Falborn Brothers

A decade ago, the Falborn brothers were running wild across their family’s west Longmont farm. It was a life of chasing frogs, raising sheep, and collecting fossils — their own sprawling universe built from dirt, water, and whatever creatures they could catch in their hands.

Now, the Falborns have traded their cowboy hats for very different callings, each carving out a life that might seem unrecognizable to their younger selves — except, at the edges of every path, you can still see the dust from those endless summers. Whether they’re standing in European kitchens, behind a camera, in a lecture hall, or at the edge of a dance floor, the farm boy is never far behind.

Photos by original photographer Paul Wedlake recreating the original photo shoot

Wyatt Falborn

These days, Wyatt Falborn’s life looks a little different. Now in his early twenties, Wyatt has traded Longmont’s wide-open skies for the tightly packed chaos of Tavernetta, a high-end Italian restaurant in Denver. His days and nights are filled with the clatter of sauté pans and the sharp, rhythmic choreography of the line, a world away from the quiet of the family farm.

Still, none of this feels like a departure to Wyatt. “We always had fresh produce and animals that we had processed, so we always needed to cook a lot, and I just started helping my mom out when I was a kid, and I just grew to love cooking,” Wyatt explained with a smile.

He still plays with food the way he used to, only now the ingredients are more refined and the dirt under his fingernails has been swapped for the burn scars of a working cook. After a stint at Black Cat, where he started as a dishwasher before stepping into the kitchen, the path forward was clear. “At some point, I started helping out in the kitchen and haven’t stopped since,” Wyatt said, matter-of-factly, like there was never really another option.

Wyatt’s ambitions stretch beyond Denver. “I really want to go to Europe. Me and a chef buddy of mine just recently bought plane tickets for a three-month trip out there. We’re just gonna hop around and look for places to work so that we can get visas.” Whether it’s a Michelin-starred kitchen in France or a return to Longmont’s fields, Wyatt is still that same farm kid,  just with sharper knives and bigger dreams.

Satchel Falborn

While Wyatt found his calling in the kitchen, Satchel Falborn found his behind a camera. Now a media production major at CU Boulder, Satchel spends more time than he ever expected framing life through a lens, capturing stories instead of catching frogs.

Photography is his main focus, but filmmaking has crept into the mix, with short films pieced together alongside friends. That same curiosity, the need to see, understand, and document the world around him, is still there, just expressed in a new language.

Most of his classmates know him as a filmmaker and ski bum, not a farm kid. The disconnect between those two identities still catches him off guard sometimes. “Most people have no idea,” he said. “I tell them, and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, you grew up on a farm.’”

He’s swapped daily farm chores for weekend ski trips, but the land still pulls at him. “If I had my choice, I’d go back to it someday,” Satchel admitted. For now, though, he’s content to follow his creative spark, knowing the farm, and all its lessons, will still be there when he’s ready.

Photo by Paul Wedlake

Harrison Falborn

While Wyatt sharpened his knives and Satchel honed his eye, Harrison Falborn stayed rooted in the dirt that shaped him. Now a double major in agricultural education and livestock business management at Colorado State University, Harrison has never really left the farm, even when he’s miles away from it.

He’s still chasing the feeling he found as a kid, steering the John Deere Gator on his dad’s lap, heading down to check on the sheep. “I miss moments like that where I got to slow down and enjoy those times and find something that I truly loved in that moment and not just live through it,” he said.

Somewhere between catching toads in the yard and freezing under the stars during late-night chores, Harrison fell in love, not just with the land but with the work and the life that comes with it. That love carried him through years of 4-H and Future Farmers of America, eventually landing him as a Colorado state FFA officer, where he helped provide guidance to over 9,000 students across the state.

Now, he’s the guy in the cowboy hat at CSU, a living reminder that farm kids do, in fact, go to college. “It’s kind of funny to them that a guy in a cowboy hat is walking around campus,” Harrison said with a mischievous smile. No matter where his education and career take him, that hat will always point him home.

Photo by Paul Wedlake

August Falborn

August Falborn has always been a bit of a shape-shifter, the kid equally comfortable chasing chickens, practicing trumpet, or digging for fossils in the backyard. These days, that adaptability has become one of his strongest assets. Now a journalism student at CU Boulder, August is exploring a future in sports reporting, blending his love of writing with the natural curiosity that made him such a fixture in the fields as a kid. His trumpet, however, hasn’t been left behind. Music is still part of who he is, whether it’s a creative outlet, a side hustle, or just something to keep his hands busy.

