer, mother and wife from Boulder. “Who wouldn’t want to go on a grand adventure?”

India Wood gazes toward northwest corner of the state from her overnight camp spot inside Castle Peaks Wilderness Study Area near Wolcott. (Hugh Carey, Special to The Colorado Sun)

Wood’s journey began in the southeast corner of the state, a place mostly unfamiliar to people living on the Front Range. She said the checkerboard of native grasslands and dryland farming in her first 60 miles was quite interesting. The wildlife that she encountered fascinated her and watching the vast sky showed her how small Earth was. 

“It’s hard, southeast Colorado can be a difficult area,” said Wood, who grew up in Colorado Springs. “It’s windy and can be very hot, but it was the only part of the state where people would slow down or stop and ask me how I was doing or if I needed anything.”

Wood started her long walk on May 11, soon after Colorado’s stay-at-home order lifted. She’s averaged 10 to 15 miles and thousands of feet of elevation gain each day, seeing new places and meeting new people after being cooped up for weeks under the state’s coronavirus social distancing rules.

More than two months in, she has about 250 miles left to go and isn’t breaking her pace.

When the clock struck 2020, Wood started getting in shape and began plotting two-week stretches of her journey at a time. Her brother told her she couldn’t do it alone. There’s nothing like your older brother telling you “no” to inspire you to go do something, she joked. 

“I wanted to rediscover that kind of teenage confidence in myself that I think we have as girls when we are 12 or 13. We think we can conquer the world and then the world tells us we can’t,” Wood said. “I feel so much more confident than I did a few months ago because I can figure all of this out.”

She was persistent and able to figure things out even when she was a kid. At 12, she discovered a dinosaur bone on a ranch in Moffat County, the far northwest corner of Colorado. She kept digging until she had a complete allosaurus, which became a fixture at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. She says that journey and this hike are similar: She wasn’t qualified to do either at the start, but she was passionate about them. 

“Again, the same sort of persistence and need for help made both adventures possible,” she said.  “So, I guess I haven’t changed much.”

The big idea  

Now that her two daughters are grown, she realized getting out and exploring the state was something she missed from when they were children. After sitting in front of the computer analyzing Excel spreadsheets for trade associations for almost 15 years, her arms and hands were chronically numb. This adventure was something she needed. 

“When I was 20, I spent a fair amount of time in Africa with an internship with the Peace Corps,” she said. “Maybe that was the beginning of my realization of how much I enjoy planning difficult things.”

Wood spent some time on the East Coast for college, but returned to Colorado to share the varied and diverse landscape of the state with her kids.

“I love the southeast corner of the state with all of the ranches and I love the northwest corner of the state where I found my dinosaur,” Wood said. 

“I am halfway along my diagonal line across Colorado! 362 miles and 18,500 ft of elevation gains (and many downhills) from the OK-KS-CO spike to Tarryall,” Wood wrote on June 29. “I was unsure I would make it this far. Tomorrow begins the second half to the WY-UT-CO corner. Pink marker points to starting corner on May 11 and red pen to where I am today., June 29.” (Provided by India Wood)

She said she always toyed with the idea of walking across Colorado, but began preparing in January because she was turning 54 and felt it was time to seize the moment. 

Wood chose these far corners of the state because they tend to be the least explored. 

“I thought most people just go to the pretty places or the places that are easy to get to and I thought if I just drew a diagonal line across the state, I bet I would run into a bunch of really amazing people and places.” 

From the start, Wood knew the planning to make her expedition feasible would be difficult. She wanted to begin at the Oklahoma-Kansas spike, the marker of Colorado’s border with its neighbors to the southeast. There were no roads nearby. To stay on her diagonal track, she had to call real estate agents, ranchers and park rangers to get permission to hike. She will complete her adventure at the Three Corners Monument, where Colorado meets Utah and Wyoming. 

“Hike from corner of CO/OK/KS to Springfield, four days, 60 miles, wonderful people, rugged land,” Wood wrote on May 15. (Provided by India Wood)

“I’m a fairly independent person and most of what I have done in the past, in my career, has been things I could do on my own. And I soon realized with this trip, that I needed other people every step of the way,” she said. “And that’s been the real beauty of it.” 

