Farm & Craft Market moves to Saturday

Love the weekend? Here’s one more reason to enjoy Saturday: the Norwood Farm & Craft Market is moving from Thursday evenings to Saturday mornings, from 8 a.m. until noon.
Organizers anticipate that the season will run from Jne 7 through September 20, and will again be held at the San Miguel County Fairgrounds. They also expect that this year’s market will be bigger and better than last year. Jen Dabal, the market manager, said that in 2007 there were only four regular vendors.
“We’ve almost doubled that this year,” said Dabal.
San Miguel County Commissioners agreed to waive the fee to use the “Pig Palace” site at the fairgrounds. They also agreed to consider a proposal to operate a flea market in conjunction with the farm and craft event. Dabal said that the vendors hoped that the addition of a flea market, once a month or so, would bring more traffic to the event.
The Board of Commissioners asked for a written proposal, considering things like taxes, parking and other logistics.
“Probably the biggest concern is how you’re going to handle the waste,” said Lynn Black, the county administrator.

Out of the vault
It used to be that if you wanted to research public documents in San Miguel County, like real estate deeds or titles, you would be ushered into a huge vault in the dark recesses of the offices at the county courthouse. Now, all that information is being brought into the light — documents recorded from 1997 until this year are now available online.
The county’s Web site is www.sanmiguelcounty.org, and anyone can access the information.
“There are two ways to search,” says San mIguel County Clerk and Recorder Peggy Nerlin. “At the top of the page you can click on ‘Browse recorded documents,’ or go under Clerk and Recorder, and click on ‘Recording.’ I think this is going to be great for the real estate community and for the public as well.”
Certain records will not be available online, in order to preserve privacy — things like military records, criminal justice records, marriage licenses and election records.
Older real estate documents are also being digitized so that they can be accessed on the Internet. Nerlin said the project will be completed in phases, and that their office is now working backward to include documents from the 1880s through 1997.

Telluride closes door to out-of-district students

About ten percent of the students who attend the Telluride R-1 School District don’t live in the district — they come from places like Norwood and Rico. That could soon change.
According to Mary Rubadeau, the state has an open enrollment law that allows students to attend public school in any district they want, provided that district can accommodate them. Telluride, says Rubadeau, no longer can.
“In the past couple of years, we’ve really been maxing out our classrooms,” says Rubadeau. “We’ve had steady enrollment increases over the past ten years, an average of four percent.”
Rubadeau said that some Norwood and Rico parents choose to have their kids go to school in Telluride because they work in that town and it’s more convenient to have them close by.
“As a parent, I completely understand, you want them in the same place you are. You need to connect with the teacher and the classroom, be in the same community,” says Rubadeau.
She said that the school district had to turn away out-of –district kids a few years ago, before the school expanded and built the Palm Theatre.
“Now, we’re facing that again,” she says.
Rubadeau says that the school is planning to build a new school, to accommodate the growth, but that in the meantime a “handful of kids will be affected.”
“Between now and when we build another school, is when we’re going to have to make some tough decisions,” she says.


Hannigan earns engineering degree

Nolan Chase Hannigan, a 2004 graduate of Norwood High School, has achieved another milestone: He graduates from the Colorado School of Mines on Friday, May 9.
Hannigan, son of Jerry and Becky Hannigan and grandson of Joseph and Velma Hannigan, is receiving a bachelor’s degree in metallurgical and materials engineering, with a minor in bioengineering and life sciences, and a 3.5 cumulative GPA.
He said he plans to take the summer off from engineering before returning to C.S.M. for graduate studies. Hannian will be working on a thesis in biomaterials for the next two years, in a program funded by the college and other contributors.
Hannigan said he is grateful for “all of the individuals that have driven him to succeed, and kept pushing him to achieve more,” and for the “ support and guidance of his family.”