Fort Collins Coloradoan culture and restaurants reporter Erin Udell's top stories of 2023
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When someone asks me what I like most about my job, I almost always give the same answer: “It’s never boring.”
After a decade at the Coloradoan, I’ve written about a little of everything — education, public safety, breaking news, local government, motorcycle-riding chihuahuas. Even now, as the Coloradoan’s designated arts, entertainment and restaurant reporter, I tend to find myself entrenched in stories that have nothing to do with my beat.
They run the gamut from sad and tragic to quirky and delightful. One day I’ll be chasing a rare calico kitten around his foster mother’s basement laundry room with a camera around my neck, the next I’m touring a 117-year-old grocery store that’s sat frozen in time behind boarded-up windows for nearly eight decades. One week I’m running around town collecting sandwiches for a taste test video, the next I’m calling someone to see if they know anything about their great-great grandfather witnessing one of Fort Collins’ first murders.
With such a wide range of stories worth writing in 2023, it's tough to pick which ones stood out among the rest, but I did by best. Here are nine of my favorites from this past year.
The tale of Loveland's 'unicorn' kitten
A Loveland cat rescue got the surprise of a lifetime when a litter of kittens turned over to them early this year revealed an unexpected surprise. Among the tangle of mewing kitties was an "extremely rare" male calico — males make up just one of every 3,000 calico births, according to the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine. NoCo Kitties, the foster-based rescue charged with caring for the litter, was tickled. "We just thought how incredibly unusual and what fun it is," NoCo Kitties founder Davida Dupont told me. Due to their rarity, male calicos are often called "unicorn cats," according to Dupont. Fittingly, the rescue called the kitten Unicorn while in their care. After receiving adoption inquiries for him from as far away as Nova Scotia, NoCo Kitties ultimately adopted Unicorn to Denver resident Kate Crandall, who had applied for him after losing her beloved female calico cat six months earlier. Crandall also adopted Cooper, another NoCo Kitties kitten Unicorn had bonded with while in foster care. After reporting on Unicorn's discovery and time in foster care, it was a joy to watch he and his foster brother head off for their forever home in June.
My hard-hitting *investigation* into 'The Last of Us'
I've had my fair share of moments where I realized I was taking things a bit far for a story. This year, that moment came as I scanned savvyhorsewoman.com to confirm the average travel time of endurance-trained trail horses — all in the name of journalism, of course. HBO's adaptation of the popular post-apocalyptic video game franchise "The Last of Us" was a bona fide hit early this year, and its fandom was rumbling about the similarities between the show's fictional University of Eastern Colorado and Fort Collins' very real Colorado State University. Given its mascot, school colors and general location, some members of the Fort Collins subreddit inferred that the fictional school could be partially based on CSU. Gov. Jared Polis even speculated about its similarities over Facebook. Using details from the show — and my friends over at Savvy Horsewoman — I calculated how long it would take "The Last of Us" protagonists Joel and Ellie to get from Jackson, Wyoming, to Fort Collins by horseback. I carefully studied each scene when the duo reached the abandoned university. Finally, at the end of my research rabbit hole, I heard back from an HBO spokesperson who confirmed through the show's production designer John Paino that the University of Eastern Colorado was indeed inspired by CSU. So there you have it. All in a day's — er, multiple days' — work. Please don't tell my editor how much time I spent on this.
A look back at 150 years of The Coloradoan
The Coloradoan officially turned 150 years old in 2023. In lieu of a cake, I decided to spend several months obsessing over its origins, history, former staff, old newsroom technologies and its role in the history and future of local journalism. In the end, I poured all that research, dozens of interviews and countless archive hours into a story tracing the newspaper's journey from the day its first edition rolled off the press in Joseph S. McClelland's humble printing shop in 1873 to its many subsequent mergers, name changes, technological advancements and entry into the digital age. The Coloradoan's evolution also got its very own episode on our local history podcast, "The Way it Was." It may sound like a lot, but you only turn 150 once.
Fort Collins history: Listen to these 35 binge-worthy episodes of the Coloradoan's 'podpast' podcast
This list of Fort Collins' most-missed beers
This spring, I spotted an old Sunshine Wheat tap handle bolted to a local restaurant's wall and nostalgia bubbled up in me like you wouldn't believe. Soon, I'd decided to parlay that nostalgia into a story about Fort Collins' most-missed beers. I asked my co-workers and friends what their "one that got away" beer was. I posed the same question to the Coloradoan's Instagram followers, frequenters of the Fort Collins subreddit and brewers themselves. And I sifted through the many — and I mean many — contenders to get to my final list of Fort Collins' 15 most-missed brews. What's even better? I learned that many of the breweries featured on the list bring back some of these much-loved finalists for the odd special release here and there. So you're saying there's a chance, Sunshine...
