The highs ... and an awful low

It's finally stopped snowing, after keeping at it all day yesterday. Six inches of fresh snow on the ground in front of the house. The Mancos Snotel, located at 10,000 feet, shows a snow depth this morning of 58.3 inches, up four inches from yesterday's reading before dawn. Good new for the Mancos Mush.

That's not much comfort, though, in the face of news yesterday that one of the SWOS students and her mother were killed Saturday in an auto accident out near Naturita. Kai Craig and her mother, Suzan Greefkens, were on their way to Denver, where Kai was to receive the Golden Key Award in a state ceremony for her 16-minute animation. The roads were icy and that seems to have been a key factor.

Kai had just been featured in a Cortez Journal story about local Golden Key winners. 

Southwest Open School is a close-knit community, and "community" is the focus. To my knowledge, we haven't had a student death before and this is a very heavy blow to that community. So, Sandy and I are going over to SWOS this morning to help in any way we can. This is likely to be a long, teary, wrenching day. When I heard the news, I just wanted to look up into the sky and ask, "Why?" Not for us to know, I reckon. TV