Author: Jakob Rodgers
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Best and Brightest: Faith and leadership define young scientist
Chandler Wilburn is not only senior class president at The Classical Academy in District 20, he is at the top of his class. Additional accomplishments include serving as cadet deputy commander of Civil Air Patrol (a youth leadership program), small group leader and worship team member at his church, and first-rate long-distance runner. Wilburn is…
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Colorado clinic’s prescription for healthier patients: Lawyers
COMMERCE CITY — In her 19 years of living with cerebral palsy, scoliosis and other ailments, Cynthia Enriquez De Santiago has endured about 60 surgeries and her heart has flatlined at least four times. But the most unusual doctor’s referral of her life came last year: Go see an attorney. Enriquez De Santiago sought help…
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Colorado Springs-area children, teens suffer mentally from pandemic pressures
As Lexi Rowland’s schoolwork piled up and her friends down the block seemed like a plane trip away, a serious funk descended on the Discovery Canyon Campus High School senior. Loneliness reached in, grabbed on and refused to let go — even as she realized fellow students were complaining of the same malaise. “My mental health…
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COVID: The Longest Year | A year-long search for answers bedevils ‘long-haulers’ around Colorado Springs
Sarah Linster hiked trails near Woodland Park, managing each with relative ease. She had a fulfilling job. She was an A student in graduate school. Now she’s unemployed, gets Cs and can barely make it up the stairs in her house — her body held hostage by a lingering disease that’s a mystery to scientists…
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Crashes rare, but devastating, for thrill-seeking bicyclists on Pikes Peak
Ann Fox desperately wanted to stop as her bike sped down the Pikes Peak Highway in mid-July. But around Glen Cove — the spot where motorists’ brakes are checked for overheating — the grade grew too steep. Her bike wobbled. “I had never quite ridden with disc brakes, and I couldn’t quite get my speed…
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Colorado Springs churches: Where mask wearing isn’t gospel and defiance of state order is common
The lights dimmed. Guitars thrummed. And a nine-piece band kicked off what amounted to a rock concert inside an amphitheater of a church. “Shout for joy to the Lord,” one musician called out, quoting Scripture. Any such shout could release the coronavirus to congregants. With some 500 people singing along, though, any concern about a…
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Pikes Peak region advocates fear an eviction tsunami is coming
The modest retirement account belonging to Samantha Velez’s family has been reset to zero. Just last month, with the coronavirus pandemic gutting jobs and slashing the family’s incomes, that money was used for something more pressing: rent. “Sometimes, you got to do what you got to do,” Velez said. “For now, we’re looking at the…
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Colorado advocates: Continued sweeps of homeless camps risk further spread of coronavirus
Melody Lewis lives like a nomad in the heart of downtown Denver. Poking her head out of her green tent on a recent June day, the 57-year-old pointed a few blocks away to the place where city crews picked up her tent from a sidewalk median earlier this spring and replaced it with landscaping rocks,…
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Telemedicine booming in Colorado during pandemic, but will it last?
The doctor will see you now — just not in person. Seeking a safe way to salvage what’s left of their plummeting revenues, physicians, specialists and even physical therapists have turned to telemedicine in unprecedented fashion in the past couple months to treat patients during the opening throes of the coronavirus pandemic. Half of some providers’…
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How Colorado avoided catastrophe as the coronavirus hit state
– PHOTOS: Documenting COVID-19 in the Pikes Peak region. During Colorado’s monthlong statewide quarantine, the coronavirus’ spread slowed, deaths climbed, ventilators went unused and unemployment exploded. Which is to say, it went mostly as expected. As life in Colorado begins inching back toward normalcy, executives of the state’s major hospitals and some El Paso County business leaders…