The Roundup | What would Albert Schweitzer do?

Aspen Journalism is happy to be back in your inbox sharing local in-depth reporting once again. We appreciate your patience with increased emails during our year-end campaign, made successful through your readership and the support of many, allowing us to raise $161,282 through 205 individual contributions and matching funds from NewsMatch and the Colorado Media Project. Thank you! This support sustains our newsroom so we can do what we do best — produce in-depth and investigative journalism that shines a light on complicated topics, building understanding, accountability and community in the greater Roaring Fork region and beyond.

In this first edition of The Roundup in 2025, we share 10 stories that have published since the holidays began, including a new four-part series by Paul Andersen about an effort to recenter the moral humanism of Albert Schweitzer as a pillar of our community. Schweitzer — a physician, theologian and musician — was one of the great philosophers of his day with a selfless nature and prescient reflections on humanity’s place in the universe. So it was a big deal when he came to Aspen to give the keynote address at the 1949 Goethe Bicentennial Convocation, the town’s first cultural tourism event of the modern age which set Aspen on the “mind, body, spirit” trajectory that makes it the unique place that it is today. Yet so much of what Schweitzer and the Goethe pilgrims preached — reverence for all life, nurturing the spirit and an ethic of service — has been buried in modern materialistic culture where luxury “experiences” are paramount. But we must remember that money, fame and power are drawn here because the good, the true and the beautiful set the table. Seventy-five years on from this seminal inaugural milestone, a growing movement feels it is time to refocus Schweitzer as a founding father of modern Aspen and elevate his ideals for the community to emulate.

The second coming of Albert Schweitzer

$100,000 beaver habitat study results are in

Land managers now have more information about beavers and their habitat, following an inventory conducted by White River National Forest staff and funded by Pitkin County Healthy Rivers. The results could eventually lead to projects aimed at improving stream conditions, recharging groundwater, creating habitat for other species, improving water quality, and creating areas resistant to wildfires and climate change — all of which are benefits of beaver activity on the landscape. “At almost one out of five sites, there were beavers actually living there,” Clay Ramey, a fisheries biologist with the White River National Forest, said in an interview with Aspen Journalism Water Desk Editor Heather Sackett. Still, the inventory confirmed that there are not as many beavers as there used to be, and that they prefer certain areas over others.

Monthly support group for Spanish-speaking parents raising children with disabilities

For many Spanish-speaking parents in the valley, the challenges of raising a child with disabilities are magnified when a majority of resources and services are offered primarily in English. To try to bridge that gap, Silt parent Indhira Barrón started the peer-support and resource group Pueblo Azul Colorado for parents and caregivers. Eleanor Bennett visited with Barrón and other Pueblo Azul parents in a bi-lingual reporting effort for our multimedia social justice desk collaboration with Aspen Public Radio.

SCP application date delayed in the face of uncertain future

A federally funded water conservation program in the Colorado River’s Upper Basin is facing uncertainty for 2025 after the bill to authorize funding for it stalled in Congress late last year. Officials will let people know later this month if and when the application process will open for 2025. The System Conservation Pilot Program, which pays water users who volunteer to cut back, was restarted in 2023 as part of the Upper Basin’s 5-Point Plan, designed to protect critical infrastructure from plummeting reservoir levels.

Locals focus on mental health support

The holidays are meant to be spent with family and loved ones, but for many who work in hospitality in our valley, it can mean demanding clients and long hours. That’s why Aspen-based “Hospitality Matters,” which recently became a 501(c)4 nonprofit, is spreading the word about ways for people working at restaurants and other service jobs to take care of their mental health during this time. The group, which is free and open to anyone working in hospitality or customer service, offers peer-support and therapy referral sessions throughout the year. 

New library trustees appointed amid restriction controversy

Amid ongoing controversy over Garfield County’s library board appointment process and whether book restrictions should be considered at the county’s six county’s six libraries, officials received 27 applications for three seats that were open or up for reappointment by the end of this year. A few weeks later, a book fair in Glenwood was hosted, giving away thousands of new and used books in English and Spanish. Although book fair oprganizer Rebecca Percy, a local parent and pediatrician, did not intend for the book fair to be a political statement against book-banning, she acknowledged that with local and national efforts to restrict certain books from libraries, it’s hard to separate an event that celebrates free access to a diversity of books from the controversy.   

Thank you, as always, for reading and supporting the valley’s only nonprofit, investigative news origination.

– Curtis Wackerle
Editor and Executive Director
Aspen Journalism

Follow us on social media and share stories with your community

• Facebook
• Instagram
• X

local. nonprofit. investigative