My first year with the Neighborhood Gazette began in January 2018. Now in my eighth year with the paper, I wanted to share how I became a writer for it and why I’m still engaged with it. It’s been an up and down journey. The paper survived the Pandemic and underwent a change of ownership but came out better than ever.
Both my wife Laurie Dunklee and I had written for the North Denver Tribune for several years when in December 2017, Cliff Bautsch, the owner and publisher of the Tribune, decided to dissolve it after more than 82 years of publication. That event sent Laurie and I into writing limbo.
Laurie contacted publisher Tim Berland at the Gazette, and we were invited to an editorial staff meeting in January 2018. We didn’t know it at the time, but by late 2017, a type of perfect storm had been brewing.
Bautsch had closed down the Tribune. Berland started talking to [realtor] Jenny Apel who thought he should move in on the edges of North Denver. “I considered buying the Tribune,” Berland said. “I had grand ideas to start distributing on the [western] edge of the Tribune distribution area, to Tennyson Street. I was trying to build neighborhoods, but I didn’t know quite how to approach Cliff.”
Because Laurie and I had written for the Tribune and were familiar with North Denver, Berland thought we could help the Gazette extend its reach into the Berkeley, Sloan’s Lake and West Highland neighborhoods of Denver. During that first editorial meeting, we learned there were two monthly editions of the Gazette, one for the Wheat Ridge/Applewood/Mountain View/Lakeside communities, and one to serve folks living in Edgewater/Sloan’s Lake/West Colfax/Two Creeks.
We contributed stories about North Denver artists, and I brought new advertisers to the paper.
My first story for the Gazette was a profile about dentist and concert pianist Cody Garrison, co-owner of City Roots dental practice on West 29th Avenue in West Highland. Laurie’s first story focused on tattoo artist Andee Liggett, who with five other artists owned Illustrated Gypsy on West Colfax at Perry Street. We became regular writers for the paper.
Guy Nahmiach was at that time a contributor to the Gazette, writing, among many other subjects, about the waste of having a different battery charger for every electronic gadget in the house: “Hey, love the different products, but can we all agree on the same chargers?” (from the February-March 2018 Wheat Ridge edition).
Things rolled along fairly well until the Pandemic hit in 2020 and advertising dollars began to dwindle. Berland wasn’t able to sustain the Gazette through the early months of that rough patch, and publication ceased from spring until October of that year. Guy was considering taking the paper over, but he’d never been a publisher before.
Buying the paper would be a huge decision. Guy sought our counsel on whether to make that decision. He understood the value of a neighborhood newspaper and was unwilling to let the Gazette die as the Tribune had. He wanted us to continue to write for the paper, and Laurie and I greatly appreciated that. We encouraged him to negotiate with Berland to buy the paper from him.
With Guy’s connections throughout the city, he was the perfect person keep it going, and we supported him wholly. Thanks to Guy’s vision and leadership, the Gazette lives on. Of those who wrote for the paper in 2018, Guy, Mike McKibbin, Laurie Dunklee and yours truly are still on board.
Although Laurie and I live on the edge of the Sloan’s Lake-West Highland part of Denver, we’ve learned so much about Wheat Ridge through the interviews with numerous artists, musicians, and other subjects of our stories, that we identify as much with Wheat Ridge as with Denver.
I’m a writer, but I’m also a musician and artist. I paint with dry pastels. Because of my interviews with Wheat Ridge artists, I was encouraged to join the Wheat Ridge Art League and wound up serving as its president for one year in 2023.
In the five years under the ownership of Guy, the paper has doubled its size. It is mailed to every home in Wheat Ridge, assuring that each resident has the opportunity to read about important events and measures occurring in their community. Today, as owner and publisher of the Gazette, Nahmiach is still stirring up the pot with his editorials about life in Wheat Ridge. And that’s a good thing.
This is my 65th article for the Gazette. I’d have to say that my involvement with the paper has changed my life for the good. I’m proud to be a part of it. I hope my stories have been as satisfying, entertaining and informative for you, the reader, as they were for me to write.
When I walked into that first editorial meeting in 2018, I had no idea of the effect that decision would have on my life. Decisions are like that. The word ‘decide’ literally means ‘to cut away from.’ They are like one-way forks in the road. Joining the Gazette team was a very good decision. Laurie and I are grateful to be able to continue writing for the paper. It is a privilege to be a part of this endeavor.
