INSIDE: COIN COLLECTORS FASCINATED BY HISTORY LIFESTYLE

$1.50Your community news source since 1893

ALSO INSIDENEW LAW WILL ALLOW ONLINE, UNREGISTERED STOCK SALES BUSINESS 1B

GJSentinel.comHOME PAGE OF WESTERN COLORADO

High 62, Low 35COMPLETE FORECAST ON 2A

Subscriptions: 800-332-5833Main line: 970-242-5050

Vol. 122No. 151INSIDE Commentary................. 6B

Business .............. ........ 1BSports ........................ 1CLifestyle ........................ 1D

Horoscopes ......................5DClassified.................... .......1EOK

LOOK INSIDE FOR $101 IN COUPON SAVINGS ■ DAILY SENTINEL SUBSCRIBERS HAVE SAVED $2,416 THIS YEAR

For most of the past 13 years, Katie Hall has eaten school lunch.

Not just lunch at school, but the meal actually prepared by School District 51’s nutrition services program. From the

years when chicken nuggets graced her tray and she could buy a sweet treat on the side to menu changes caused by school-lunch reform in recent years, Hall has been a constant customer since she first attended school at Wingate Elementary.

IS SCHOOL LUNCH MAKING THE GRADE?

By ERIN McINTYRESpecial to The Daily Sentinel

CHRISTOPHER TOMLINSON/The Daily Sentinel

Students eat lunch in the cafeteria at Fruita Monument High School. High school lunch participation has steadily declined in School District 51 since reforms intended to make meals healthier were implemented three years ago.

Aftermath of school lunch reform creates healthier hot meals and a trayful of challenges

District 51 high school participationLunch

Breakfast

*Through Feb. 2015

9%10%10% 9%

2011-12

2012-13

2012-13

2013-14

2013-14

2011-12

*2014-15

*2014-15

22% 19% 17% 17%

Source: School District 51

District 51 elementary school participationLunch

Breakfast2013-142013 14

44%

*2014-15*2014 15

49%

2011-122011 12

52%

2012-132012 13

45%

2011-12 *2014-152013-142012-13

20%20%21% 21%

District 51 middle school participationLunch

Breakfast12%13%14% 12%

2011-12

14%

2011 12

2012-132012 13

2012-13

13%

2012 13

2013-142013 14

2013-14

12%

2013 14

2011-122011 12

55% 46% 42%

*2014-15

12%

*2014 15

*2014-15*2014 15

47%

SCHOOL LUNCH SERIES

School lunch looks and tastes nothing like it used to, thanks to

reforms aimed at making cafeteria meals healthier. In a four-day series, The Daily

Sentinel examines the impact of those

changes on students, staff and School District 51 nutrition services’ $5 million-plus budget.

Today: Reforms bring success, struggles

Monday: Picky palates mean more waste

MOREINSIDE:Brown bag lunch not

always a better option,

PAGE 8A

She’s eaten school lunch long enough to experience first-hand the evolution of lunch from what many kids dream about — food high in salt, sugar and fat — to some-thing more palatable for nutritionists: hello, cooking with raw foods and whole grains, good-bye, box-cut-ters and sugar-packed goodies. Chef-trained cooks using fresh in-gredients, not simply reheat-ing preser-vative-laden, ready-to-eat foods. No fruit swimming in heavy syrup, or tater tots and ketchup counting as daily vegetables.

But while reforms aimed at creating healthier school lunch for the more than 9,100 students served daily have good inten-tions, the desired results have

been slow to follow, at least in District 51. After record-high participation in 2011-12, the implementation of new nutri-

tion standards spurred a steady decline in students eating school lunch that only recently has started to rebound. Costs associated with providing fresher foods are climbing. And a host of issues have arisen from presenting healthy food that doesn’t appeal to kids’ palates.