She says the hospitality and friendliness of the people she’s encountered have surprised her and made the long days, blisters, dehydration and unexpected turns worth it. 

With a global pandemic pushing everyone into isolation and the upcoming election creating division, Wood just wanted to meet people. Wood trained hard for months before beginning the journey. She said she used to consider a 5-mile hike hard. Now she triples that distance on particularly long days. 

“I just have the best time talking with people,” she said. “People have enjoyed hearing about my crazy journey and given me their good wishes.”

Logistics and safety

The logistics of Wood’s journey revolve around four things: shelter, food, water and safety.

Finding a place to sleep every night was difficult, especially in southeast Colorado. Now that she’s more than halfway through her journey and hiking across public lands, she can plan her campsites and invite more friends along to share short legs of the journey. 

Wood said she can’t carry more than three days worth of food on her back, so she stores dry goods in her Toyota 4Runner to restock. 

Dedicated to walking the entire way, Wood parks her vehicle — or as she likes to call it, the world’s smallest RV — three days’ hike ahead of her, and then hitchhikes back to the place where she left off walking. She then travels three days back to the vehicle and repeats the process, pausing only for the occasional motel shower or grocery store trip for fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and an essential item — chocolate.

The third thing is water. In the southeast corner of the state, Wood said she had difficulty finding water in ponds, creeks or rivers and had to cache it for herself along her route. Only once has someone stolen the brown paper bag with water jugs stashed in a ditch, and the local parks and wildlife officer helped her replace the water after a day of hiking.

The last is safety. She said it took her awhile to get used to camping alone, but it’s not the people she worries about. It’s the animals.  

Exhausted and not thinking clearly after a 16-mile hike last week, she said she made the mistake of finishing a chicken dinner inside her tent to escape the mosquitos. Soon after, she heard a giant sniff and knew it was a bear. 

“I made noise for a few minutes (to scare off the bear) and decided to pack up and go down the 6-mile trail to Minturn because I knew the bear was probably going to be back,” she said. “I felt bad. I was showing the bear that tents equal food.” 

“Just arrived in La Junta,” Wood wrote on May 24. “150-mile hike over 14 days from SE corner of Colorado. Charli joined me for last 50 miles. Stay tuned for adventures and pics!” (Provided by India Wood)

Being mindful and reducing the risk of emergencies has been one of the biggest challenges. Wood’s friends and her younger daughter, Charli, have joined the expedition from time to time, but getting used to being alone in the middle of nowhere is something new. 

To fix her location, she uses a Gaia GPS mapping system and a Garmin Mini. The devices allow Wood to text her husband, notify nearby police in case of emergency and be tracked every 10 minutes. “You won’t get lost if you stay found,” she said.

Still, she added, if she had relied just on advice dispensed by the internet, she would be halfway to the Atlantic Ocean by now.

“The internet is not the sole source of information, you have to talk to people locally and go look for yourself,” she said.

Boulder resident India Wood cooks breakfast ahead of a full-day hike through hiking through Castle Peaks Wilderness Study Area Saturday, July 18, 2020, near Wolcott. Wood eats about 3,000 calories per day, she says. (Hugh Carey, Special to The Colorado Sun)

She texts her husband her precise location, including a description of her surroundings, each morning and night. It’s part of staying found and staying sane. Both of them find comfort in knowing where she is, that she is safe and that even with weak cell service, they can still try to communicate.

“A few nights ago I was camping a couple of miles outside of Breckenridge and I suddenly felt so lonely,” she said. “I was able to call my husband and having that connection and encouragement really helps.”

Every two weeks, Wood heads home to Boulder, where she showers, rests for six or seven days and plans the next two-week stretch. Each time she heads back out, she starts exactly where she left off. 

Motivated by the past and the future 

Both of Wood’s parents were professional photographers, and she received her first camera as a teenager. She has used photography to document her experiences and share glimpses of the diverse landscapes she encounters. 

Her personal Facebook page has been transformed into a gallery of her weekly photo updates.

