Today's Features

Fleeing on a moment’s notice from her home on Pleasant Park Road was taxing enough for Conifer resident Tracy McCandless. But the task of relocating five horses and a cat caused her stress level to rise exponentially.

Fortunately for McCandless and numerous other residents, volunteer teams of animal rescuers were prepared to help evacuate animals in the midst of the deadly Lower North Fork Fire.

Linda Stoll, executive director of food services for Jeffco Public Schools, received the Silver Leadership Award during the National Foodservice Achievement Management Excellence award ceremony on Jan. 15.

More people are dying every year in Jefferson County because of prescription-drug overdoses, a trend mirroring national statistics that the coroner’s office attributes to increased prescribing of opiate painkillers.

By year’s end, the office predicts, 45 residents will die from unintentional drug toxicity. And though 2010 saw a slight drop in prescription-drug deaths, the anticipated number for 2011 would represent a 73 percent rise over those of 2005.

South Jeffco resident Dean Hinds had a nostalgic surprise waiting for him when he sat down for breakfast on Veterans Day at MorningStar Senior Living — a wasp-waisted, dark-green Army jacket, a relic he had not seen since tucking it away in a trunk when he returned home from Germany after World War II.

His son in law, Bob Jones, had discovered the jacket in his home just days before, and was eager to reunite the garment with its owner.