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Top 5 stories on SummitDaily.com, week of Nov. 17

A Summit Stage bus picks up passengers Oct. 16 at the Frisco Transfer Center on Meadow Drive. A driver shortage has led to late night route cuts, leading to problems for local workers who have come to rely on the service.
Liz Copan / ecopan@summitdaily.com

Editor’s note: Stories in this list received the most page views on SummitDaily.com for the past week.

1. 1 killed in US 6 crash near Keystone

A fatal crash near Keystone shut down U.S. Highway 6 for several hours Thursday morning and kept emergency crews on scene for much of the day investigating and clearing the area.

At about 8:25 a.m., a pickup truck collided head-on with a semitrailer on Highway 6 just off Landfill Road west of Keystone. The driver of the pickup was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the semitrailer was uninjured. The Colorado State Patrol is conducting an investigation into the crash.



Sawyer D’Argonne

2. Snowboard pioneer Jake Burton Carpenter dies at 65

Jake Burton Carpenter, the man who changed the game on the mountain by fulfilling a grand vision of what a snowboard could be, died Wednesday night of complications stemming from a relapse of testicular cancer. He was 65.



In an email sent to the staff at Burton, CEO John Lacy called Carpenter “our founder, the soul of snowboarding, the one who gave us the sport we love so much.”

Carpenter was not the inventor of the snowboard. But 12 years after Sherman Poppen tied together a pair of skis with a rope to create what was then called a “Snurfer,” the 23-year-old entrepreneur, then known only as Jake Burton, quit his job in Manhattan, moved back to Vermont and went about dreaming of how far a snowboard might take him.

“People take it for granted now,” said Pat Bridges, a longtime writer for Snowboarder Magazine, who has followed the industry for decades. “They don’t even realize that the name ‘Burton’ isn’t a company. It’s a person. Obviously, it’s the biggest brand in snowboarding. The man himself is even bigger.”

— Eddie Pells ,The Associated Press

3. Two Mexican restaurants close in Summit County, three more to open

After both Carlos Miguel’s and the Rio Grande recently closed their doors in Frisco, three restaurants serving Mexican food are about to open in Summit County. New owner Ramos Manuel is reopening Carlos Miguel’s as Nuevo Vallarta in Frisco. 

Owners of the new restaurant the Lime at Keystone River Run Village have begun construction in Keystone and the third new Mexican restaurant, El Zacatecano, recently opened in Copper.

— Summit Daily staff report

4. Late night Summit Stage bus route cutbacks to cause pain for some Summit County workers this winter

Impending cuts to the county government-run Summit Stage bus service are leaving some local workers in a bind. The Summit Stage will be cutting late night routes on all of its major lines for the winter, cutting back most hourly routes to every two hours because of a bus driver shortage.

The Frisco to Breckenridge, Silverthorne to Dillon to Keystone, Boreas Pass Loop, Wildernest Loop, Silverthorne Loop, Silverthorne to Frisco and Copper Mountain routes are seeing late night cuts. While it is unknown how many people will be impacted by the cuts, Summit County Transit Director Curtis Garner said the county targeted relatively low ridership routes, which tend to be running late at night.

“I was not quiet about my displeasure when we were first presented with this, but I also understand we’re painted into a corner,” said Summit County Commissioner Elisabeth Lawrence, who oversees the Summit Stage service.

5. Marie Zdechlik was a Frisco local for more than half a century

Marie Alice Renner Zdechlik was born on Feb. 23, 1925, spending more than 50 years in Summit County until her death on Oct. 14. From Minnesota, Zdechlik trained to be a nurse in the Nurse Corps, putting her skills to use in the years following World War II, when polio epidemics hit Minnesota and then later Denver.

After her work in Denver was done, she went back to Minnesota, but returned to Colorado in 1947 to work as a nurse at Climax Mine. While at Climax, she met Bob Zdechlik, a school teacher and ski instructor. They married and started building a home in the then-fledgling town of Frisco in 1954, built with materials salvaged from Climax Mine. Marie and Bob finished building their house in 1958, and settled into a quiet, purposeful life raising their children.

She left a lasting impact on the many Summit County residents who knew her, a wise matriarch presiding with a wry wit and lively spirit.

Deepan Dutta


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