Speaking of which, does Hall like

school lunch? Not particularly.If you ask the 17-year-old

Palisade High School senior how she would rate school lunch, she says it’s “some-

DISTRICT 51 SCHOOL LUNCH

Photos of hot lunches taken by Palisade High School student

See GRADE, page 7A ➤

More than a century ago, Elmer S. Riggs backhandedly consigned brontosaurus to paleontological oblivion using bones he dug out of what is now called Dinosaur Hill, which overlooks Fruita.

Those bones, however, might indeed have been those of a brontosaur. If so, some long overdue revising might be in order.

The story of those bones began in 1901, when Riggs was working in the shadows of sandstone spires that were themselves a bone of local contention. They were recog-nized nearly a decade later as Colorado National Monument.

After Riggs hauled out his bone treasure, years went by, more roads brought more people. The Grand Valley grew in population and significance, paleontological and otherwise.

And brontosaurus? A nondinosaur, at least as far as paleontological purists were concerned.

Brontosaurus was relegat-ed to being a punchline in a television cartoon, the tasty centerpiece of the Flintstones’ “Bronto-burgers.”

“Bully for Brontosaurus,” an essay by Harvard paleontolo-gist Stephen Jay Gould, could not rescue Brontosaurus from paleo-oblivion.

Elmer Riggs’ bone treasure may actually be brontosaur

By GARY HARMONGary.Harmon@gjsentinel.com

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan — A motorcycle-riding suicide bomber attacked a line of peo-ple waiting outside a bank Sat-urday in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 35 and wounding 125 in an assault the country’s president blamed on the Islamic State group.

The accusation by President Ashraf Ghani, following local media reporting the Islamic State group’s Afghan affili-ate claiming the attack, would mark a major escalation in the extremists’ nascent campaign of violence in the country.

While nowhere near as pow-erful as the Taliban, the affil-iate’s ability to strike at will would mark a new threat for the country to contend with as U.S. and NATO forces end-ed their combat mission at the start of the year. It also fur-ther stretches the Islamic State group’s influence far beyond its self-declared caliphate stretch-ing through a third of Iraq and Syria.

The attack in Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province, targeted a crowd of soldiers and civilians gathered outside the bank to receive their monthly salaries. The blast killed at least 35 people and wounded 125, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

ISIS blamed for bombing that kills 35By LYNNE O’DONNELL and RAHIM FAIEZ

Associated Press

See BRONTOSAUR, page 6A ➤

See BOMBING, page 6A ➤

SundayApril 19, 2015

DISTRICT 51 SCHOOL LUNCH

Percentage of each school’s population eligible for free or reduced lunch 20% and less Between 21%-39% Between 40%-59% Between 60%-82%

Free or reduced lunch program: How District 51 schools compare

Appleton: 30% Bookcliff: 63%*Broadway: 23%Central: 44% Chat!eld: 52% Chipeta: 79%

H Rd.

26 R

d.

50

340

650 7070

6

Bus.70

650

I Rd.

J Rd.

G Rd.

F Rd.

D Rd.

C Rd.

B 1/2 Rd.

32 R

d.

29 R

d.

30 R

d.

20 R

d.

19 R

d.

5th

St.

C 1/2 Rd.

MonumentRd.

12th

St.

Broadway

Rd.

So. Camp

Prkwy.

Redla

nds

North Ave.

2 1/2 miles

24 R

d.

27 R

d.

Unaweep Ave.

33 R

d.

23 R

d.

34 R

d.

B Rd.

Not mapped: Gateway: 24%; Loma: 35%

Clifton: 75% Dos Rios: 81% Dual Immersion: 57%East: 46%Fruita 8/9: 30% Fruita Middle: 32%

Fruita Monument: 20% Fruitvale: 65%Grand Junction: 34%Grand Mesa: 54%Lincoln Orchard Mesa: 58% Mesa View: 46%Mt. Gar!eld: 65%**New Emerson: 9% Nisley: 78%

Orchard Avenue: 52%Orchard Mesa: 52%Palisade: 41%Pear Park: 62% Pomona: 38%R-5: 50%Redlands: 21%Rim Rock: 28% Rocky Mountain: 70%

*Scenic: 34% Shelledy: 40% Taylor: 47% Thunder Mountain: 44% Tope: 52% West: 36%Wingate: 20%

13

21

20

19

18

17

16

15

14

22

30

29

28

27

26

25

24

23

31

37

36

35

34

33

321

6

5

4

3

2

7

12

11

10

9

8

*Broadway and Scenic — Hot lunches prepared off site.**New Emerson — Only cold lunches available.

