THE INDEPENDENT

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Indigenous People's Day 2025 Indigenous People's Day 2025

Wednesday, November 12, 2025 | Written by Mya Simon, Photographed by M'iitra Pino

Indigenous People's Day 2025

October rain does little to keep FLC from celebrating Indigenous culture 

Hotels: the new Dorms? Hotels: the new Dorms?

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 | Jimena Lopez

Hotels: the new Dorms?

Back to school! While some Fort Lewis students were making sure they had their backpacks ready to go, others were making sure they had somewhere...

59th Annual Hozhoni Days Powwow
59th Annual Hozhoni Days Powwow

Friday, May 2, 2025
Written by Junior Parrish, Photographed by Donovan Riley and Junior Parrish

59th Annual Hozhoni Days Powwow

An event that brings joy and beauty, Hozhoni Ambassadors and First Attendant said.
Students Test the Waters
Students Test the Waters

Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Nels Christensen

Students Test the Waters

Students take leaps for public health.

Home Away From Home
Home Away From Home

Monday, April 14, 2025
Anja Tabor

Home Away From Home

Exchange students at Fort Lewis shared their experiences. The ups, downs, and learning curves that come with studying abroad.
Listen to your Gut
Listen to your Gut

Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Tiana Padilla

Listen to your Gut

How food insecurity impacts your stomach microbiome


All News

The Coming Storm

Scout Edmondson

Lessons learned from the ‘22/‘23 winter and what could come with the looming El NiƱo.

  At the end of the 2023 winter, the San Juan Mountains, just north of Durango saw a record-breaking snowpack.  According to the National Resource Conservation Service, a branch of the US Department of Agriculture that tracks historical snowpack data, the snowpack in The San Juans topped out at 31.5 inches of snow-water equivalent (SWE) in mid-April. Purgatory Ski Resort,...

Crying Wolf

Scout Edmondson

Colorado's wolf reintroduction has become so emotional, so political, that it's no longer even about the wolves. 

Cover photo courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Wolf 2306-OR runs into the wild after being released by CPW on Dec.19, 2023.  Grand County is a land of wide open skies, snowy mountains that hunch against the biting wind blowing off the plains of Wyoming, and miles and miles of prairie, pine forests and meandering trout streams. It’s home to the headwaters of the Colorado...

A New School is Coming to Fort Lewis College

Julian Zastrocky

Mountain Middle School capitalizes on the "empty" space behind Animas High School.

Fort Lewis College approved Mountain Middle School's request to build a new building next to the recently built Animas High School location. It approved a 420 million dollar budget to help with the building process.  Tom Stritikus, president of Fort Lewis College, is slated to release an email tomorrow announcing the decision formally to the student population. “We are so...

Bones from the Bisti Badlands

Anja Tabor

What it takes to get a dinosaur to Fort Lewis College

A dinosaur skeleton cast and cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex moves onto campus from the Bisti Wilderness Area in New Mexico, also known as the Bisti Badlands. The fossil is being loaned to the college for undergraduate research this semester, professor of geosciences, Gary Gianniny said. But how is the cast coming to Fort Lewis College? The most recent discovery of the dinosaur was found...

Screaming Rubber Band Chickens

AJ Repinski

Contestants test their pain limit for Snowdown glory.

  Contestants and spectators pack into 11th Street Station’s “Screaming Rubber Band Chickens” Snowdown event at 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 2.    11th Street Owner Marcos Wisner prepares a tournament-style bracket for the event. Randomly drawn for the bracket after entering, contestants prepared themselves for several rounds of rubber band slaps all...

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