Denver, CO
Dinosaur footprints, fossils discovered “in our own backyard” in Broomfield

BROOMFIELD — Past fields of yellow wildflowers, tall grass and prairie dog burrows, an Adams County geology teacher, four of his students and the Broomfield mayor huddled around the fossilized footprint of a horned dinosaur that roamed this land some 70 million years ago.
“To have this in our own backyard,” Mayor Guyleen Castriotta said. “You can’t beat it.”
The Friday afternoon field trip was the result of Northglenn High School geology teacher Kent Hups stumbling across dinosaur fossils about three years ago while out scouting.
Hups is a researcher with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science who has excavated fossils throughout the West for decades. During the height of the pandemic, he stayed closer to home and took his high school geology students on virtual walks around his community hunting for natural treasures he could share with them over Zoom.
That’s when he first found dinosaur fossils on Broomfield open space, adjacent to a suburban neighborhood. To help preserve the area, Hups doesn’t want to disclose the exact location.
“I’m excited as hell,” Hups said. “You do a lot of whooping and hollering by yourself when you find these things. When you find footprints, you’re looking at something that was left by a living animal. To be able to touch that — it’s like 70 million years ago, this thing was alive and stepped right here. I’m stepping in the same place. It’s an amazing feeling.”
Traversing through thick grasses and shimmying up and down steep hills, Hups led the class to three dinosaur footprints, but said there were surely more in the area. The fossilized footprints looked like garden stepping stones jutting up from the grass, a little larger than a basketball with ridges and indentations that Hups explained were the dinosaurs’ toes.
Based on the toe patterns, Hups said it was a horned dinosaur — possibly a Triceratops.
It took a while working with the city of Broomfield to get the proper permits, but on Friday, Hups was finally able to take some students to investigate the area. He handed out plastic bags to the teens — some who had trekked out in Doc Marten boots and Converse sneakers — and showed them how to crouch low to inspect the dirt for bones.
Alanna Santa Cruz, 15, whipped a magnifying glass out of her back pocket as she squatted on the ground, her knees touching the earth through the ripped holes in her jeans.

Alanna is in Hups’ school paleontology club.
“When I was a kid, I was obsessed with dinosaurs,” she said. “I knew all about them and had a bunch of the toys and watched all the movies. I wanted to see what it would be like to be a paleontologist.”
The area they visited Friday was ripe with small fossils and bones sticking out of the ground among rocks, cacti and dirt. Some were more obvious to the untrained eye — shaped like vertebrae, for example — while others could be confused for stones and debris. The pieces of creatures were small enough to fit in the palm of a hand and scattered everywhere, broken into bits after years of exposure.
Students approached Hups with cupped palms full of objects. Sometimes Hups told them they had just found a mineral, but other times, his eyes lit up as he announced they had found bone.
“If you’re not sure, lick it,” Hups said, bringing an object from the ground to his lips and grazing it with his tongue. “If it sticks to it like ice, that’s a fossil.”

Hups’ students looked at their teacher with disgusted grimaces.
“Try it!” he said with delight.
“No, thanks, mister,” Alanna said.
When Hups turned his back, Alanna marveled at an object in her hand, turning it over and over trying to determine its value. She brought it to her mouth and snuck a quick lick.
“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” she said, declaring it a fossil and popping it into her bag.
The class wrote down the GPS coordinates of their finds so they can bring them back later in the year after they’re done investigating them, so as not to disturb the natural resources, Hups said.
Jonah Rotert, 17, was quiet and reserved at the start of the trek, but he couldn’t help but grin as his bag filled with tiny bones belonging to prehistoric creatures. Hups said he was sure Rotert had found a crocodile bone.
“It’s a really cool feeling,” Rotert said. “I’m the first person to touch these in millions of years.”
Millions of years ago, these massive creatures walked where the class stood, Hups said, pointing toward cars speeding down U.S. 287 in the distance.

“I love seeing the modern on top of ancient life,” Hups said.
Next school year, the students will present their findings to the city of Broomfield and come up with ideas on how to educate the public about the land, the fossils and how important it is to report findings, Hups said.
“What did this environment look like all these years ago?” Hups said. “Until we find fossils, we don’t know. What’s most important about them is the story they tell.”
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Denver, CO
Coloradan participating in this weekend’s Donor Dash in Denver says transplantation changed his life: ‘It saved me’

