Westside Pioneer Home Page

Reprising the Pioneer’s top stories... and some folks we lost

       Below are listed the top “stories of the year” for each of the 15 full years the Westside Pioneer was in operation:
       2004 - Red Rock Canyon Open Space. (This was the year that 790-acre property, which City Parks purchased in 2003, opened to the public.)
       2005 - CDOT Highway 24 study. (This would continue until 2012 and cost $8 million; none of the federally approved project aspects have been funded or scheduled to date.)
       2006 - COSMIX. (This was a $150 million project that widened I-25 to six lanes through Colorado Springs and replaced several interchanges.)
       2007 - COSMIX/Cimarron. (The featured COSMIX aspect in 2007 was the closure of the Bijou/I-25 interchange for nine months while the new bridge was being built.)
       2008 - Coronado High School's new auditorium. (This project had become an ordeal of time and cost overruns, but a packed house applauded its opening that September.)
       2009 - District 11 closures. (Marking the end to the Westside's tradition of small public elementaries, District 11 closed Pike, Whittier and Washington schools.)
       2010 - Westside Community Center. (In agreeing to run the Westside Community Center on a contract with City Parks, the Woodmen Valley Chapel became the first private entity to do so, paring costs with the help of numerous church volunteers.)
       2011 - Coronado state wrestling title. (The school's first ever in this sport - made even more impressive because the team chose to compete at a big-school level, although it didn't have to.)
       2012 - Waldo Canyon Fire, (The devastating effects of this deadly fire are still being felt in terms of flooding.)
       2013 - Coronado's first-ever state football title. (A storybook season, with amazing comebacks, after being winless only two years earlier.)
       2014 - Building construction and redevelopment. (Signaling a surge of Westside private projects that continues to this day.)
       2015 - Cimarron interchange and Fillmore interchange at I-25. (After years of refining plans and seeking funds, both projects were seen as key to the city - especially Cimarron, which is the main interchange for the downtown and Westside.)
       2016 - Cimarron and Fillmore interchanges. (Fillmore opened that year; Cimarron the next.)
       2017 - Bancroft Park. (An unsolved arson fire damaged the bandshell. Repairs in 2017 are being followed by a park reconstruction project in 2019.)
       2018 - Westside Avenue Action Plan. (A complex, expensive project to massively upgrade the “no man's land” section of Colorado/Manitou Avenue; it's due to finish this year.)
       In memoriam
       The following admirable individuals were lost to the Westside between 2004 and 2018: Richard Beidleman, Duke Boswell, Ron Buchanan, Dale Case, Jim Corcoran, Ira Current, Bev Disch, LaRue Ebersole, Don Ellis, Leland Feitz, Jay Flater, Bonnie Frum, Tom Hendrix, Mark Hesse, Irving Howbert, Patsy Hughes, Neil Luehring, T.J. McGinty, Ed Nuccio, Tom Rogers, Ventura Ruiz, Michael Rust, Donna Scheeter, Jan Simpich, Gene Smith, Fran Staggs and Dick Wolf.
       - K.J.