We Are Chaffee Podcast

Adam Williams ties a bow on the We Are Chaffee podcast in this episode, talking once more with Andrea Carlstrom, who, as director of Chaffee County (Colo.) Public Health, has supported the show for the entirety of its more than three years and nearly 100 episodes.  They talk about the value of community stories, resiliency and advocacy, and the new programs within the larger We are Chaffee storyte...

Becca Williams wears many hats in the tech world these days, including being the founder of the startup Menopausey , which, as the name suggests, is related to perimenopause and menopause. But she’s also been a newspaper and magazine photojournalist and owned a wedding photography business. She’s been a high school Spanish teacher and a middle school art teacher. She’s traveled in the world extens...

Dr. Erika Altneu, geriatrician, talks with Adam Williams about the art and science of geriatric medicine. They talk about how she helps her patients pursue a good life and, when it’s time, a good death. They talk about the community connection and creative problem-solving that accompanies being a physician in a small, rural community versus a large urban area like Denver, which has more resources....

Tommy Gram-Ahlene owns and operates two outdoor adventure businesses in the Arkansas Valley (Colo.): Whitewater Attainment and BV Mountain Adventures. He has built an extraordinary outdoor life and career resume during the past 20 years. He has become a go-to resource and instructor far beyond the valley, too, including teaching swiftwater rescue, kayak instructor training, packraft instructor tra...

Melanie Roth is a historian who has been a huge part of historic preservation efforts in the Buena Vista, Colo., area, working on many projects during the past nearly 50 years. She talks with Adam Williams about the history of St. Elmo, now known as a ghost town. One of the last full-time, year-round residents of St. Elmo was Melanie’s godmother, Annabelle Stark, who would go to town in October an...

This is Adam Williams’ annual summer update episode, where he catches his breath in the recording schedule and takes a few minutes to summarize where the podcast has been and where it’s going.

Nathan Ward is the Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker behind “The Rider & The Wolf,” which dug into the legend of mountain biking innovator Mike Rust — and his mysterious disappearance and death. Nathan also is a writer and photographer who has spent many years roving the farflung corners of the globe, in pursuit of adventure and stories. He talks with Adam Williams about some of the inf...

Lara Richardson is a rancher in Salida, Colo., and author of The Table, a memoir that dives into her and her family’s life on the ranch, growing hay and raising cattle, and connecting deeply as a multigenerational, extended family. She talks with Adam Williams about The Table. They also talk about the daily risks and rewards of working on the ranch, and how constant learning and innovations are cr...

John and Coleen Graybill, of the Curtis Legacy Foundation, are doing their “life’s best work” in retirement. Through the Foundation, they are focused on raising awareness of indigenous peoples and their cultures. They use the iconic work of Edward Curtis, John’s great-grandfather, to do that. They talk with host Adam Williams about their own lives in photography, as well as Curtis’ life more than...

MaryAnn Longwell had accrued a wealth of life experience when she made a career change in her early 50s. After years of teaching science and Spanish, she became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and counselor.  She talks about the shaping influences in her life: her early years growing up in a blue-collar family in Bethlehem, Penn., with Ellis Island immigrant grandparents; how John F. Kennedy ins...

Reed Dils and his wife, Karen, were river outfitting pioneers in the Arkansas Valley (Colo.), in the mid-70s. They owned 4-Corners Rafting, the second outfit to establish itself in the area. Within a handful of years, there would be several dozen rafting companies.  It was a Wild West industry at the time. No rules, no training required, no permits, no insurance. Just put out a brochure, get some...

Johnny Buschmann was a 4’11”, 80-pound freshman at Columbine High School in 1999 when a mass shooting changed his life, and the lives of so many others. He talks with Adam Williams about that day, the aftermath and his healing – from the shooting, from unrelated family traumas and from his lifelong struggles with mental wellbeing.  This is an incredible, full-range human conversation. There are de...

Betsy Dittenber, executive director of the Chaffee County (Colo.) Community Foundation, talks with Adam Williams about her early experiences in nonprofit work and volunteerism in Boston and Guadalajara. They talk about what a community foundation is and how it fosters resilience, and how the CCCF has created a website that is the “Tinder for volunteering” with local nonprofit organizations.  They...