“There’s a part of me that enjoys entertaining people with nature and my own discoveries through Facebook,” Wood said. “It’s been really rewarding during this journey to post things. People really like it, especially since they’re stuck at home.” 

After her expedition is over, Wood hopes to start a new business taking people camping and hiking. Diversity and inclusion are important to her, and opening new doors to help people get outside is something she hopes to pursue. 

“I think everyone needs to get outside,” she said. 

On the trail

Walking as much as she does, Wood can’t carry many things. Thirty pounds is her limit, which meant new lightweight gear was necessary. The ultra-light tent, sleeping bag and backpack were the most expensive parts of the expedition, but they make a big difference in the heat and on the trail. 

She packs strategically, with about half her bag taken up by 6 pounds of food and a gallon of water, which is enough for a three-day stretch. 

She wears long pants and long-sleeved shirts, a wide brimmed hat and a neck covering to protect her from the sun, which has been brutal at times. 

“When I hiked from La Junta to Pueblo, it was 95 to 100 degrees every day for a week,” Wood said. “It was so grim.”

Camping on a ranch outside of Pueblo, Wood was at least 8 miles from any other person. She said it had been a beautiful day, but the wind rolled in quickly, and seemed to stay forever. 

“It was like a tornado hit. This wind just slammed into my tent, flattening it with me inside of it. It blew 60 miles per hour from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.,” she said. “I was stuck in my tent. There was no place to go.”

Once the wind died down, she packed up and trudged on. She knew, with the varied landscape, wildlife and weather, she would see a better day soon, and so she steadfastly stuck to her diagonal line.

Boulder resident India Wood hikes toward Castle Peak. (Hugh Carey, Special to The Colorado Sun)

“I am not easily dissuaded from a goal once I get attached to it,” she said.

Talking to local people has been the best part of the trip, she said. From popsicles provided by random ranch families to sharing her story about finding dinosaur bones with young children, she has found joy in everyone she’s met, which has helped her push on across the prairie, through the Rocky Mountains and onto her final destination. 

Wood hopes that her long walk across Colorado helps people know they, too, can take a step to make their dreams become a reality. 

“I don’t know how many thousands of steps I’ve taken on this trip,” she said, “but the first one is just setting out.” 

Donald Trump’s Colorado troubles are evident in his poll numbers, new analysis shows

The president’s approval rating among voters sat near 45% at the start of his term and has only gone down as the 2020 election approaches.

resident Donald Trump’s approval ratings in Colorado fluctuated often since he took office, but an analysis of two dozen polls over four years shows his numbers never greatly improved. 

The Republican started his term with 45% approval and 44% disapproval in Colorado, one poll found, the first and only time he stood in positive territory. Since then his ratings have tumbled as voters soured on how he did his job, according to The Colorado Sun’s poll tracker. His polling average in Colorado shows him at 40% approval with disapproval near 56%.

Colorado Election 2020 Poll Tracker: How Donald Trump and Joe Biden are polling in the 2020 presidential election

To start the 2020 election year, Trump stood near his highest marks at 44% approval but he again began to slide as the coronavirus hit. Ahead of the Republican National Convention this week, his approval rating returned to below his average at 39% approval since May. 

“I think it’s largely the virus and the response to the George Floyd killing,” University of Colorado Boulder political science professor Kenneth Bickers said, referring to Trump’s numbers. “I think it’s always tough for an incumbent to run when the economy is bad.”

Overall, the polling numbers analyzed by The Sun show Trump never gained traction in Colorado after losing the 2016 election in Colorado to Democrat Hillary Clinton by 5 percentage points. And now his poor numbers may impact Republicans in other races — giving Democrats a big advantage in Colorado.

It was similar conditions that led to a major blue wave two years ago, pollsters and political observers say. In 2018, a poll from Magellan Strategies in Colorado found that more than a third of voters wouldn’t vote for a Republican Party candidate because of their opinions on Trump.

Poll tracker: Donald Trump approval rating in Colorado

How Colorado voters have ranked President Donald Trump in approval polling. Hover or click on each point to see more about each poll. Click here to visit The Sun’s Poll Tracker page.

