The Colorado State Patrol reported Thursday that the two people found dead on a rural county road died in a traffic accident. Capt. George Dingfelder said the agency believes Theodore Clyde Carson, 63, and Dorothy Lopez-Carson, 53, were passengers in the Dodge pickup truck that lost control and went down an embankment near the intersection of county roads J.2 and J.8. He said that while foul play likely was not a factor in the single-car accident, alcohol played a role.

Theodore Clyde Carson, 63, and Dorothy Lopez-Carson, no age specified, were found dead near the intersection of Costilla County Road J.2 and County Road J.8 near San Pablo.

Peter soulful black-and-white images are on display in "Portraits of the Family Farmer in Southern Colorado," in conjunction with the Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center's "Representing the West" exhibition. The photos depict everyday farm life - everything from fence repair to irrigation to driving sheep - on a visceral level. They show honest faces and hard work - and they reflect Marchand's profound respect for small-plot farmers and their lifestyle. The photographer has immersed himself in the family-farm culture during the past couple of years, making regular visits to four regional farms including Quintana Farms in the San Luis Valley town of San Pablo.

The history of Hispanics in the San Luis Valley has been drawn from the written and spoken word. But starting at the end of the month, genetic researchers hope to tell that history through DNA. The Hispano/Latino HapMap Project will host a pair of informational meetings Feb. 21 in San Pablo.

In the stripped-down, spare sensibility of a fledgling year, an exhibition of new work by Emilio Lobato proves again the old line that less is more. Lobato, born into a family based in the San Luis Valley for more than a dozen generations, is proud to claim weavers on both sides. And over the years, he has turned from a reliance on shape and collaged text into investigating the patterns upon which weavers rely.

After several hours of unsuccessful searching Wednesday the Costilla County Sheriff’s department has called off the formal search for the body of a drowning victim who apparently died Tuesday afternoon in Sanchez Reservoir.

A man identified as Carl Trujillo, 45, of San Luis, apparently drowned Tuesday afternoon, June 3, after experiencing difficulty while swimming at Sanchez Reservoir in Costilla County, according to Costilla County Sheriff’s Sgt. James Chavez.

The four-decade effort by residents in southern Costilla County to regain access to the Taylor Ranch could be nearing an end. Members of the Land Rights Council hosted the Colorado-New Mexico Land Grant Conference Saturday to review the next legal steps in certifying who can use the property and provided an update on efforts to forge a management plan.

Mariachi San Luis is not just fun to watch, it also has a great story of creating a successful mariachi program in the small town of San Pablo in the San Luis Valley.

Emilio Lobato has titled his show of new work at William Havu Gallery "Desde Siempre," or "Since Forever". He takes note of the fact that both his grandfathers were weavers, working in different types of textiles, but steeped in a craft/art important in the San Luis Valley.

Gov. Bill Owens appointed a San Luis Valley resident to the Colorado Board of Veterans Affairs. Armando R. Atencio of San Pablo will serve on the seven-member board, which studies issues impacting veterans and recommends which programs are needed to assist them.

"I'm not interested in painting a historic, romantic, mystical picture of this," said Bobby Hill, who has renamed the previously dubbed "Taylor Ranch", with the quaintly picturesque title of "Cielo Vista". 519 descendants of San Luis Valley homesteaders given legal permission in the past year - including 410 on July 26 - to return to that land that had been off limits for more than 40 years after the land had been illegally besieged from the Spanish settlers of the area. "We're abiding by the law of the land and trying to have a good attitude, but don't paint a smile on our face," says Hill.

A compromise appears possible that would satisfy both the owners of the Taylor Ranch, or La Sierra as locals call the 77,500-acre property, and the hundreds of Costilla County landowners with newly won rights to use the 77,500-acre tract. One of the first Costilla County landowners to exercise his court-affirmed rights to graze cattle on La Sierra that adjoins their small communities, is making full use of the unexpected boon. Photo of La Sierra behind Cerro de la Uta taken from across the valley by Jay Packer.

Land grant experts from both sides of the Colorado-New Mexico border will gather July 29 at Centennial High School in San Luis to discuss the best strategies for asserting historic legal rights to the Mexican land grants. This coincides with the ongoing process of certifying Costilla County landowners for access to the ranch thus far has opened the gates to some 100 individuals who can pasture their livestock and collect wood on the sprawling 77,500-acre ranch. More than 500 people may get their keys to the Taylor Ranch at a court hearing July 26 in San Luis.

Throughout the spring, the Land Rights Council is hosting public forums in the communities of El Rito, Chama, San Pablo-San Pedro, San Luis and San Acacio. The forums will help develop a La Sierra Sustainable Use Rights Management Plan, part of a court decree opening the 77,500-acre Taylor Ranch to Costilla County residents.

Emilio Lobato is one of the state's most important artists, a total workaholic who produces a tremendous amount of work every year. Lobato was born in 1959 in the small town of San Pablo in the San Luis Valley; his agrarian family has lived in that part of the state for more than 200 years. He's frequently said that the isolation of his childhood has been a continuing source of artistic inspiration and although that's hard to find in the work itself, judging from the dozens of paintings in this show, he must spend many hours every day toiling alone in his downtown studio.

On an early Good Friday morning in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado, the white-capped mountains cast long shadows across the valley floor. The sun that sneaks between the cracks in the mountains bathes the valley in a soft yellow light. In the tiny hamlet of San Francisco, a steady stream of cars drops people off in front of St. Francis of Assisi Church. Dressed for winter, they congregate outside, rubbing their hands and shoulders for warmth. Their breaths freeze into white streams, telling them what they already know: it's cold.

Voices for restoring access rights to the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant land in southwestern Costilla County rang through the chilled afternoon air in front of a locked gate Sunday. "The next time people come to this gate they are going on the mountain," Pete Espinoza said.

Determined protesters braved a chilling wind Sunday to send a message to the owner of Taylor Ranch that, after 23 years, they will not return to the courts to assert their access rights to the 77,750-acre spread. Earlier this month, attorneys for current owner Lou Pai, a former Enron executive, filed a motion in Costilla County District Court asking to limit access to the land to only seven landowners who have continuously owned cattle in the area.

Colorado health officials have issued advisories on the consumption of fish from four reservoirs in Southwest Colorado due to mercury found in fish caused by coal power plants in New Mexico. The reservoir advisories are posted at McPhee and Narraguinnep reservoirs in Montezuma County, Navajo Reservoir, which straddles the Colorado-New Mexico state line, and Sanchez Reservoir in the San Luis Valley.