The shift from farm kid to future journalist hasn’t erased the call of home. August makes it back to Longmont as often as he can, sometimes every weekend, drawn by the chance to see his parents, brothers, and the ever-evolving cast of animals. “There’s just something about being able to walk out your back door into all that open space,” August said. These days, his third-floor Boulder apartment offers little more than a view of a parking lot, a reality that’s both expected and disappointing after a childhood defined by open fields.

One day, August wants a farm of his own, a place where his kids can roam free, just like he and his brothers once did. Until then, he’s writing his way there, blending the storytelling skills he’s sharpening in school with the innate understanding that every good story starts with a little dirt under your fingernails.

Ethan Frank

Ethan Frank’s story has always been driven by music, the endless conversation between keys, horns, and improvising minds trying to keep up with one another. Piano was never just a hobby; it was a language Ethan learned young and never stopped speaking.

These days, that language has expanded. Now finishing his degree at Michigan State University, Ethan is spending a week in Detroit, rehearsing with the Gathering Orchestra at the Carr Center. “It’s a really great experience,” Ethan said. “We’re playing a lot of music, getting instruction. It’s just a great band.”

At Michigan State, jazz is still his foundation, but the edges have blurred. Composition, arranging, and film scoring have all crept in. “I’ve really gotten to kind of broaden my horizons here and get into a lot of different types of music and a lot of different situations,” he said.

That openness shaped him into a musician who doesn’t draw clear lines between playing and composing. “In jazz, improvisation is just composition on the spot,” Ethan said. Writing film scores just gives him more time to experiment and refine. “I can edit, think, arrange for larger groups, but it all comes from the same place.”

Some of his most surreal moments have come standing alongside his professors, Rodney Whitaker and Carmen Bradford, musicians whose careers stretch back decades. “Playing with them is really special,” Ethan said. “They both have legendary careers, and getting to work with them has been such a privilege.”

Film scoring snuck into his life by accident. A longtime film lover, Ethan joined a campus film club his freshman year. Before long, friends were asking him to score their projects. “That was my way in,” he said. “And it’s grown into so much more than I expected.”

As for what’s next, Ethan isn’t interested in picking a single path. He’s applied to graduate programs in New York and Miami, with an eye on New York’s jazz scene, but teaching, composing, and performing all have a place in his future. “I don’t ever want to do just one thing,” he says. “All of my mentors, they’re all doing a little bit of everything. That’s what keeps it fresh.”

No matter where he ends up — a festival stage, a studio, a film set — Ethan’s philosophy stays simple: “Just show up. Half the battle is being there, building relationships, and being part of the hang.”

Meredith Yacht

When Meredith “Merry” Yacht was first featured, she was a 7-year-old with a big smile, a BraveHood pulled over her head, and a story that stretched far beyond her years. The hooded t-shirts her family created were more than clothing. They were armor for her and countless other kids battling cancer, giving them a little more control over how the world saw them at a time when so much was out of their hands.

BraveHoods reached its final chapter after the family hit their goal of donating 15,000 shirts to kids around the world. Meredith looks back on it with nothing but pride. “I take it as an inspiration to myself,” she said, “to take a bad thing or a negative thing and turn it into something very, very positive.” Building a business with her mom from their own experience taught her what it looks like to channel difficulty into purpose, a lesson that’s stuck with her ever since.

These days, Meredith’s life looks a lot like any other high school senior’s but with her own twist. She’s waiting on college decisions, hoping to head to the East Coast to be closer to family, and she’s spent the last few years fully immersed in her school’s FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics team. “I’m part of the hardware team,” she explained. “I do the CADing and then physically build the robot.” This spring, her team heads to the championship in Houston.

Alongside robotics, tennis has become another constant in Meredith’s life — a sport she never expected to fall for but now can’t imagine giving up. She joined her freshman year, never having played before, and hasn’t put down her racket since.

Being a survivor means living with the side effects — some obvious, others not so much. “It’s really an invisible disability,” she said. “Looking at me, you would never know I had cancer. But we always say, ‘You never stop battling cancer.’” For Meredith, that means navigating severe hearing loss in her right ear, the result of life-saving treatments.

The perspective that comes with all of that — the fight, the recovery, the aftermath — has shaped how Meredith sees her future. Instead of pursuing her passion for robotics, she’s leaning toward law, especially the kind that lets her advocate for people who can’t always advocate for themselves. Whatever comes next, Meredith is ready. After all, she’s spent her whole life learning how to fight for what matters.