Josh and Maddy Chance were high school sweethearts. The persistent football star and the resistant cheerleader. Over time, they’ve traveled near and far with their shared interests in farming, until deciding to put down roots, start a family and begin building Headwater Farms in the Arkansas Valley (Colo.), in recent years. They talk with Adam Williams about their origin story together, their farm...

Jessica Oatman is an artist, teacher, coach and surfer, among other things. She also has three teenaged kids who have homeschooled their whole lives. As a family of five, they got rid of their stuff many years ago and moved into an RV and then a camper, and took the adventurous road. Jess talks with Adam Williams about the hardships and tragedy that inspired such a live now, live for joy mentality...

Tracy Arthur Kachadourian is a professional mediator and an expert in facilitating conflict resolution. She and Adam talk about how to build more empathetic, accountable and resilient relationships, personal and professional. Among other things. Tracy grew up in a home where conflict and her mother’s mental health challenges led Tracy to live in and out of foster homes for years and, ultimately, f...

Jordan Cunliffe is a soccer coach and mentor to students at an alternative high school in Chaffee County, Colorado. He also is a former Division I university athlete whose drug addiction cut short his career playing the sport he loved more than anything. Jordan talks with Adam Williams about growing up in a non-religious, non-traditional family in a heavily Mormon-influenced community in Utah. The...

Krista Jarvis grew up in communist Czechoslovakia and witnessed the Velvet Revolution. By the time she was a teenager, the country split into two nations: Slovakia and the Czech Republic. She talks with Adam Williams about creativity under communist constraints and the pivotal experience when she became an artist. They also talk about the ways communism affected Krista’s family. Her dad fled to fr...

Gina Lucrezi founded Trail Sisters, the leading women’s trail running organization in the U.S., if not world. This passion extends from her standout running career – track and trail – as a National Champion and 10-time All-American at DeSales University, then as a professional trail runner and as a gold medal-winning member of the 2012 Team USA World Long Distance trail-running team in Interlaken,...

Matt Allen, D.D.S., is a formerly practicing dentist who now is the CEO and co-founder of DifferentKind, a tech venture focused on making healthcare more human.  He talks with Adam Williams about how, having been the valedictorian of his high school class in Prescott, Ariz., he almost dropped out of Pepperdine University only months later, to dive full time into his band in L.A. They talk about th...

David Sorrentino is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and of the U.S. Army. He’s a cyclist who has completed the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route three times, connecting America’s northern and southern borders. He’s an obsessive fly fisherman of more than 50 years. He’s a raconteur who has entertained audiences, well, probably everywhere he’s gone. He talks with Adam Williams about how the gift of tellin...

Paul Andrews is the man with the vision behind The Crossing neighborhood development in Buena Vista, Colo. He talks with Adam Williams about that project, which is committed to 50 percent affordable housing through partnerships with the Chaffee Housing Trust and Chaffee Housing Authority. Paul and Adam also go back to Paul’s roots in small-town England, where he says he grew up on the “wrong side...

Rama Yigit is a baker of Kurdish bread and baklava. He’s a circus performer and a paralegal who helps fellow asylum seekers document their stories. He also is a shepherd and farmer from Kurdistan, a region in eastern Turkey that is not recognized by Turkey. Rama is most of a decade into the process to gain U.S. citizenship as an asylum seeker. He talks with Adam Williams about the how and why of t...

Mike Harvey has been at the heart of the river scene in Salida, Colo., for more than 25 years. As a river guide and a competitive freestyle kayaker, a whitewater park designer and an entrepreneur carving out a market for river surfing and paddle boarding through Badfish, the manufacturing company and surf shop that he co-owns in Salida. Adam Williams talks with Mike about how he and Zack Hughes st...

PT Wood grew up in Boulder in the ’70s, skating and skitching around town. He came to the Arkansas Valley in the ’80s, like many drawn by the river and the skiing, and has been part of the scene in Salida, Colo., since. He and Adam talk about the resilience needed to thrive in mountain town life. For PT, that’s included working as a river guide and a kayak sales rep, a housebuilder and pizza shop...