1

34

56

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

15

17

18

19

20 23

24

2527

28

3031

32

33

3536

37

2622

21 2

14

34

16

29

Colorado National

Monument

Fruita

Palisade

Orchard Ave.

ROBERT GARCÍA/The Daily SentinelSource: Colorado Department of Education

where between borderline and passable.” But still, she chooses to eat school lunch on the days she knows she has to eat some-thing. And the funny thing is, she doesn’t qualify for free or reduced lunch — she’s eaten school lunch for more than a decade of her own volition, all because it’s convenient and cheap. She doesn’t have time, she doesn’t like making choices and she can’t handle remem-bering to bring her lunch every day.

Director Dan Sharp manages the $5.7 million budget and op-erations for the district’s school lunch program, and he doesn’t disagree with Hall’s rating of school lunch.

“I think right now, if you had to give us an average, we’d be at about average,” he said after giving a tour of an elementary school kitchen.

But he doesn’t intend for it to stay that way. By 2020, Sharp wants the largest food-service provider in the valley to accom-plish even more than it has in the past few years, even though the transitions mandated by government reform of school lunches have been difficult, costly and unpopular. His vision of providing more fresh foods, more scratch cooking, more farm-to-school fruits and vegetables and quality meals kids want to eat is an even big-ger goal for the future of school lunch in the district.

NEW REGULATIONS, NEW CHALLENGES

Hall is in the minority of school-lunch eaters. She’s a paying customer, and those have declined steadily as the numbers of kids eating lunch for free or reduced prices have increased. This is part of a national trend — according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office examin-ing the effects of implementing reforms, the program’s meals declined by 1.2 million meals served from fall 2010 to spring 2013 after steadily increasing in prior years.

More elementary students eat school lunch than any other age group in District 51. Partic-ipation dips drastically in mid-dle school, and by high school, some schools have trouble even keeping the students who qual-ify for free or reduced-price lunch on campus to eat school lunch. The district is still recovering from heavy losses in participation after reforms to make school food healthier started three years ago.

“We’re hopeful that it finally bottomed out last year,” Sharp said.

Sharp attributes the reduced participation at upper grades to the adjustment to the nutri-tion rules from the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, for many of the same reasons

GRADE: District began transitioning to healthier menu before federal rules went into effect ➤ Continued from Page One

CHRISTOPHER TOMLINSON/The Daily Sentinel

Sheila Craft, the assistant manager at Grand Mesa Middle School, serves lunch.

found in the GAO report. While younger students didn’t have a past with popcorn chicken and smiley fries, the older kids became used to that fare and have been resistant to alter their school eating habits since the menus changed. Middle and high school students have been a challenge to retain, with the district attempting to increase school lunch sales with promo-tions like offering free ski lift ticket raffles. Overall, partici-pation has been flat.

“I was really discouraged a year ago,” Sharp said. “But the studies show when you switch to scratch (cooking), you see a one-, two-, three-year dip but then it improves.”

The GAO report also cited waste, increased labor and training needs and food costs as problems with implementing the reform measures.

“We’re constantly balancing all these rules and regs, and trying to provide healthy food kids like to eat,” Sharp said. “It’s been a difficult transition.”

While many students blame the district for fruits and veg-etables making up half their plates and for not having ice cream available for purchase, the reality is these non-nego-tiable rules came from federal legislation. As long as District 51 operates a school-lunch program that receives federal and state money to help feed students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals, they are subject to these rules.

