Today's Features

  Black-belt taekwondo instructor Ken Parks is looking for a few good castaways. They’re the folks he had in mind when he opened Red Rocks Alternative Martial Arts, South Jeffco’s newest dojo that’s a little less Stephen Oliver and a bit more Napoleon Dynamite.

“The ‘alternative’ person gets lost. I kind of sit around the herd and just look for the ones who fall off,” Parks said of the traditional martial arts experience.

Inside a tiny flower shop opening Monday in Morrison, happiness and hope have found a place on the shelves alongside plump roses and ruby-red glass vases.

Christine Knowles plans to open Red Rocks Floral & Gifts on Feb. 1. For her, it’s more than a dream — it’s the best therapy money can buy.

  Ten-year-old Jett Moore was just a bit nervous.

He stood near the entrance to the imposing Denver City and County Building, about to be given a tour of its historic bell system. And the South Jeffco resident seemed far younger than anyone else scheduled to play the bells.

“He walked up to the building, and all these people are going through security, and he said, ‘I can’t do this,’ ” said his mom, Sandy Moore. “ ‘Just look how old everyone is.’ ”

Over the past 40 years, thousands of kids have enjoyed the baseball fields near West Elmhurst Avenue and South Kendall Boulevard in Columbine Hills. But few of today’s young players realize they are treading some of the oldest ball fields in South Jeffco, or that Columbine Hills is one of South Jeffco’s original neighborhoods.

Jim Kennedy, 85, looks back over those four decades and is thrilled that so many children have been able to enjoy the fields that he helped to create in the neighborhood that he helped to build.