The Denver Post

This was the headline on the front page of the Friday, May 5, 1961, Denver Post. A sample of the story:

15-Minute Ride Ends Perfectly

Steel-nerved Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. rode a rocket into space Friday, exclaimed “what a beautiful sight” as he looked down on the earth, and then dropped to a safe landing in the Atlantic Ocean.

To the 37-year-old Navy commander, the adventure obviously was no more frightening than many earlier flights he had made in hot experimental aircraft.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard’s historic flight aboard his Gemini capsule, Freedom 7.

producermatthew:

NBC News reports the President has decided a photo showing a deceased Osama bin Laden will not be released.

Earlier, a source told ProducerMatthew.com a photo would be released within the next week.

Story developing…

400 8th-graders re-enacted the Battle of Bull Run at Lake Village Park in Thornton, Colo., Thursday morning. (Photo by Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

The Denver Post’s Bill Johnson writes:

It was the eighth straight year of Civil War re-enactment by Century. Jeannie Graeff, an eighth-grade teacher of American history there for 12 years, calls it the “culmination, that one last piece of the puzzle that puts this piece of history together for them.” 

Speaking of Ubaldo, today is the one-year anniversary of the Rockies’ first no-hitter, pitched by Jimenez in Atlanta, April 17, 2010. Here’s the cover of the next morning’s Sports section with our headline, “No-no Ubaldo!”

Denver-native Roy Halladay pitched the second postseason no-hitter in history for the Philadelphia Phillies on Oct. 6. Nearing the end of a great season, which included a perfect game in May, Halladay joined the New York Yankees’ Don Larsen, the only other pitcher to throw a postseason no-hitter. Larsen pitched a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series.

Compiled by Daniel J. Schneider, The Denver Post

Two days later, the lions had landed. Under the watchful eyes of armed Denver police, fork lifts moved their cages onto trailers bound for Keenesburg. The lions joined about 270 other rescued animals at the sanctuary, where they would enjoy 80 acres — “79.9 more acres than they ever had,” according to Jorja Fox.

Today the first of the four prides in the group was introduced to their 20-acre habitat. Females explored first before being joined by the pride’s leader, Bam Bam. The rest of the lions will get to know their new habitats in coming weeks as they adjust to their new lives in Colorado. The pride was chosen to go first because it is especially close-knit, likely a result of spending their whole lives prior to rescue sharing a 6-foot by 12-foot trailer, according to the sanctuary’s executive director, Pat Craig.

Compiled by Daniel J. Schneider, The Denver Post

Scout, a 6-foot-tall fiberglass pinto horse that stood watch in John Hickenlooper’s office while he was Denver mayor, was carried through city streets Tuesday by staff from Colorado Creative Industries (slideshow) to his new home at the state Capitol, where he will continue his watch over now-Gov. Hickenlooper. The horse, on loan from the city, was originally part of the artwork “The Yearling,” by artist Donald Lipski, and stood on a 21-foot-tall chair on the lawn at Denver’s Central Library downtown. (Photo by Joe Amon, The Denver Post)

A more-resilient, bronze Scout was cast in 2008 to replace the weathered resin original at Denver institution Ray Fedde’s bronze foundry, with closed last year. At 74, Fedde said farewell to Fedde Bronze Works after having made more than 10,000 pieces for over 1,300 clients over a period of about 40 years.

Recasting the horse, which stands atop a 21-foot-tall red steel chair, was part of a refresh that included repainting the chair in preparation for Denver’s moment in the spotlight as it played host to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. This refresh even caught the attention of the New York Times. “The Yearling” was commissioned for a Manhattan elementary school but after spending a year in Central Park it came home to Denver in 1998, where, what the Times calls its “deeply cockeyed vision” has been adopted as purely Coloradan. (Photo by RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)

Scout and “The Yearling” aren’t alone, either — much of Colorado’s art is hard to miss. In a 2006 story, Dana Coffield pulled together a roundup of Denver’s and the state’s most prominent big art, including Lawrence Argent’s 40-foot-tall blue bear sneaking a peek inside the Convention Center.

A horse of a different color: Denver’s current most-controversial art piece numbers among the big ones, as well. The 32-foot-tall, blue-with-red-eyes “Mustang,” by Luis Jimenez, stands at Denver International Airport, rearing in defiance just south of the main terminal. Despite loudly-voiced negative sentiment, the statue will maintain its quiet vigil until at least 2013.

