This is not the story of some hero swooping in to save the Pikes Peak Bulletin, though
heroic figures certainly have been involved.
In many ways, this is a story of our community swooping in to save itself, as we did when
floods and a fire threatened our neighborhoods.
If you have read the Bulletin regularly, and most of you have, you know the basics of how
the paper fell. In 2014, John Weiss, then publisher of the Colorado Springs Independent, bought
the Bulletin, installing veteran columnist Ralph Routon as publisher and, after a few years,
longtime journalist Rhonda Van Pelt as editor.
It was part of Weiss’ buying spree that also included the Colorado Springs Business
Journal and two military papers. He later founded the Southeast Express to serve that area of
Colorado Springs.
Van Pelt and Routon, with the help of longtime staffer Don Bouchard, kept the paper afloat
and, in many ways, improved on the beloved hometown paper. But toward the end of 2022, after
Weiss retired (I think it was for the third time?), the company’s board of directors merged all the
papers into one publication: Sixty35.
Manitoids weren’t happy. Not with an in-print article or two about Manitou taking the
place of an entire 20-plus-page publication. The new entity has since repositioned itself, holding
onto the flagship Indy and the CSBJ, and handing off the Pikes Peak Bulletin to new local
leadership.
Enter Lyn Ettinger-Harwell, a chef and business owner.
He will admit straight up that he knows a hell of a lot more about gumbo than he knows
about newspapers. He once worked as manager and chef of Emeril Lagasse’s award winning
restaurant, Emeril’s Delmonico in New Orleans.
He also ran Seeds Cafe, a philanthropic pay-what-you-can eatery that helped so many of
the homeless and underserved before running into financial troubles, with some harsh finger
pointing by the board chair to Ettinger-Harwell. (A story for another time.)
Ettinger-Harwell’s outreach to those in need has been evident in his work as chief
operating officer at the Springs Rescue Mission and his work for Harbor House.
Ettinger-Harwell and his wife, Laura Ettinger-Harwell, are certainly known quantities in
Manitou. Last year, they received a Manni Award for Visionary Leadership. Before that, they’d
both run the CrEATe Cafe (with awesome soups and breakfasts) at the Manitou Art Center. Lyn
later created a breakfast menu for the local Border Burger Bar, and he’s served as chief operating
officer of SunWater Spa.
He never pictured himself as a newspaper publisher, but as one resident after another — at
the post office, at City Hall, at the Manitou Art Center, on the downtown streets — accosted him
and asked him, “What’s going on with the Bulletin?” he started to feel like there was a calling
here.
He knew that before he could get any presses going (or major digital momentum), he
would have to negotiate with the Indy folks to access the website domain, the Facebook page,
and get the rights to the name. He agreed not to say mean things about them, and an agreement
was signed.
“For me, it’s a chance to hit the reset button, not to save the newspaper, but re-create it in a
new way,” Ettinger-Harwell said.
His motivation to be the Bulletin publisher seems to have more to do with his affection for
the community than his knowledge of journalism.
“For me, it’s a love story,” he said. “You have so much love here, and wonderful
characters, and people who care so much about this community.”
“It’s a place where we can disagree with one another, and you know, not really come
together on things, but we can discuss it, walk through it and end up tossing fruitcake together.”
That love of the community is shared with Ettinger-Harwell’s first employees: editor and
reporter Van Pelt and photographer Bryan Oller, who will serve as co-editors.
“You see and hear things and experience things here that you don’t in Colorado Springs,
for sure,” Van Pelt said. “You see an emu being walked on a leash and there’s a guy walking
down the street dressed as Darth Vader.”
“There’s just something magical about it,” Oller added. “Yes, it can be silly and it can be
weird, but there’s also this connection-to-the-land kind of thing and this deep sense of history
and community.”
Oller and Van Pelt, who bicker, laugh and snipe at one another like siblings, are sitting on
a couch in an office at Manitou’s Community Congregational Church. This is their new
newsroom. Behind them, on the wall, is a rainbow of children’s handprints. They won’t paint
over that. Too meaningful.
Nearby is a large desk donated by the Manitou Springs Chamber of Commerce, which was
remodeling. They both see this massive desk as a metaphor for the enormous support they’re
receiving from the community.
“You know, it took five, six, seven people to break it down, right?” Oller said. “It took a
village. And we all brought it over here together, and everybody helped put it back together.”
As they talk about this support, they become animated, both talking with their hands.
Van Pelt looks like she’s conjuring something. Oller looks like he’s sculpting something
out of clay. But he soon said it’s not exactly clay he imagines before him. It’s mashed potatoes.
“It's like when Richard Dreyfuss gets drawn to Devil’s Tower,” Oller said, referring to an
iconic scene in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” “That's kind of what it feels like.”
The great difference between Dreyfuss’ character and the folks feeling passionately about
reviving the Bulletin is that it’s not just a handful of people who share the fierce drive to bring
back the paper. It’s multitudes.
“It’s like that song, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,’” Van Pelt said,
referring to the chorus of “Big Yellow Taxi.”
“Which version of that song are you referencing? Cinderella?” Oller asked.
“No, Joni Mitchell. …”
“Because there’s a Cinderella version, like the heavy metal band from the ’80s,” Oller said.
Van Pelt gives him a look, a glare that could melt an iceberg, and they both crack up.
Whichever the song, the sentiment is certainly true. I’m a Manitoid, and I feel a bit lost
without my Bulletin. They talk about the paper being the glue that holds a community together,
and I certainly relate to that.
Ettinger-Harwell, Oller and Van Pelt say the revived Bulletin will include lots of things we
appreciated about the old Bulletin: The police reports, City Council updates, investigative pieces,
school news, business news. It will be in print, on the website, in email blasts and articles posted
on social media.
But they’re also thinking about deeper, more quirky reads: personality profiles, hyper-local
news, the latest on our wild, terrorizing turkey flock.
They also talk about Manitou in metaphysical terms, wanting to capture the magic of this
place.
Ettinger-Harwell, an Ohio native, echoed that sentiment when he recalled driving up U.S.
Highway 24 for the first time and having a close encounter of the weird kind.
“It’s like my energy field just went like this,” he said, acting out the moment when his
steering wheel got pulled to the left. “I'm like, ‘What is that place?’ You know? So, obviously
we’re being drawn here, and we’ve gotta take a walk and figure out what's going on and see the
town.”
I’d say that he’s nuts, but I’ve felt that pull, too. Maybe it’s why so many people are
offering to help re-launch the Bulletin. Could be there’s something magical in this effort.
Maybe it’s why I agreed to write this article.
And I didn’t even ask how much I was going to get paid.
Which is totally unlike me.