“They should be concerned because if Trump doesn’t find his legs in this campaign and show some momentum, it could cost Republican candidates in Colorado without question, just like it did in 2018,” said David Flaherty, the CEO and founder of Magellan Strategies, a Republican-leaning polling firm in Colorado.

In a recent interview, Jefferson Thomas, Trump’s campaign director in Colorado, questioned the polling numbers and suggested they inflated potential turnout of unaffiliated voters — a point disputed by other Republican analysts who expect these independent voters to turn out in droves this November.

The GOP is focused on its statewide organizing to drive support for Trump, but Democrats outnumber Republicans in Colorado and polls show unaffiliated voters dislike the president. 

Samantha Zager, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said she thinks Coloradans will change their point of view once they find out Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s position on fracking and health care. Biden said he supports a moratorium on new oil and gas drilling permits on public lands but not a complete ban on fracking. He also supports a public option for health care and lowering the eligibility age for Medicare to 60.

“President Trump has been a consistent, steady leader for the people of Colorado for over three years as he’s strengthened the economy and created jobs,” Zager said in a statement.

Neither Trump nor Biden have spent much money on campaign advertising in the state, a reflection of the fact Colorado is not a top-tier swing state leading up to November.

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On the Democratic side, how Colorado voters view Biden, the former vice president, is less clear. There have been only two polls looking at his image in Colorado since he became the nominee after rival Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic primary in April. An early May poll showed Biden in negative territory with higher disapproval ratings than approval. A more recent survey by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling shows him with a 46% approval and 42% disapproval. 

When it comes to a head-to-head matchup against Trump, Biden has averaged a double-digit lead in Colorado since May. Two polls from late-July show him up 13 percentage points against Trump.

Poll tracker: Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden

How Colorado voters have ranked President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in head-to-head polling. Hover or click on each point to see more about each poll. Click here to visit The Sun’s Poll Tracker page.

“If you were casting someone who is as ‘un-Trump’ as possible — not white, not an old man, doesn’t have a problem with his treatment of women, is not racially insensitive — you would not come up with Joe Biden,” Bickers said. “But they may win just because he is not Donald Trump.”

Those June poll numbers are holding true, as Biden’s head-to-head ratings with Trump show him with more than 50% of the vote as of July 26.

Even with Biden’s solid lead in Colorado months from Election Day, the Democrat’s campaign is adding staff and ramping up efforts to win the state. 

Ernie Apreza, state director for the Biden campaign, said he considers Colorado a battleground, even though the numbers are pointing toward another blue election. “We are not taking anything for granted. I was here in 2016 and we are going to work in every corner of the state,” Apreza said.

The dynamics driving Trump’s weak poll numbers in Colorado are evident to pollsters, who point to demographic changes and cemented public opinion about the president. 

Flaherty at Magellan Strategies said the younger generation of voters, ages 18 to 34, are going to have a historic turnout for an unprecedented election. The social justice movements across the nation and the global pandemic this summer are taking a toll on Trump’s disapproval rating, which spiked in early June. 

People are tired of criticism and the negative tone that the president’s known for and his handling of the coronavirus crisis, Flaherty said. “Where it goes from here, we’re all watching,” he added.

A wildcard is one of the newest names on the state ballot, rapper Kanye West. His campaign could lure votes away from Biden and help Trump, who is an ally of West.

Bickers thinks that if West has any momentum in the state, it would be with the younger generation. They’re a more mobile population of voters, with weaker party ties. Bickers said he hasn’t seen a surge of support for Biden among students.

With less than 70 days until Nov. 3, much could still change given the unprecedented political and social environment. But Trump is not inspiring confidence, analysts argued. 

“You can see from some interviews, when he’s asked what a second term looks like and his inability to answer is pretty glaring,” Flaherty said. “There’s no Republican or Democrat nominee that hasn’t been able to answer that question in August of an election year.”

In Flaherty’s opinion, most voters have already made up their minds about who they will vote for. And Trump’s image, as reflected in Colorado polling numbers, has broader ramifications.

“He’s setting the tone for what the Republican brand is,” Flaherty said. “I think that’s more fascinating, too, because the presidential election is a closed book in our state.”