The Next Superkids

Aliya Union

For most of her life, Aliya Union let fear take the lead. Not in any paralyzing way, more the quiet kind of fear that makes a kid hesitate, second-guess, and avoid anything that might risk failure or embarrassment. It was familiar and protective, but it was also shrinking the edges of her world. “A lot of her self-worth was tied up in succeeding,” said her mom, Christina Union.

But when her fifth-grade class was tasked with creating a passion project — a year-long assignment meant to explore what they love — Aliya found herself stuck. She didn’t know what her passion was yet, just that fear was always standing between her and the next new thing, so she flipped the whole assignment upside down. Instead of picking a single passion, she became her own project, spending the year facing her fears, one by one. “She wanted to identify as someone who faces their fears,” Christina said, “not conquers them, just faces them.”

Some of the scariest moments didn’t come from sharks or heights but from standing in front of her classmates. “Doing things in front of people is the hardest part,” Aliya said. “Singing, playing violin, speaking in front of my class.”

“She wanted it to be something that could keep going,” Christina said. “A program where every fifth grader faces one fear before they head off to middle school.” Aliya created a hallway display where kids could write down their fears and offer ideas for how to face them. She’s working on a final video, blending her classmates’ clips with her own — not a highlight reel of victories but a messy, honest record of kids stepping into the unknown.

Aliya isn’t trying to become fearless — that was never the point. The point is showing up scared — again and again — until the fear loses its grip. The point is proving to herself, and anyone watching, that fear is just the starting line.

Zack Sadovnik

Zack Sadovnik doesn’t really separate his passions into neat little boxes. Music, math, engineering — for him, they’re all just different ways to explore the same itch: solving problems, figuring out how pieces fit, and getting lost in the kind of challenge that makes time disappear.

A junior at Cherry Creek High School, Zack splits his time between band practice, engineering projects, and the long list of things he wants to try before high school runs out. The ultimate goal? Aerospace engineering. NASA, if everything falls into place. “The whole field is just problem-solving,” Zack said. “And solving problems — whether it’s designing a plane part or figuring out a tricky drum fill — that’s how I connect with people.”

That same drive to tinker and push boundaries fuels Purple Sun, the band he’s been part of for the last two years. Zack jumps between instruments depending on the song — guitar, piano, drums, even harmonica if the mood’s right. “At the end of the day, music’s just supposed to be fun,” he said. “It’s where I get to mess around, try new things, see what sticks.”

Engineering, though, calls for a different kind of creativity — the kind that’s rooted in precision and patience. Zack knew it was more than just a passing interest when he enrolled at Cherry Creek Innovation Campus last year. “That’s where it really clicked for me,” Zack said. “It made me realize I want to design and build things that fly.”

This summer, he’ll be putting those skills to the test at the National Technology Student Association Conference in Nashville. After winning first place at state in the Prepared Presentation competitive event, Zack will also compete in Flight Endurance, where students design, build, and fly rubber-powered planes, and On-Demand Video, a fast-turnaround filmmaking challenge. “Flight Endurance is my favorite,” Zack said. “It’s all hands-on. You’re constantly adjusting, fixing, problem-solving right there on the spot.”

Zack isn’t in a rush to choose between engineering and music. “I don’t think I could give up either,” he said. “Music’s where I have fun, but engineering’s where I feel like I’m building something real.” Whatever comes next — a NASA internship, a packed gig, maybe both — Zack’s more interested in seeing how all the pieces fit together than following a straight line.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post SuperKids: Then, Now, and Next appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Stationed in the Foothills of Northern Colorado, a taxpayer-funded bat breeding ground is in the works. Maintained by Colorado State University, unprecedented bat colonies will serve as a national resource for virus research. 

The project, expected to be completed by 2025, could advance scientific knowledge of virus cures and prevention. However, many are concerned about accidental exposures and ecological issues. Does the risk outweigh the reward? 

“Not only is it a cruel waste of tax dollars, because there’s no evidence that this type of experimentation at CSU or anywhere else has prevented a pandemic or stopped a pandemic from spreading,” Justin Goodman, the senior vice president of advocacy and public policy at the watchdog group White Coat Waste said.”It’s a grift.” 

In 2021, CSU published an article announcing that it received a grant from the National Institutes of Health, a taxpayer-funded medical research agency. The grant, totaling $6.7 million, was awarded to CSU because of the university’s experience with animals carrying pathogens that can harm humans. 

When asked to comment on the situation, CSU directed Yellow Scene to their FAQ page. On its site, CSU says the goal is to discover why bats often get infected with viruses but do not get sick. 

