This summer, I’m planning to send my only child, who is 13, to visit relatives for a week in St. Louis.
By herself. On an airplane.
It’ll be a giant step in her life, a move toward more personal responsibility and independence. (And a giant step for me to let her go, untethered. She’s my baby girl, after all. Sniff, sniff.)
It’ll also be an introduction of sorts to society at large, without my hovering and not-so-subtle reminders. Will she behave on the plane? Will she say “thank you” and “please”?
It’s when I’ll find out if the work I and her dad have done up to now, grooming her for the world, has taken. How she behaves during that flight and at my nephew’s house will reflect on us as much as our daughter.
That’s the sort of feeling I get when introducing new panels of Colorado Voices writers each year. No, really, hear me out:
Those of us here in the editorial page department who run this contest each year sort through hundreds of impassioned appeals from writers who want to be chosen to pen commentaries.
This year, there were more than 250 of them. We take each very seriously, and have as many as nine judges review their work. We know this means a lot to the people who enter.
But it also means a lot to us. We are asking these writers to represent their communities. We are offering to shepherd them over the next year, to help sharpen the focus of their ideas, improve their writing, and then put them out in front of hundreds of thousands of Denver Post readers.
It’s their introduction to the Denver Post society at large, if you will. They will be in your home, on our pages, and thus their work will reflect on us as much as it will on them.
That’s a big deal, in our minds.
And when they take that first step, like Eva Syrovy does on Page 1 of today’s Perspective with her first Colorado Voices column, we hope you recognize their respect for the written word, and for our readers, and that you will appreciate what they have to say — even if you won’t always agree with it.
So here they are. I’m praying they — and, of course, my daughter — all have a safe trip. Sniff, sniff.
Barbara Ellis (bellis@denverpost. com) is the editor of the guest commentaries and coordinator of the Colorado Voices program.
DAVID BECKER, Pueblo
Becker is the owner of an Internet bookstore who reviews science and religion books for Publishers Weekly. He has a master of divinity degree earned after a long career in real estate development and sales. “I do not own a cellphone and watch both CNN and Fox News,” he says.
DANIEL BRIGHAM, Louisville
After 11 years of teaching at the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Program for Writing and Rhetoric, Brigham now is moving into educational consulting and corporate communications. He is interested in the rhythms of small-town life. “Sound is so subtle we forget its impact.”
KRISTA COX, Silt
Cox is a twentysomething who “managed to graduate from Rifle High School without contracting an STD, mono or a pregnancy. In this rural area, graduation without procreation is an aberration.” She works in the lumber industry and urges everyone to build on the Western Slope.
AMY DEARMORE, Centennial
Dearmore is the mother of two young children who works part-time as a case manager for Longterm Care Options and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. In her application, she said she wants to “find beauty in the mundane and significance in the ordinary.”
MARGERY FRIDSTEIN, Highlands Ranch
Fridstein was as a psychotherapist in Aspen for 20 years before she and her husband moved into a continuing care residential community in 2008. She calls it “either a group home, an institution or life on a permanent cruise ship.” Her work has appeared in The Aspen Times.
FORDRENA GRIFFITH, Aurora
Griffith was born in Gulfport, Miss., raised in Hope Mills, N.C., and was “spiritually reborn” in Fukui, Japan. She works in a bookstore, teaches music and “aims toward common ground” in her writing. “As a teenager, I dreamed of changing the world — with words,” she writes.
JONAS HOGG, Denver
“If H.L. Mencken and Dave Barry had a baby, it would be very, very ugly and maybe write like me,” Hogg writes. He was in the Army, spending two years in Germany and six months in Kuwait, before returning to the states to get his degree at Kansas State University.
STEVEN KEETON, Denver
Keeton says he is “part of the generation that has straddled the gap between cellphones and rotary phones, 3D television and television dials, e-mail and snail mail.” He holds a degree in dance, and was a professional dancer (“a large leap for a boy from Middle America,” he writes).
KRISTEN KIDD, Highlands Ranch
Kidd is a single mother of two boys who has worked as a radio and television news writer and producer in Denver and Los Angeles. She’s working on a screenplay about a 1930s gangster and gun moll and is hoping to return to work after a period of full-time motherhood.
IMANI LATIF, Aurora
Latif is the founder of It Takes a Village, a non-profit that works to reduce the risk of HIV and helps care for African-Americans with HIV. She grew up in the south Bronx, and worked for the New York City Health Department. “Writing,” she says, “has been my source of strength.”
KERRY MARTIN, Greenwood Village
“I think The Denver Post needs a cocky, obnoxious little kid like me to be the voice of tomorrow’s adults,” Martin told us. The junior at Cherry Creek High School says he “has faith in my generation” and wants to give our readers some assurance of that fact.
JEANNE NOTT, Denver
Nott is a student at The Women’s College, and is a newlywed at 60. She performed standup comedy while in her 20s, was on “America’s Funniest People,” and has written material for Soupy Sales. She utilized those skills to land a job with Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm.
MARK SANDSTEDT, Grand Junction
For 22 years, Sandstedt has traveled the Western Slope as a pharmaceutical rep. His wife is a sometimes retired school teacher. One son is a political science major at Fort Lewis College and another is in the Marines. “It’s amazing we all ate dinner together for so many years in peace,” he says.
EVA SYROVY, Colorado Springs
Syrovy is an emigrant from the Czech Republic, and a middle- school special education teacher. Her work has been published in The Post, as well as in the Colorado Springs Business Journal and aired on KRCC, the Springs’ public radio station.
ELAINE VANDER JAGT, Denver
Vander Jagt specializes in helping government agencies communicate effectively with taxpayers. “My life is right out of ‘The Blind Side,’ ” she wrote, “with a few exceptions: I’m not blonde or rich and my daughter will not become a star football player. But we have each other’s backs.”
RYAN WHEELER, Parker
Wheeler is a junior at Ponderosa High School who is spending his senior year in Italy on an exchange program. From there, he says, he hopes to provide Denver Post readers with a unique perspective on issues like Europe’s opinions of Barack Obama and the World Cup.
