2025 in Review

The year 2025 started out warm and controversial, with February delivering both the news of mass firings at the federal level under the new Trump Administration as well as a preview of an ever-warming San Luis Valley a quarter of the way through the 21st Century.

As the year progressed, the threat of ICE raids hung over the Valley and mass protests emerged in Alamosa as the shadow of the federal government seemed to consume every waking hour.

The town of San Luis was in the news spotlight throughout the year. With state legislators focused on addressing the Cielo Vista Ranch fence controversy, District Attorney Anne Kelly’s forthright concerns with the Costilla County Sheriff’s Office, and a bombshell lawsuit aimed at The Acequia Institute and its leader Devon Pena, Colorado’s oldest community took more hits than it would like on its reputation.

The summer months brought devastating news on the sudden death of Mark Martinez, one of Alamosa’s bright, young, up-and-coming leaders. Then two weeks later came news that the coach had died, Joe I. Vigil, the legendary hall-of-fame running coach who put Alamosa and Adams State on the global map.

Coming Tuesday: 2025 in Photos

The year continued to reveal a warming San Luis Valley and resulting challenges to the Upper Rio Grande Basin. The closing days of 2025 delivered a series of four new daytime high temperatures, while a new study warned of an “existential water crisis” along the nearly 1,900-mile long Rio Grande. 

Here is a month-to-month review on 2025, with updates on some of the headlines.

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Fresh off the 2024 presidential election that returned Donald J. Trump to power, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser became the first to declare his intention to seek the governorship in 2026 as he became one of the president’s chief antagonists at a state level. As the year progressed, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet also announced a bid for governor, setting up a 2026 Democratic Party primary battle between the two respected public servants. Barb Kirkmeyer, a seasoned GOP state senator from Weld County, announced her candidacy in the fall and is favored to secure the Republican nomination for Colorado governor. Kirkmeyer began to make her case for the governorship with this appearance on The Valley Pod. The Colorado governor’s race will be one of the stories that shapes the new year of 2026.

For a moment there was hope that Colorado Pacific Rio Grande Railroad would team up with San Luis Valley Great Outdoors on a rail-to-trail project following the railroad’s federal filing to abandon a 26.55 mile stretch of tracks between Monte Vista and South Fork. Except the railroad eventually pulled away from the trail concept, but not its plan to abandon the rail tracks which is before the U.S. Surface Transportation Board. The month also brought news of the first wave of firings for federal employees working in the San Luis Valley when Rosalee Reese, a fisheries biologist with Rio Grande National Forest, stood before Rio Grande County Commissioners to express her own devastation of losing her job under the DOGE federal cuts. “This year, 36 years of age, I finally thought we were in a secure enough position that we could have a family and my baby is due in two months and I just lost my insurance, my maternity leave, my income, all of my benefits,” she said in her public comments before the county commissioners. Reese eventually gained her job back and gave birth to a beautiful son.

By March, the new Trump Administration had folks riled up and speaking out. Or, depending on the view, had folks cheering on the actions of the federal government. Either way, the federal government was becoming a larger shadow and it took a glimpse of Cranes in Flight to refocus our attention on the Valley’s more pleasing aesthetics.

There was little water in the river come April, with Sanchez Reservoir at just 6 percent of its capacity and the Valley’s other reservoirs also feeling the effects of a light spring runoff. The month delivered new record-high temperatures for April 9, April 11, and then April 12 when the mercury reached 79 degrees. The diminishing Rio Grande was topic A when representatives from Texas, New Mexico and Colorado arrived in Alamosa for the Rio Grande Compact meetings.

Wolf movement in the Rio Grande Drainage popped onto the Valley’s radar screen in May. “People are just anxious about it,” cattle rancher George Whitten told Gov. Jared Polis during a visit. “It’s one of those things that is something that is unknown and something that is new and you’ve got all this fear. But they’re here and we’re going to learn more, but that’s the new reality.” Alamosa Citizen reporter Owen Woods tracked the movement of wolves into the fall both in Colorado and New Mexico, and produced this Year in Wolves review to summarize where the region is as the wolves demonstrate that they do not recognize state boundaries.

A Day in the Life of the San Luis Valley came into view with this pictorial from a team of Citizen photographers. Creede Repertory Theatre, meanwhile, celebrated 60 years and our own Hannah Eubanks marked the occasion with an anniversary story, “Go to Creede for your soul” on the humble beginnings of Creede Repertory. The month also landed Into Thin Air: Cranes in Flight by Jocelyn Russell, a world-renowned bronze sculptor who created this soaring piece of two cranes in flight over her hometown of Alamosa. By month’s end, Barry Morphew had been indicted on first-degree murder from a 12th Judicial District Grand Jury looking into the 2023 death of his wife, Suzanne. Morphew is scheduled to stand trial in an Alamosa County district courtroom in 2026. It’s a trial that will hold the nation’s attention.