The reality is that financial-ly, the people who choose to pay for school lunch are not what’s keeping the program going. More than 70 percent of District 51’s pro-gram is funded through money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state of Col-orado, through the National School Lunch program. The budget operates independently of the district’s general fund and isn’t subsidized by local tax dollars.

The National School Lunch program started as a way to feed hungry kids and use commod-ity agricultural products that farmers were feeding into the market. That’s how it became regulated by the Department of Agriculture, not the Depart-ment of Education. In the years following the Great Depression, the program was a way to en-sure kids received at least one square meal per day.

Today, that chance to feed kids a healthy, balanced meal at least once a day is still a goal of nutrition program work-

ers. Some schools even have universally free breakfast and

lunch funded by federal and state money, and have seen an increase in participation. But providing a balanced meal that adheres to the govern-ment’s strict nutrition guide-lines, which stu-dents actually want to eat, with a limited budget and other constraints is a multi-pronged challenge.

The Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 provided the most radical school lunch changes since the program was signed into

law by President Truman, and required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop new rules based on recommen-dations from the Institute of Medicine. Restrictions on sodium and requirements for whole grains and for fruits and vegetables to be offered daily are the most prominent of the new rules.

No more smiley fries. No more pizza crust made with white flour. No more chicken nuggets. No more trans-fats. No

more tater tots.District 51 actually began

transitioning to a healthier menu before the federal rules went into effect — prompted by earlier efforts to reform school lunch in Colorado, including the Healthy Beverage Act, which happened in 2009.

But Sharp’s mission to start having school cafeterias actual-ly prepare meals from scratch again after years of cooking with pre-made, pre-packaged heat-and-serve products began before the D-day set by the government. While he could purchase a variety of heat-and-serve products offered by companies that cater to school districts, that doesn’t fit his mission.

“The path of least resistance is to still buy the pre-done foods that meet the new regulations,” he said. “We could take the smooth waters, but what does that do for our meal program and for the health of our kids?”

MEALS MEET WITH MIXED REVIEWS

Students have noticed the changes brought on by the fed-eral rules and the scratch-cook-ing efforts. In the last year, Hall noticed some recipes for lunch options have changed, and not necessarily for the better, in her opinion. She misses the days of adding an ice-cream sandwich to her meal, the days of sweet-ened drinks and name-brand goodies she would grab and her

parents would later grill her about when they saw how she racked up the lunch bill. Sharp misses the revenue that came from these extra sales — called “a-la-carte” items — which boosted his budget around $1 million before these items were restricted. A-la-carte sales are roughly one-quarter the former amount these days.

Hall realizes the district’s conformity to new regulations requiring whole grains and lower sodium leaves school lunch managers with more hurdles in providing foods kids enjoy eating on the menu, but it doesn’t mean she likes it.

She’s noticed that the recipe for the cheese sauce on the mac-aroni and cheese has changed, and that the noodles are a darker color and a different texture (because they’re whole wheat now). But when it’s on the menu, she just eats the little smokies and leaves the macaro-ni and cheese on the plate. She’s noticed the marinara sauce is packed with shredded veggies for the pizza and the pasta dish-es, and says it’s OK most of the time, but not terrific.

This brings up one of the issues school lunch profession-als grapple with — making lunches healthier doesn’t always appeal to kids’ palates, especially if they were used to eating the old school lunches and they don’t eat healthy meals at home.

Just because it’s on the plate doesn’t mean they’re eating it. Some days, you can tell exactly what the students thought of the meal by looking at the cafe-teria trash cans.

After spending so many years eating from school lunch menus, Hall says she’s learned to “eat around” the things she doesn’t prefer and just eat what she finds palatable. If it’s tur-key gravy and mashed potato day, she’ll eat the gravy with a roll and the turkey gravy, but she scrapes it off the potatoes. And sometimes, there’s just nothing that looks good at all, so she just won’t eat that day, unless she has soccer practice after school.