Compiled by Daniel J. Schneider, The Denver Post 

Avoid that ticket with modern technology: You can sign up to get an email alert or a text message on your mobile phone a day before sweeping on your street. In 2009, over 400 people signed up to get emails, and people were already signing up for text messages as of April 1 last year.

In concert with the reappearance of the sweepers, new Smart Meters in downtown will allow parking overnight in Denver on one side of the street while sweepers maintain the other side. New stickers and signs will accompany the Smart Meters, and drivers won’t be able to pay on the wrong side of the street Monday through Thursday.

Back in 2008 in South Park, 32 bison were killed and one wounded by hunters on private ranch land. It wasn’t clear, at first, who owned the bison, but later investigators determined that the bison were killed on land adjacent to, but not on, their owner’s ranch. The kill was authorized by the owner of the land where the kills took place, who had been upset about his neighbor’s bison wandering on his property and damaging fences.

Green on steroids: The Denver Auto Show is no stranger to “green” cars but this year is about green cars without the wimp-factor, including a flex-fuel Bentley Continental. We have some great photos of preparations for the show, which The Denver Business Journal says will be the largest ever at the Colorado Convention Center. The Denver Auto Show opens its doors tonight at 6 p.m. (Photo by Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

Last year we reported that clean and green were the emphasis of the 2010 Denver Auto Show, but The Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt were both absent. Both electric cars were much-hyped by the the 2010 Denver Auto Show, but their manufacturers declined to send examples of the cars, which they expected to hit showroom floors by the end of last year.

Also absent was the Tesla Roadster, a high-performance electric car with a $109,000 sticker price whose manufacturer is now suing one of Britain’s most popular television shows, BBC Two’s monumental Top Gear, for misrepresenting the car in a segment that was first broadcast three years ago.

This year, however, both the Volt and the Leaf will be on display. The cars are not yet sold in Colorado, and though they could be by the end of this year, waiting lists for the limited production vehicles are long.

In 2009, the Volkswagen Jetta Clean Diesel won Green Car of the Year at the Denver Auto Show the same week the Obama administration rejected restructuring plans from ailing General Motors and Chrysler, days after the ouster of GM’s Rick Wagoner.

The Auto Show comes at a good time, though: New car sales in 2010 showed improvement over 2009, and a January, 2011, report shows that upswinging trend may be continuing.

Speaking of new cars: In December, that “new-car smell” was cited in court documents as a possible factor in an accident resulting from a driver falling asleep at the wheel. An accident reconstructionist discovered the fumes wafting from the car in question, The Vail Daily reported. On July 3, 2010, the hit-and-run accident in Eagle, Colo., left Dr. Steven Milo injured after he was hit while bicycling. Martin Erzinger, accused of hitting Milo with his Mercedes and leaving the scene, later received a sentence of 90 days in jail and one year of probation in the case. Speaking of fumes…

Gasoline retail in Colorado is running on them. Even though the price at the pump keeps going up, many Colorado fuel markets are among the country’s least profitable. Retailers say spikes in the wholesale cost are coming too fast for them to keep up by bumping stations’ prices. Big-box discounters and grocery stores that offer a discount based on grocery purchases aren’t helping, either, reports The Post’s Steve Raabe.

Last year on March 26, Denver Zoo visitors had their first opportunity to meet Kanani, a baby De Brazza’s monkey born on Dec. 19, 2009. By March she was exploring the spaces in her corner of the Zoo’s Primate Panorama. It is unknown how many of the monkeys live in the wild as they are expert at eluding detection, The Post reported in a story about the baby’s first appearance. (Denver Post video)

In other Denver Zoo baby news, 2010 marked the hatching of baby Komodo dragons, making Denver’s the only North American zoo to succeed in breeding the endangered giant lizards on three occasions. Komodo dragons live on Indonesian islands, and fully grown, can exceed 10 feet in length and weigh in at over 250 pounds.

More monkeys at the Zoo: Kanani’s little brother, Kanoa, was born Nov. 27, 2010, and debuted Dec. 30. The Zoo told The Denver Post in December that Kanoa was already climbing around his habitat and was “very independent and precocious despite his mother’s early attempts to be protective.”

“I’ve been working on a way to float food,” says Ian Kleinman, the owner and sole full-time employee of the Inventing Room, in a story by John Broening that ran this week. As you can see in the video above, Kleinman’s creations marry the epicurean with the Einsteinian using tools like magnets, liquid nitrogen and semiconductors. (Video by Mahala Gaylord, The Denver Post)

Denver’s taste for the unusual doesn’t stop there. In the last week a new coffee shop quite literally rolled onto the streets — on two wheels. The food truck phenomenon is still gaining steam across the country, but the cargo-bike coffee shop may represent the next wave of a business model that has stormed Civic Center with the Steuben’s truck, the Denver Cupcake Truck and more.

