Features

After months of fund-raising and work by volunteers from across the country, the Veterans Monument at Ken-Caryl Ranch was officially presented to the community on Saturday, just in time for Veterans Day.

Most pumpkin patches don’t come with an obstacle course.

Thousands descended on the Botanical Gardens at Chatfield on Saturday for the annual Great Pumpkin Haul, a 2-mile obstacle course in which each competitor carries a pumpkin — or two pumpkins, for the more extreme athletes.

And if carrying a pumpkin or two while climbing over a wall or through a tunnel isn’t hard enough, many participants were decked out in Halloween costumes as well.

Members of the Columbine chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution are paying tribute to their ancestors’ military service by welcoming home the soldiers who serve today.

The local members, along with 22 DAR chapters in Colorado, have been collecting everything from new sheets and pillows to toilet paper and food from the community, said Jewel Wellborn, a Ken-Caryl resident and the Columbine chapter’s regent.

Foothills Animal Shelter welcomed aboard a new chief of veterinary services along with a new executive director last week.

The shelter has named Jennifer Strickland executive director, while Dr. Emily Hays is Foothills’ new chief veterinarian. Strickland, who has worked at Foothills for eight years, was most recently the shelter’s media coordinator. Hays has more than 15 years of experience in animal welfare.

Strickland replaces Heather Cameron, who recently left to become executive director at the Anchor Center for Blind Children in Denver.

Potential recruits for West Metro Fire deployed hose, climbed over and under obstacles and dragged dummies to safety on Saturday at Station 10.

Now they just have to wait 10 to 15 years before applying for jobs as firefighters.

West Metro’s Fire Muster attracted hundreds to the station at South Kipling Parkway and West Hampden Avenue, site of the district’s training facility. Firefighters put on live-fire demonstrations, displayed ambulances and fire engines, and helped the kids run an expansive obstacle course.

Some serious star power was in view on Arapahoe Community College’s Littleton campus on Friday night.

About 40 astronomy aficionados attended the year’s first star-watching party at ACC — an event that gives attendees a closer look at the stars and planets without investing in a telescope.

Jennifer Jones, an astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at ACC, had the college’s 11-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope outside, and as the sun set, she turned the lens toward some spectacular astral bodies.

Morrison is more than 5,000 miles from the German Alps, but over the weekend it proved to be a fine substitute for those seeking the Bavarian tradition of Oktoberfest.

The T.E.V. Edelweiss Club drew hundreds to Morrison for the German autumn celebration with brats, dancing, beer and plenty of German culture.

The club, founded in 1958, has hosted cultural events like the traditional Oktoberfest since its inception to keep alive and celebrate German culture, said Amy Dodd, a life-long member of the club.

Jeffco’s summer reading celebrities were treated to a stylish send-off over the weekend.

The Jeffco Public Library hosted a celebrity-themed wrap party for its summer reading program at the county fairgrounds in Golden on Sunday. Kids and adults who spent part of their summer turning pages were treated to music, magic, a red-carpet walk, and a few famous faces, such as Wonder Woman, Batman and several Star Wars characters.

On a bright Sunday morning, the amphitheater at Red Rocks Park is filled with people working out and jogging in the seating area before an afternoon concert. As visitors walked toward the museum at the Denver Mountain Parks property, they passed a statue of a Civilian Conservation Corps worker representing the effort required to build the popular venue flanked by iconic sandstone formations.