Since she’s graduating next month, she won’t be around to try out the shiny new salad bars at all the schools in the fall, one of the changes Sharp has in store for his custom-ers. She won’t be around for the other menu changes the district is making in response to feedback from students and cafeteria managers. The one thing she hopes they keep is breakfast pizza, a frozen, pre-made product topped with sausage and cheese the kitchen staff just heats and serves.

“I can’t think of a lunch that I really like,” she said. “But if breakfast counts, they make re-ally good breakfast pizzas and I wish they made it for lunch.”

■

Email Erin McIntyre at westlifegj@gmail.com.

“The path of least resistance is to still buy the pre-done

foods that meet the new regulations.

We could take the smooth waters, but what does that do

for our meal program and for the health of

our kids?”DAN SHARP

Director of District 51 nutrition services

The Daily Sentinel • Sunday, April 19, 2015 7A

DISTRICT 51 SCHOOL LUNCH

The nutrition comparison between what kids receive on a school lunch tray versus some popular foods brought into lunchrooms might surprise you.

While lunches provided as part of the National School Lunch program have caloric limits, targeted sodium levels and requirements that saturat-ed fat comprise no more than 10 percent of the total calories, packed lunches brought from home don’t have the same restrictions. A recent study, published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior in November, found

that packed lunches were less nutritious than school lunches. Researchers examined more than 1,300 lunches over the course of a week, eaten by preschoolers and kindergartners in a West Virginia school district. They found that the packed lunches were higher in calories, fat, saturat-ed fat, and sugar than school lunch. The packed lunches also had less protein, sodium, fiber and calcium than school lunch.

To receive funding from the U.S. Department of Agricul-ture, school nutrition programs must provide what’s called a “reimbursable meal,” which means it meets the daily or weekly requirements for what

should be offered. Reimburse-ment is received for all lunches served, not just those that are free or reduced-price. The

maximum amount a district could receive for a free lunch is $3.15, according to the USDA. Reduced lunches earn $2.75 and paid lunches are subsi-

dized 36 cents at most.Schools with higher-so-

cioeconomic populations receive less money for lunches, though the meals are identical across the district. If less than 60 percent of the students at a school qualify for free or reduced lunch, the district receives 17 cents less for every free lunch. Districts that serve meals that meet the nutritional requirements specified through

the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act receive six cents more per meal.

While schools must offer all five components of the meal — fruits, vegetables, grains, meat (or meat alternative) and milk — students are only required to choose three of those items to meet the requirements. As long as students choose the fruits or the vegetables as one of the three items, the meal counts as reimbursable. So, by that definition, a student could select a whole-grain roll, salad and fruit and it would qualify as a complete meal according to federal standards, though it would not include any protein.

Federal rules don’t allow trans-fats and only allow 10 percent of the school lunch’s

total calories to come from saturated fat, averaged across a week of meals. School lunches must also offer at least one cup of fruits and vegetables to stu-dents, with specific vegetables required weekly (red/orange veggies, dark green veggies and legumes, which are under-con-sumed by kids, according to the Institute of Medicine). Students must take at least one-half cup of fruits or vegetables with their lunches for the meal to count as reimbursable.

This is why kitchen staff in-structs students to “pick three, and make sure one is a red or a green” in the color-coded sys-tem of the lunch line. Through the new “My Plate” system, which replaced the food pyra-mid many people remember,

red stands for fruit and green is a veggie. District 51 Nutrition Services Director Dan Sharp estimates less than 10 percent of students choose only fruits and vegetables, and “most kids will still pick the protein.”

The Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act has a goal of ratch-eting down the amount of sodium gradually over the course of a decade, to no more than 740 milligrams per meal by 2022-2023. Few of District 51’s current meals can meet that requirement, but they come much closer to hitting the mark than foods seen in many cafeterias, brought from home by students.

■

Email Erin McIntyre at westlifegj@gmail.com.

