About Town
By Doris Lessenden
This is Holy week, a quote from Matthew 26:54 “When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
It is gone, totally demolished! The Rialto Hotel or more recently called the “Eads Home” on Maine Street Eads. It was dismantled and carried away in long dark trucks whose bucket beds were lined with plastic. The Rialto had quite a history as a good place to live or stay. It was the first home of the famed music teacher, Philomene Trotter Liesen, a home for veterans, and somewhat disabled people as well as out of state wheat farmers who used to come this county periodically. “Ole timers” will probably miss this nice two story brick building. All last week people watched, wondering what was going on behind that tall black wire plastic-covered fence. Sunday afternoon the wind blew it over so we could see that there was only a basement hole left.
The community of Eads was the host to the annual Southeast Colorado Power Association dinner meeting Thursday at the Community Building where the Prairie Queen 4-H Club members were wearing dark green aprons as they served the dinner. The SECPA leaders had a professional comedian from Kentucky come to entertain while people were gathering for dinner. There were a number of positive reports about the electric company is growing business. I was especially interesting in the eight scholarships that were awarded to students in area schools. Shelby Henderson presented a slide show of happenings when she attended the Washington D.C. Youth Tour last summer. Shelby is a senior at Lamar High School. We used to enjoy watching Shelby and her twin sister, Rebecca, when their father, Chris (Karen) was the Eads FFA Instructor. Since that time, Shelby has become a State Qualifying swimmer, a cheerleader, and was on the Lamar State 2017 Championship Basketball team. There was a large number of SECPA and SECOM (internet) staff who came to Eads from La Junta.
The Eads Chamber of Commerce met at noon Wednesday for their lunch and business meeting at J J’s Ranch House where Jennifer and staff serves good specials and homemade pies. Jan Richards of the Kiowa County Economic Development Foundation updated the members about some of the plans for the “Dream Big Aerospace Educational Conference” to be held in Eads Thursday, April 27th. The students from 10 schools will be converging in Eads that day. After they arrive here 10 students will be told who was chosen from the respective schools to get ride in the State Colorado Patrol plane. There will be numerous educational displays, a helicopter, and a drone. The whole block in front of the school will have the long bus of educational stations. The four restaurants, Gas and Grill, J J’s, Love’s, and Subway, will be delivering meals to the cafeteria that will be served by the Eads staff and volunteers. Community members may be able to see or observe some of these excellent speakers and displays if space available. There are lots of volunteers needed to orchestrate this big day that we hope will begin “big dreams” for students who come. If any reader is available to be a volunteer, please do call Jan Richards at her office, 719-438-2200.
How surprising to remember that it has actually been 10 years since we hosted those hundreds of people for the dedication of the Sand Creek National Historical Site Park north of Chivington. Since then we have been enjoying the repainted buildings and the vacant windows that were painted with interesting scenes. Now there will be a three day celebration, April 27, 28, and 29th to commemorate the Park. The Lieutenant Governor is expected to be in Kiowa County also.
Senior Citizens gathered for the monthly Sage Meal at the Center last Wednesday. Then on Thursday many citizens enjoyed the Brunch where Director Gail Voss prepared hash browns with corned beef and eggs to order to compliment the good foods that other guests brought. The meeting room is decorated with pastel colored cloths and darling ceramic bunnies that the ceramic ladies painted several years ago.
It is good to see Bud Bennett’s flags flying outside their home this week. We missed the flags since he was in Denver with his wife, Dixie, who was taken to Swedish Hospital after having a stroke. Bud highly praises the local hospital staff and emergency workers who helped him and Dixie (Weber) through this crisis in their lives.
Betty Crow came back home! Dave and Charla Wall went to Arizona to see their sister-in-law, Renee Wall, who is in a care home and came back with Betty to Eads.
Alicia James graduated from college last spring and is now working at a government office in Eads. We saw her building a really fine tall privacy fence and a shorter picket fence around her yard of her new home. Some of us remember this as the former home of Maxine Mays. Alicia’s father may have helped her some, but she also is a very competent working ranch girl.
High school and middle school sports are in full swing with parents and grandparents traveling to watch baseball and track meets. Some meets have been re-scheduled because of rain. We are fortunate to have five student athletes from Kit Carson to play with our team. Sophomore, Hadley Rittgers had the opportunity to play with the Cheyenne Wells Golf Team.
The Crow Luther Cultural Events Center Board is very grateful for the long diligent hours of repair work by Brandon Hoffman to repair their 1947 pop corn popper for the Theatre. This winter we have borrowed a pop corn popper. We say a Huge Thank You to Brandon Hoffman. A new offering soon at the Plains Theatre is that the CLCEC has invested in a new machine for hot buttered pop corn. Since Secretary, Laurie Musgrave, arranged to have the lovely red velvet theatre seats commercial cleaned last week, we surely do hope people will use their napkins or I suggest wipe their fingers on their jeans.
This is Holy Week. CLCEC will not have an egg hunt this year but families could choose to go to Kit Carson Saturday afternoon to the Alive Church site for egg activities.