“They are not going to be infected with viruses at Colorado State, but rather be shipped elsewhere in the country where the hazardous work would be performed,” Bryce Nickels, a researcher in the Department of Genetics at Rutgers University, said. 

In addition to his research, Nickels works with BioSafety Now, an organization demanding restrictions on potential pandemic pathogen research. He is also involved with White Coat Waste.  According to the NIH’s project description, bat models are ‘critical’ to understanding viral pathogenesis and disease transmission.

On-site research

There is speculation that CSU will research deadly viruses on-site, such as Ebola and the NEPA virus, but the college denies these claims. CSU’s website clarifies that only Biosafety Level 2 research will occur in the facility. BSL-2 labs work with infectious organisms that can make people sick if released but are easily treatable. 

CSU details examples of the curable BSL-2 agents. Included are Strep Throat and Salmonella. 

Risky experiments won’t occur at CSU but may be conducted elsewhere. The bats or their tissue may be transported to higher-level labs, including BSL-3 and BSL-4. 

Research can include fatal infections if bats are transported to one of the few U.S. BSL-4 facilities. The CDC cites Ebola and Marburg Virus as examples. If deadly viruses are unintendedly released, the world could face another pandemic. 

Boulder concerns 

Residents of nearby cities such as Boulder voice their concerns on the community-centered website Nextdoor. Some users share their worries, while others argue there is nothing to fear. 

“Infectious disease research has been going on in Colorado since before WWII,” Glenn M., a Nextdoor user, commented on a concerned post. “My advice is, do independent verified fact-based research at your library on/offline, and don’t listen to neighbor gossip or conspiracy theorists spreading half-baked hearsay hype.”

How is Boulder County Public Health prepared for a potential outbreak? They declined to comment on the CSU Lab, but they shared information in an email about their own research and preparation for animal-borne disease outbreaks. 

The BCPH Consumer Protection Program Coordinator, Lane Drager, gave examples of how BCPH protects the public from outbreaks. BCPH works with animal control agencies, informs the community of risks to help prevent exposures, and has an infectious disease program that investigates reported illnesses. 

“Researching animal-borne diseases and their hosts is important because they are a source of morbidity and mortality,” Drager said. 

As part of outbreak prevention, BCPH occasionally studies Boulder’s native bat population. Research is not conducted on wild animals but only on those that have come in contact with humans or pets. At BCPH, researching bats always involves euthanization. 

“Testing involves analyzing brain tissue, so there isn’t a way to test without euthanizing the animal,” Drager said. 

The ethics of animal testing

Bat testing brings ethics into question. Since testing can involve euthanization or discomfort for animals, activists and organizations such as PETA are against it. 

“We’re taking a sentient and wonderful animal and doing very bad things to it, to a whole species when we should be celebrating them,” said Kate Myers, a Boulder resident who has dedicated her career to animal activism. 

Myers thinks the bat lab will be a ‘nightmare’ and lead to CSU’s monetary gain. She feels researchers will lose many bats as a result of ‘terrorizing them.’ She shared that it is wrong to remove an animal from its natural environment.

Through email communication, a spokesperson for CSU told Yellow Scene that the original bats will come from Bangladesh. “The bats themselves are not native to the U.S., so even bringing them into the US is problematic,” Nickels said. 

After the initial bats are transported, non-native bat species will breed in containment. However, if non-native bats escape, they can become invasive. Invasive species, such as foreign bats, can cause harm to native animals in any area. The National Invasive Species Center said that resource competition and habitat alteration by invasive species can cause a decline in native animals.

“Unfortunately, there are bad viruses out there, but I think the human race is the worst virus imaginable,” Myers said. “I don’t have a lot of hope because I’ve been fighting these things forever.” 

With many proposed risks, the future of the bat lab is still being determined. At the beginning of the project, CSU agreed to work with EcoHealth Alliance, an organization with potential links to COVID-19 origins. Echohealth’s federal funding has been suspended, and CSU is no longer collaborating with them. The university still has funding from the NIH, and the project is expected to progress. 

“If you think that all knowledge is valuable and what you’re doing is going to save the world, you will not want other people to meddle with it,” Nickels said. “ At the same time, maybe your judgment is slightly skewed, and it should be subject to some regulation and oversight.”

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post CSU to Build taxpayer-Funded Facility for Bat Breeding and Research appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Sure, you can check out our listings for commercial haunted houses when you flip the page, but going to the real-life haunts is a hell of a lot more scary, right?

