Talk:Colorado

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Demographics: "Race"

The Census Bureau's site shows Colorado as having the following makeup:

74.5% White non-Hispanic 17.1% Hispanic 3.8% Black 2.2% Asian 1.0% American Indian 2.8% Two or more races

Note how this adds up to 101.4%.

Often Hispanics are counted in a second demographic, such as White or Black. I've never heard an explanation of this, but this is a common disclaimer on race figures. --patton1138 13:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Naming and Disambiguation

'Naming/disambiguation discussion was moved to wikipedia talk:naming conventions.' Summary: The discussion was about whether or not Colorado should be a disambiguation page. It was decided that per naming conventions the article "Colorado" should be about the state and all other uses of the term should be naturally disambiguated (e.g. Colorado River, Colorado Plateau). There are no known uses of the word "Colorado" that cannot be naturally disambiguated (thus there is no need to parenthetically disambiguate). Those terms will be added at the end of this article and linked within it where appropriate. The rest of the discussion was about naming conventions and capitalization issues.

C Club (Atheletic Letter Clubs)

Unlike most high school athletic letter clubs, the varsity athletes of the high schools are awarded a "C" for Colorado, and they belong to the "C Club" of each high school, when they letter in a sport, rather than the initial of the school. This is not the case at every high school. At Thompson Valley High School in Loveland, Colorado, letters are awarded with the school initials "TV", and in the school colors--black and gold.

I don't understand this; I think it requires too high a level of cultural knowledge. (This isn't a criticism of the recent edits of the anonymous editor-- the problem existed beforehand.) What does it mean to "award letters"? Is there a Wikipedia page about this, and could it be linked? What's the normal practice that Colorado deviates from? Marnanel 22:35, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

It sounds strange. I've never heard of such a thing. We got C's, but that was because we were Fort Collins High School (at least, we all thought so). I saw lots of high school letter jackets while competing in events and never saw a "C" that didn't go with a high school that actually began with the letter C (or at least I assumed so). They were certainly plenty of counterexamples to the claim made in the article. I would like to hear from the editor who contributed this about the source of this information. -- Decumanus | Talk 22:49, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

But what does it actually mean to "award letters"? They make you a present of letters to sew on a jacket as a recognition of sporting achievement? Marnanel 01:12, May 5, 2004 (UTC) (non-American)

Yes. It's cloth letter (or combination of letters), usually in block capital form, about 6 inches tall, awarded for season-long participation in a sport or other activity, such as music, drama or forensic speaking (at least where I went to high school). It doesn't imply exceptional achievement in most cases, but just regular participation. To receive such a letter is to "letter" in the activity. One might say, for example, "I lettered in football my junior year, and lettered twice in cross country, during my junior and senior years." Letters are then often sewn on "letter jackets", which is usually a light-weight cloth jacket. The color combination of the jacket and the letter are the school colors. Up through the 1960s, if you got a letter, you were "letterman", but I never heard this word used in the 1980s when I was in high school (it might still be used elsewhere inthe country). The verb is still used. If you repeatedly letter, you usally get metallic pins to add to an existing letter, rather than receiving an additional cloth letter. Letter jackets are still extrememly popular in American high schools. It's a big part of Americana. -- Decumanus | Talk 01:24, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, neat-- thanks for the explanation. I wonder whether anyone's made a page about it yet! Marnanel 01:36, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Yes. It's at Letterman, and isn't very long. Wyvern11:12, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I suggest deleting that portion of the article. It doesn't seem encyclopedic enough in relation to Colorado as a state to include on this page. And it is just kind of thrown in a misc. section. Any objections? --MattWright (talk) 22:50, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's incorrect. I don't remember any such thing; the only odd "C" practice I know of is using "CU" not for "Colorado University" as might be expected, but for University of Colorado. No objection. Doovinator 17:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Origins of Name?

The article says that the work "Colorado" comes from "Reddish" in Spanish. I always thought it meant (more broadly) "colorful place" and from my limited knowledge of spanish (which I admit could be written on the back of a cigarette packet!) I would still think this.

I believe you are correct, but the information that it comes from red or reddish is generally held. Fred Bauder 19:14, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct, colorado is an adjective in spanish meaning "colorful" or "colored". I think this change should be made to the article

It is indeed commonly held that it means "reddish", which should probably be mentioned along with proper translation. Doovinator 17:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

References for Origin of Name

It appears to me that in Spanish, this word means "colored". However, in all references I can find for the meaning of the state name, it suggests "reddish color".

