MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2011 Vol. 131, No. 186 The Voice of Salida and the Upper Arkansas Valley 50 cents

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Mostly sunny, becoming partly

cloudy.

Mountain Mail wins four press association awards

See page 3

Spartan boys basketball team repels Savage attack

See page 7

Forecast

DENVER – The Demons claimed two state crowns and the Spartans fell shy in the finals at the wrestling State

Championships held Feb 17-1 in Denver.

Buena Vista senior Corbin Bennetts won his third consec-utive championship and team-mate Oliver Reed claimed his first.

Salida senior Clint Myers lost his final round at 215-pounds by one point settling for second.

Spartans placed ninth as a team last season, but of five wrestlers competing at state

this year, Myers was the only competitor to place.

In the championship Myers experienced his first defeat in two high school seasons to

Bennetts wins title

U.S. 50 between Cañon City and Salida reopened at 12:20 p.m. Sunday after workers finished removing rockslide debris that buried the high-way west of Cotopaxi Valen-tine’s Day.

Kiewit Construction fin-ished loading trucks about 11 a.m. Chuck Kline, Colorado Department of Transporta-tion maintenance supervisor of Pueblo, said.

The road was inspected and found in good shape before reopening.

“There was nothing we could patch but a few scrapes in the road,” Kline said. “We will come back over that (later) with an asphalt over-lay.

Cold prevents application of asphalt during the win-ter. Kiewit Construction will do the work when it’s warm enough, Kline said.

“We didn’t realize there were so many large rocks in the slide,” Kline said.

A hammer drill and dyna-mite were used to break large boulders. The biggest rock was more than 20 tons – “big-ger than a pickup truck,” Kline said. “A lot of 2-8 ton rocks we had to break. On the big ones our hammer drill wouldn’t break we had to use dynamite.”

Rock from the slide was hauled about 12 miles east of the site and stored on state property. Kline said the slide had no effect on the Arkansas River.

He said the department and Kiewit made a decision early not to attack the rockslide from east and west sides. Because equipment arrived from Colorado Springs and Pueblo, cleanup was worked from the east side.

“It may have been faster (to work on it from both sides) but we were using dynamite and safety was a concern,” Kline said.

“Overall it went well. I know it was an inconvenience to everyone. But there were no incidents or accidents during the work. Thanks for being patient with us while we got it done.”

U.S. 50 opensby Paul J. GoetzMail Managing Editor

Photo by Kevin Hoffman Buena Vista senior Corbin Bennetts embraces his coach, Jared Todd, after winning his third consecutive wrestling title at the 3A Wrestling State Championships Saturday at the Pepsi Center. Bennetts and teammate Oliver Reed won championship titles; however, the victory eluded Salida senior Clint Myers who lost a 3-2 decision to Berthoud’s J.T. Pickert.

by Kevin HoffmanMail Staff Writer

Please see PICKERT, back page