Extra: Jan. 29

News and notes from around Colorado

Rocky Mountain News

Published January 29, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size

Steve Swanson

This year's special Loveland postmark

More Local News

More stories »

BUFFS IN SPACE

Making his second flight as an astronaut, Steamboat Springs High School graduate and University of Colorado alumnus Steve Swanson, above, will be the lead spacewalker aboard the International Space Station after NASA's space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Feb. 12. Swanson, a recipient of NASA's Exceptional Achievement Medal, will help install a new solar array. He made a spacewalk on his previous mission, shown above.

39 space missions have been flown by CU graduates.

THE VIEW'S BETTER FROM HERE

For a few minutes on Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar mistook himself for the legendary White House correspondent, Helen Thomas.

At the end of his first official White House briefing, Salazar turned the microphone over to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, and took a seat in the front row of the press section, in the seat usually reserved for Thomas. "Can I sit up here and watch you?" Salazar asked.

It was the first time a Cabinet secretary had sat in the front row of the reporters section, instead of sitting or standing along the side of the stage, as is customary. Gibbs said it was OK "under one condition: that I don't get any hard questions from you."

MAKING THEIR MARK

The Loveland Post Office kicks off its annual Valentine's Day remailing program on Monday. A group of senior volunteers will help postal workers mark love letters and cards with this year's special postmark, shown above. It's the 63rd year of the program; last year more than 200,000 cards and letters were remailed from all 50 states and more than 100 countries.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News