Past entrants have included “Alfred Hitchcock’s The Peeps,” “Frankenpeep,” and “Peeps in Wonderland.” You can browse through the complete field of entrants from 2010’s contest in our slideshow.

Volunteers can be the key to saving animals that might otherwise have nowhere else to go in the face of a wildfire that forces evacuations. As the Indian Gulch Fire rages near Golden, Colo., animals forced to evacuate are being taken in by the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. (Video by Lyn Alweis, The Denver Post)

When the Four Mile Canyon Fire threatened Boulder, Colo., and later the Boulder Dome Fire, animals were taken in by volunteers, fairgrounds, pet stores and more.

Once the Four Mile Canyon Fire was under control, Sizzle the Cat was found huddled under a rock inside the burn zone (photos), alive but burned and with his whiskers singed off by the fire. It took a few days, but Morgan (Sizzle was a nickname given by care providers after the fire) was reunited with owner Lori Church.

John Davidson’s Fetch blog offered some advice on how to help displaced pets during the blaze in September, 2010. Keep it in mind if you’re willing to help with evacuated animals during future wildfires.

From the Follow-Up Dept.: Today rescuers finally caught up with a Canada Goose who had been pierced with an arrow. After a month of eluding capture and a move from Washington Park to Garland Park, the bird has been nabbed and is getting the medical attention it needs. Dr. Jeff LaBonde, who specializes in birds, was able to remove the arrow and will see that the goose recovers before being released back to the wild.

The back story: A Canada Goose that had been shot through with an arrow was found in Washington Park in Denver back on Feb. 12 by a liaison for Wild B.I.R.D, Linda Neely. Volunteers spent about 5 days trying to outsmart the wounded bird, who seemed in good health otherwise and was able to fly.

After 5 days of attempts to capture the impaled bird, efforts aided by the Colorado Division of Wildlife, officials decided to back off and give the bird time to recover from several days of eluding captors.

Denver Post videographer Lyn Alweis shot video of the injured Canada Goose and attempts to rescue it early in the story.

One year ago, the Denver Dumb Friends League kicked off their 100th anniversary party with celebrations and treats for people and pets alike. The Dumb Friends League is one of the oldest and largest animal shelters anywhere in the Rocky Mountain region. (Photo by Kathryn Scott Osler, Denver Post file)

This year, the Dumb Friends League will host a two-mile walk in Washington Park on Saturday, May 7, 2011. The Furry Scurry fundraiser helps care for as many as 25,000 homeless pets each year.

Denver ties record high temperature: The mercury hit 74 degrees today, tying a 1966 record. Tomorrow (Thursday) could be another record-tying day with a forecast high of 75 degrees, the record temperature set in 1974. The last time we tied a record it was for the lowest daytime high. On Feb. 8, 2011, we tied a 1933 record for a high of 8 degrees.

In the above photo, Denver man Bob Lowry tries to get a jump start on his summer tan, Wednesday, March 16, 2011, at Cheesman Park in Denver. (Photo by RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)

When did we last break records? On Feb. 1st, Denver set a new record low maximum temperature of -1, beating 1985’s 2-degree record. And on December 14, 2010, the temperature soared to 70, 1 degree more than a record of 69 set in 1924. On Sept. 28, 2010, Denver hit a record high of 92, shattering 1994’s record-setting 89 degrees. (Source: NOAA.gov)

The Capitol’s done was built in the 1800s using mostly cast iron which is now rusting badly. The effort to repair it goes back several years, but lawmakers and citizens have been divided on how to fund the needed repairs. In December, one Colorado lawmaker donated his per diem from an entire legislative session to help repair the dome.

In just under 4 hours, daylight saving time will begin. Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead one hour when 2 a.m., Sunday, March 13, 2011, rolls around.

In case you’re wondering about the bill in the Colorado legislature to end daylight saving time, like @Camiba was when he asked us on Twitter earlier, it was postponed indefinitely in a House committee last month.

Martha Urioste, left, is comforted by C.P. Estes after a news conference Thursday at the Sisters of Color building in Denver, where members of Faithful United called for the restoration of a mural at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and expressed their disappointment with the parish and the archdiocese. The mural is now behind a wall. (Photo by Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)