Brown bag lunch not always a better optionBy ERIN McINTYRE

Special to The Daily Sentinel

LUNCHABLES NACHOS CHEESE DIP & SALSA

Total Fat: 23 gSaturated Fat: 6 gSodium: 870 mg

KRAFT MACARONI & CHEESE

EXTREME CHEESETotal Fat: 3.5 gSaturated Fat: 2 g

Sodium: 570 mg

MARUCHAN INSTANT LUNCH RAMEN NOODLES

CHICKEN FLAVORTotal Fat: 12 gSaturated Fat: 6 g

Sodium: 1,190 mg

HORMEL REVPEPPERONI

PIZZATotal Fat: 22 g

Saturated Fat: 10 gSodium: 990 mg

DISTRICT 51 LUNCH ITEMSHOMESTYLE TURKEY GRAVY

Total Fat: 11.14 gSaturated Fat: 5.33 gSodium: 542 mg

ROASTED HERB CHICKEN WITH A ROLL

Total Fat: 13.51 gSaturated Fat: 3.92 gSodium: 573 mg

FRITO CHILI PIETotal Fat: 23.73 gSaturated Fat: 6.51 gSodium: 748 mg

NANA’S MAC & CHEESE WITH LITTLE SMOKIES AND A ROLL

Total Fat: 20.14 gSaturated Fat: 9.09 gSodium: 957 mg

* Nutritional info from District 51

9081

Bring your loan to Coloramo for rates as low as 2.89% APR!*

Present this coupon for $100 upon loan closing.

Offer expires 4/30/15

NOT A MEMBER? NO PROBLEM! JOIN TODAY! *APR = ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE

How would you like $100 in your pocket?!It’s easy! Just bring your vehicle loan you

have financed elsewhere to Coloramo.

• 138 S. Park Square, Fruita• 2706 Hwy 50, Orchard Mesa

• 516 28 Road, GJ• 759 Horizon Drive, GJ

970.243.7280 • www.coloramo.org

Voted #1 Bank or Credit Union 4 Years in a Row!

Plus, for every loan we refinance now through 4/30/15 Coloramo will donate $100 to Homeward

Bound of the Grand Valley!

REGAIN THE YOUTHFULLOOK AND FEEL OF NATURAL TEETH

WITH DENTAL IMPLANTS

Dental implants are the most natural replacement for missing teeth. Whether you are missing one or more teeth, dental implants can give

you back the con!dence to eat, smile, and have an active lifestyle without the problems associated with loose, ill-!tting dentures, or unsightly gaps. Dr. Bene!eld has helped many patients regain the

youthful look and feel of natural teeth with dental implants.Call his of!ce today for a no-cost, no-obligation consultation to

see how dental implants can improve your life.

FREE Implant Consultation, including x-rays and limited examination to see if you are a

candidate for dental implants.

$890 00 IMPLANT*Applies to 1st implant only. Does not include abutment and crown. New patients only.

1035 Grand Ave.970.243.8580www.mygranddental.com

HALF REGULAR COST!

9937

-01

The AtomicWorkers™ Advocacy Groupwww.atomicworkers.com

Albert B. Frowiss, Jr.

720-644-9161DOE Employees & Contractors Prior to 1986

U.S. Vanadium, Walker-Lybarger, American Smelting, American Cyanamid, National Lead, Swinerton & Walberg,

Lucius Pitkin, Bendix Field Engineering

1030

4-02

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA)is a Federal entitlement program available to former atomic/nuclear workers.

Former workers or surviving family memberseligible for up to $400,000 - tax free.

Call today (720-644-9161) for aconfidential, no obligation assessment.

* 22 specific cancers are radiogenic, likely caused by exposure to radiation

• Did you or a family member work at the Grand Junction Operations Office?

• Did the worker develop cancer* or medical conditions related to exposures?

• Have you applied for EEOICPA and been denied? We can help win your claim!

It’s time to take action!

DOE Grand JunctionOperations Office1943 through 1985

11250

8A The Daily Sentinel • Sunday, April 19, 2015