Brittany Hill Mansion, Thornton
The story goes, the wife of the famed Brittany Hill Mansion owner walked in on her hubby with another woman many, many years ago. The wife was so distraught that she threw herself out of the century-old mansion’s third-story tower, dying instantly. The husband, in turn, hung himself out of guilt. If you walk up to the main entrance at night, you can see the ghost of him holding his wife in the window of the tower, although both ghouls may be homeless soon. The Thornton mansion/restaurant has been shuttered for a year, and it is rumored a developer will buy the lot and raze the historic home in favor of lucrative condos taking advantage of the city and mountain views from the top of the creepy hill. But the creaky old home still sends shivers through a few unlucky security guards who protect the grounds from vandalism.

Vampire Grave, Lafayette
There’s one headstone in the Lafayette graveyard that has a distinctly different and eerie feel than the rest. It belongs to Todor Glava, and most of the wording on it is in gibberish, or perhaps in vampire-ish language. Glava was struck dead by a wooden stake through the heart in 1918. A supposed vampire, his modest gravesite is located in the northwest corner of the Main Street graveyard, marked by a simple concrete slab. A tree that grows there is supposedly directly from the stake driven through his heart. Adorning the top of the grave is a less than healthy rose bush that survives despite never blooming. It is rumored to be the nails of the vampire reaching out for those who tread upon his resting place. Oh, and as if to confirm the vampire lore, Glava’s gravestone says he was born in Transylvania.

Pasquini’s, Louisville
Pasquini’s became part of local spook legend the same way old west disputes were settled—by shootout. There was once a gambling hall in the basement featuring old tunnels used for bootlegging. Around the turn of the century, a man was shot during a poker dispute; so was a girl who tried to stop the violence. The tunnels are now blocked, but pizzeria employees say the innocent girl’s presence is felt when temperatures inexplicably dip and light bulbs disappear.

Vance Brand Civic Auditorium, Longmont
Midterms are far from the only thing scaring students at Skyline High School—its Vance Brand Civic Auditorium has a ghostly history. When the performance hall was being built, Edison, a janitor, was supposedly killed when a balcony collapsed. Weird things happen to the electrical system, lights go out, strange noises bellow, and students have reported cold spots, and sometimes a strange, dark figure in the back of the balcony. That’s just a taste of the horror stories, so we recommend just steering clear of the auditorium.

Fairview High School, Boulder
Ever since a senior committed suicide via hanging in the dressing room of the theater in 1982, bizarre activities have been noted near the Boulder school’s stage. Singing can be heard from offstage, lights flicker and sets fall down despite being nailed to the floor.

Riverdale Road, Thornton
Stretching from Denver to Brighton this curvy country road is guarded by car-chasing phantom dogs. The road used to be the Cherokee Trail used by Native Americans before becoming a path that poorly-treated sugar beet migrant workers used. By the way, the ghostly pups simply vanish after a short chase.

Pillar of Fire, Westminster
Once known as Westminster University, the castle-esque building was constructed in 1890 with the hope of becoming the “Princeton of the West.” Instead, its fame has been founded through tales of a mass murder. Now, faces of the victims appear in the windows that face the cemetery at night. During the first World War, the university closed and The Pillar of Fire church moved in—it is now home to Belleview schools.

Sigma Chi Fraternity House, CSU
This frat house is haunted by the ghost of a former sorority president that once inhabited the building—Gerty was found hanging in the spiral staircase of the building and has been seen in bathroom mirrors late at night. The scent of lilacs also fills the building randomly.

College Inn, Boulder
When the hotel bordering the CU campus first opened 30 years ago, it was rumored to be a hotbed of poltergeist activities. On the third floor, look for stains appearing and disappearing on the walls, doors opening and closing on their own, and smoke-like apparitions.

Angevine Middle School, Lafayette
Roam the halls at night and you’re libel to run into a red-eyed, blond-haired boy stuck writing on paper in detention—it’s the ghost of a student murdered by his teacher.

Johnson Hall, CSU
Former home to the college’s theater department, folklore has been passed through the years that an actor, unhappy with casting, hung himself in the theater. He now roams the halls, and just to freak students out more, the locations of the building’s staircases—built as an afterthought by a confused architect—make little sense.

Westminster City Hall
Pass by Westminster City Hall at midnight, and look to the tower. The spirits of a woman and children who were murdered and buried beneath it show up in the windows at night.

Niwot High School
For some reason, it seems there are many schools in the North that have some sort of horrific murder story. Niwot High is no exception—it’s haunted by a child that was murdered by a janitor in the basement.

The post 13 Things That Go Bump in the North Metro Night appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.