The 26th annual Donor Dash takes place this weekend in Denver, and among the participants will be a Coloradan whose life was changed drastically by transplantation.
A dozen years ago Doug French, 74, was struggling with burning eyes and swelling. He was living with hepatitis C.
CBS
“It didn’t stop me, but it surely slowed me down,” he said.
While he was holding out hope the newer treatments would assist with his situation, French went to meet with the hepatologist.
“He said, ‘If you don’t get a transplant, you won’t survive.’ And I went, ‘Oh, I see. I got this.’ That changed everything.”
French was living in Colorado at the time and was put on a transplant list in Oregon. So he and his wife moved temporarily to Portland and lived in a hotel for four months before he got the call they were hoping for. A recently deceased organ donor had a liver that was a match.
Doug French
“Waking up from that transplant was a miracle. For the first time in years, my eyes weren’t burning from hepatitis C,” French said.
French recently celebrated 10 years since receiving his new organ, and with his body functioning at a higher level, he has lost 110 pounds.
He has always been an avid scuba diver, and in addition to making it easier for him to do one of his favorite hobbies, his new liver has allowed him to take other activity levels to new lengths. He completed his first half marathon in April. That was something he wasn’t even thinking about prior to his transplant.
“Was it even on the back of your mind: ‘One day I’m going to do a half marathon?’” CBS Colorado’s Michael Spencer asked French.
“Oh no, no, no,” said French, who jogged with his nephew-in-law. “During that particular time, I kind of like draw a blank about my life and about my future. I had no idea what was next. It saved me. And I’ve I can’t say enough about how grateful I am,” he said.
Doug French
The Donor Dash takes place on Sunday at Washington Park. CBS Colorado is a sponsor of the event and Spencer serve as the emcee of the event. Find out how you can register for the event or help the Donor Alliance at donoralliance.org/donor-dash/.
Denver, CO
Mayors of Denver and Aurora discuss a possible truce as they face growing economic challenges

The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce held its State of the Cities event Wednesday, just days after releasing a new report that shows a slowing economy in Colorado.
The report, by economists at the Chamber and Boulder Leeds School of Business, finds unemployment and foreclosures are up year over year while consumer confidence and home sales are down. The one bright spot is jobs, which are up .1%.
The mayors of Denver, Aurora and Northglenn say they are feeling the shift.
“Our sales tax in Northglenn is down,” said Northglenn Mayor Meredith Leighty. “In May, we’re looking at a decrease of 2%.”
The mayors assured the Chamber’s small business owners they were doing what they could to help. They say the lack of affordable housing is among their biggest challenges.
“Right now, the cost of materials is going up, the cost of land is going up, and the cost of labor is going up,” said Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.
He says the city is giving tax breaks for middle income housing projects. Northglenn just opened a new townhome complex and senior living facility.
Coffman says he’s focused on redeveloping 30 blocks of Colfax Avenue.
“Transitioning back from retail over to multi-family residential — a mix of market-rate housing and affordable workforce housing.”
Economists at the Denver Metro Chamber say while Colorado ranked among the top states in real GDP, employment, income growth, and home price appreciation from 2008 to 2023, it ranked among the bottom 10 states in 2024.
If a cooling economy isn’t troubling enough, an icy relationship between Coffman and Johnston is complicating things further.
Johnston shrugged off the year-long standoff.
“There is no distrust, is no damage. My door is always open,” he said.
Coffman vehemently disagreed.
“There is an issue and there is distrust,” he said.
Aurora sued Denver saying it violated their mutual aid agreement during the George Floyd protests and then sent gang-affiliated migrants to Aurora.
Your Political Reporter Shaun Boyd, who moderated the event, ask the mayors what it would take to bury the hatchet. One suggested quarterly meetings that include the mayors and their top staff. The other agreed.
The Chamber’s State of the Cities event included more than 400 business and community leaders and focused on collaboration — not only between cities but between local government and the business community.
Denver, CO
Denver Broncos, first-round pick Jahdae Barron agree to rookie contract

DENVER — The Denver Broncos’ rookies report to training camp on Wednesday, and first-round draft pick Jahdae Barron will be there.
Denver7 Sports has confirmed the reports that Barron agreed to terms on his rookie contract Tuesday night. It’s a 4-year deal worth about $18 million, with a signing bonus of $9.8 million.
Denver Broncos
Broncos select Texas cornerback Jahdae Barron with pick No. 20 in NFL Draft
Barron is projected to be the Broncos’ starting slot cornerback on a defense that’s projected to be number one in the NFL.
That leaves one Broncos draft pick left unsigned: second-round pick RJ Harvey.
The running back is one of 30 second-round picks across the NFL still unsigned. The holdout comes after the Cleveland Browns and Houston Texans gave their second-round picks fully guaranteed contracts.
We’ll see how quickly this gets resolved and when Harvey gets into training camp.
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