My deep dive into one of Fort Collins' oldest crimes
In the late 1880s, James Howe seemed to have it all. He was a talented and successful millwright with a beloved wife, Eva, a young daughter, Gertrude, and tidy, picket-fenced home on Walnut Street in bustling pioneer Fort Collins. He was also a violent alcoholic and, after reportedly learning that Eva planned to leave him, he murdered her on April 4, 1888. Later that night, a mob of angry townspeople broke James out of jail and hanged him. He remains the city's only known lynching victim. But that's enough about James. This story centered on someone else entirely: Gertrude. In one day, the little girl became an orphan and footnote in one of Fort Collins' most infamous crimes. Over the years, word or Gertrude's fate became muddled and lost to time. Rumors swirled about where she ended up, what jobs she took and who she married. With so many rumors in the mix, I wanted to know the facts. I spent three months trying to find out — poring over census records and city directories, ingratiating myself with the research librarians of upstate New York and Ohio and calling descendants of those April 4 witnesses. After 135 years without answers, I had become obsessed. It was time to finally unspool the enduring mystery of Gertie Howe.
One of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries (with Fort Collins roots)
When the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened its doors in 2021, something was missing. The museum's Academy Awards History gallery — a gleaming golden rotunda lined with a semicircle of historically significant glass-encased Oscar statuettes — had one glass case sitting empty. It was reserved for Hattie McDaniel's Academy Award, which she won for her supporting role of Mammy in 1939's Civil War-era epic "Gone With the Wind." McDaniel, who lived in Fort Collins for part of her childhood, made history when she won the Oscar, marking the first Academy Award ever won by a Black performer. For at least the last half century, however, McDaniel's Oscar plaque has been missing. It could be at the bottom of the Potomac River, her great-grandnephew speculated, or unknowingly boxed up in storage at Howard University. While the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences ultimately decided to replace McDaniel's Oscar in September, her original award remains missing — cementing itself as one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries.
Our 2023 taste test of Fort Collins' best sandwiches
Which 'wich is your favorite in Fort Collins? That's the question I posed to Coloradoan readers earlier this year when putting together our annual March Madness food contest. After a lot of sandwich news stacked up at the beginning of 2023 — from the much-anticipated reopening of B&B Pickle Barrel Deli to the expansion of Daddy-O's Green Onion into Fort Collins and the debut of Nick's Sandwich Shop — we decided to give sandwiches their day in the sun in the Coloradoan's latest bracket-style food competition. After starting with a field of 32 initial sandwich contenders, our readers cast their votes and Fort Collins' favorite soon emerged as the competition narrowed to one champion. Before announcing the winner, we of course hosted a little newsroom taste test of the competition's final four. God, I love sports. I mean, sandwiches.
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This peek into the past (and future) of a frozen-in-time Fort Collins treasure
For decades, the Emma Malaby Grocery store has stood out along the tidy row of homes on the 300 block of Old Town's North Meldrum Street. For one, the quaint 1881 building is not a home — its wood storefront painted with "Emma Malaby Grocery" in big block letters makes that clear. Its windows have also been long boarded up, leaving passersby to wonder what exactly is inside. This spring, I got to see for myself when the building's longtime owner, Jim Burrill, announced he and his wife were donating it to local preservation nonprofit Historic Larimer County. During a tour inside, Burrill showed me how remarkably unchanged the store remains — its grocery shelves and 1907 wooden frame display cases hearkening back to when Burrill's great-grandfather, Frank Collamer, purchased, moved and opened the store on North Meldrum Street at the turn of the 20th century. One of Frank's daughters, Emma Malaby took over the family grocery store in 1920 and ran it until retiring in 1943. To keep the building’s history alive, Burrill donated it to Historic Larimer County, which in turn successfully nominated it for local historic landmark status this summer. Using state tax credits, a city-run, zero-interest loan program and grants available to landmark properties, Historic Larimer County plans to rehabilitate the building and turn it into a grocery museum and Historic Larimer County's first headquarters.
A look back on the life of Sam's Club's Rick Walberg
While this is a list of my favorite stories of 2023, I have to admit that I didn't enjoy writing about Rick Walberg at all. After all, how can you find any joy in a life being cut short? Late this year, I learned that Walberg — a longtime Fort Collins figure known for his jovial nature, trademark silver braids and longstanding post as Sam's Club's designated local door greeter — had entered hospice care after being diagnosed with stage 3-4 bladder cancer. As a former Sam's Club shopper, I had seen Walberg's smiling face when entering the Fort Collins big box store for years. As a reporter, I was suddenly being welcomed into Walberg's home, where I sat with him and his family as they looked back on his life. We talked about his childhood riding bikes on Fort Collins' dirt hills and fishing for carp in its ponds, his years working at his parents' Old Town service station and tire shop and the muscular dystrophy diagnosis that would change the course of his life starting in his early 20s. Walberg's daughter Brenda spoke of how she could never go anywhere with her dad without him getting recognized from his years as Fort Collins' "tire guy" and, later, "the face of Sam's Club." And, despite facing terminal cancer, Walberg's face stretched into that familiar smile as he regaled the room with stories from a life well lived.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins Coloradoan reporter Erin Udell's top stories of 2023
