Welcome Avery!  

This week we are so excited to have someone special visiting us. Meet Avery Lill! You might know her work — or more specifically, her voice — from her time hosting CPR’s daily interview program, Colorado Matters. But this week, she will be guest hosting our very own City Cast Denver podcast! And she’s got some really awesome stuff planned for your feeds 👏👏👏

Meet Avery:

Before joining the team at Colorado Public Radio, Avery was the news director at KDLG, a public radio station in Dillingham, Alaska, where she traveled by boat, bush plane, dog sled, ATV, and snow machine to tell stories about life in Bristol Bay. Currently, she’s working as an independent journalist and audio producer in the Denver area. Here’s a little from Avery herself:

I love to report on: Stories of healing and connection. Some issues close to my heart are mental health and Indigenous affairs.

Favorite place to eat in Denver: Q House. The duck lo mein! The Chong Qing chicken! The cheung fun!

Best book about Denver: “Sabrina & Corina” by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

What Denver does better than any other city: Get excited about big snows! Never stop posting your pet-the-in-snow pictures, please.

A place in my city not enough people know about: Charlie’s 2nd Hand Tool Store. It started in Pueblo in the 1920s. The store has since moved to Larimer Street in Denver, and the original Charlie’s grandson runs it now. It’s a charming mess and has every tool you could need for that DIY project.

👋  Say hello to Avery on Twitter at @averylill 

Other Denver Odds and Ends

💰 “Look, man, I’m an important guy.” Beta nightclub owner Valentes Corleons says that’s all he was trying to imply with his boasts about being a “made man” in the Sicilian Mafia. But the claims, perceived by some city staff as threats over the pending liquor license revocation case involving Beta, are one reason the hearing officer has recommended the city move ahead with taking away the license.  

• Need to catch up? Listen to this episode of City Cast Denver to hear from Corleons himself and get the rundown on what’s going on at the popular LoDo hip hop club. 

⛰️ The “long, emotional journey” to Mestaa’ehehe Mountain: The Rocky Mountain peak formerly known as Squaw Mountain has finally shed its derogatory moniker. It was officially renamed Mestaa’ehehe Mountain after a prominent Cheyenne woman who helped foster peace between Natives and settlers. 

• Tip: Practice the pronunciation.

❄️ It finally snowed! Which you obviously know, if you were out in Denver over the weekend. It wasn’t much, but it did break a historic no-snow streak for the city. 

🚭 Hancock quashes flavored tobacco ban. For only the second time in his tenure, Mayor Hanock flexed his veto power to shut down City Council’s plan to ban the sale of most flavored tobacco products across Denver. The mayor argued the ban is too small — doing too little in the way of its goal to keep tobacco away from young people, and doing too much in damages to small businesses that rely on those sales.

🕊️ Remembering Demaryius Thomas: Denverites are mourning the loss of Demaryius Thomas. The former Broncos wide receiver died on Thursday night at the age of 33. Thomas is remembered by loved ones as smart, warm, generous, and family-oriented.

• In the words of D.T.: We are honoring Thomas’ memory with this heart-wrenching essay he penned about his childhood in 2015.

🎧 LISTEN: Denver’s Special Place in Christmas History: Christmas lights have been a tradition for so long, it’s hard to imagine December without them. Then we heard a rumor that Denver was the birthplace of these magical twinkling bulbs — so we did some digging.