Translations:

Yahoo/Houghton Mifflin gives the definition 1. colored; 2. reddish
Babelfish also says the word translates to "colored"

References for State Name:

Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration has a section on their "Colorado State Archives Symbols & Emblems" page listing many things about the name "Colorado", one of which is that it stands for "colored red".
MSN Encarta says "reddish colored".

In light of this, I would suggest keeping the definition as-is ("reddish color") until someone can find an authoritative reference better than the above that suggests otherwise. --MattWright (talk) 02:16, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Update, I would actually suggest changing it to "reddish colored" until a better reference is found. All translations directly translate colorado into "colored", rather than "color", with the Yahoo/Houghton Mifflin one actually supplying both reddish and colored as definitions. --MattWright (talk) 03:22, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Demographics

Apparently one-half of one percent of Coloradans are transgendered? This must be the case if the population is "50.4% male and 49.1% female" as stated here! Rlquall 01:45, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mining?

There should be more of a mention of mining here, both in reference to current economic makeup and Colorado's history. The 1858 gold rush into Western Kansas Territory is, after all, what founded the little towns of Auraria and Denver, as well as countless mountain towns. Gold, Silver, Coal, Uranium, Vanadium, Molybedenum, and even a diamonds are/have been mined here, with significant impacts on Colorado's economic history. I have a large batch of info related to the history of mining in Colorado, as well as Mined Land Reclamation, if we can find a home for it here. notchcode 20:31, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Put a bit in the main article, more in History of Colorado. If you want to do more create [[Economic history of Colorado]] or [[Mining history of Colorado]], (or mining history of the Western United States). Fred Bauder 16:49, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Formatting weirdness

So, this page's formating is really messed up. Pictures are not aligning where they are supposed to be, the editing section tools are in the wrong place, and frankly it looks awful. I tried messing with it somewhat, but I am not sure if I am making it any better. For a while the whole article had doubles of each section, so I got rid of that but there are still some problems. Please fix it if you know how and use this talk section to tell us how its going. Vertigo700 19:24, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the list of towns with population less than 10,000 to avoid the image overlap. Is there anything else that you're seeing that's a problem? -- Rick Block (talk) 17:19, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Check out Law and Government, it appears that the formatting from the previous section is attached to Law and Government. At one point another sections formatting link was there as well. I am not sure if anyone else is seeing it, and it certainly looks better now, but I wonder if we can do something about that. I'm stumped. Vertigo700 03:39, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Notable high schools

Cherry Creek High School and Kent Country Day School are in fact notable. Cherry Creek is a suburban school which offers an excellent academic education, Kent is a private school attended by the children of the elite, such as they are (Colorado has little old money and better neighborhoods have good public schools). The notion that every high school would demand or deserve an entry is a straw man. Fred Bauder 03:33, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree extensively with putting "notable" high schools on the Colorado page. 1st of all, it will create a lot of broken links to no pages (Kent doesnt have a page). Secondly, what makes them notable? Why only rich suburban schools? East High School (Denver) in Denver has probably the most famous alums Pam Grier, Don Cheadle, Judy Collins, etc. West High School (Denver) is notable for the start of the chicano rights movement Crusade for Justice. Certainly, Columbine High School is notable. The point being, many schools have something notable about them. Does that mean they really say anything about Colorado? I doubt anyone would define Colorado through its high schools, or even really care about them unless you graduated from there, or your kids go there. Vertigo700 15:28, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. At risk of having my arguments on this subject being denounced as a "straw man," I totally agree and think the section should be removed right away before more and more people start adding HSs making it even harder to remove without a blow up. If anyone, other than those who have already weighed in, think it should stay please let us know within the next 24 hours. After that, I think it should just be removed before it causes any more problems.Gator1 15:37, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agree on removal of "notable high schools". Second Vertigo's arguments and add that other state articles I looked at (like California and New York) don't have similar sections. Seems more appropriate for individual city pages. --MattWright (talk) 07:31, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with the decision to remove the paragraph and links to notable high schools. The basis of my disagreement is that the section included only high schools which were notable for historical, social, demographic or newsworthy reasons. While articles are frequently created for schools which are not distinguished that is not the case here, nor were empty links created to schools which were not notable such as my alma mater, South High in Denver. Fred Bauder 16:45, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We're aware of your opinion and it was taken into consideration.Gator1 16:52, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If it was taken into consideration, what happened to the useful information? Fred Bauder 17:09, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Let me clarify. Your opinion on the subject was taken into consideration and, ultimately, rejected. Let's talk about something else.Gator1 17:41, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]