Not to be outdone by the new Marriott hotel rising up in downtown Alamosa, the city of Monte Vista marked the month by breaking ground on its own four-story, 62-room hotel by Cobblestone Hotels. The hotel is part of the evolving Ski-Hi Stampede Complex and promises to compete for tourists that make their way into the SLV. On the other end of the Valley in the town of San Luis, District Attorney Anne Kelly was being blunt in her assessment of the Costilla County Sheriff’s Department. “I have never said ever that I do not trust a police agency and I do not trust the Costilla County Sheriff’s Office,” Kelly said during this special meeting on July 9 with Costilla County Commissioners. The Colorado AG office opened its own investigation and Kelly would later note that state crime investigators collected more than 1,000 pieces of evidence, some dating back to 1976, as part of a complete cleanup of the evidence storage room at the Costilla County Sheriff’s Department. “We found that evidence was mislabeled, or disorganized, compromised. So the task ahead of sorting through all of this is going to be daunting,” she said.

By August the river in Alamosa was disappearing before our eyes. Literally. The flows on the Upper Rio Grande and Conejos River were as low as they’ve ever been, rivaling the year 2002, which is the measuring stick used for dryness from a multi-decade mega drought. Other warnings were issued as well. A report from Climate Central showed just how much warmer the San Luis Valley has been getting compared to the rest of the nation. The average summer temperature increased 3.5 degrees in Alamosa County and 3.9 degrees in Rio Grande County over the past five decades, according to data Climate Central released. The report jibed with what the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University has found – the Valley and southwestern United States are warming faster than other regions of the country. Another rising voice against the actions of the U.S. government — that of Madeleine Ahlborn, the creative force behind The Church Project Community Arts Center in Monte Vista — was heard in August. At the annual SLV Pride Festival, Ahlborn delivered a speech appropriate for the times when she called on the Valley’s sizable and significant LGBTQ community to stand strong together to ensure their existence and meaning in life is not erased by government policies and politicians who aim to do them harm. “The rage inside me tells me it’s time to act…,” said Ahlborn. “As I stand before you wearing all black, it’s not because I’ve dressed for a funeral. I believe my place, my best work as an artist, my place of power, is to transform space into a stage for others, to be the stage hand for your vivid and complex play you write and live every day. A stage hand to ensure that everyone has a chance to be in the spotlight so your names will never be unspoken or unheard, and our existence will never be erased.”

Death by lightning strike that befell out-of-state hunters Andrew Porter and Ian Stesko, and then the arrest of Jose Aguilera by the U.S. government’s secret police from Homeland Security and Immigration Customs Enforcement put the San Luis Valley squarely in the nation’s spotlight.  The bodies of the two young hunters were found seven days after families of the hunters reported Porter and Stesko missing to Conejos County authorities on Sept. 11. Conejos County Coroner Richard Martin said the two hunters, both 25, were the first to be killed by lightning in the county that he has investigated in his 20 years as coroner. The month ended with the arrest of Aguilera as he traveled along Sixth Street, with his wife and month-old child in the vehicle, when federal agents pulled him over, smashed the car window and grabbed Aguilera for deportation. It was a scene typical of what the nation had been witnessing from stepped-up immigration enforcement actions but was shocking nonetheless for the small community to witness. Aguilera was taken to an ICE facility in Aurora, then transferred to Texas before he was deported to his native home in the state of Jalisco, Mexico.

The month was marked by the breathtaking turn around of this water year for San Luis Valley irrigators – going from one of the deadest rivers on record to a bountiful water year of full canals and increased reservoir storage. In September the closely-watched unconfined aquifer hit its lowest level ever recorded since monitoring of the troubled aquifer began in January 2002, according to Davis Engineering. Then October delivered heavy rains across the southwest, which resulted in historic fall seasonal flows on the San Juan and into the Rio Grande and Conejos River systems. The Rio Grande grew by 80,000 acre-feet and the Conejos River by 20,000 acre-feet as a result of the rains, said Craig Cotten, division engineer for the Colorado Division of Water Resources. There was also a fugitive hiding in the remote area of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range who was apprehended by the U.S. Marshals Service in October. Paul Sandoval was wanted as a suspect in the violent rape of an 8-year-old girl; a 5-day manhunt on the Blanca massif ended in his arrest.

The Valley was dazzled by the northern lights and became synonymous with Hollywood with the release of the movie “Rebuilding” as the year moved to a close. The month also delivered two new cross country champions for Adams State. It was in the summer of 2023 that a film crew came around and shot Rebuilding. With it now on the big screen, San Luis Valley locals will recognize the Rio Grande near Los Sauces, the Monte Vista Sale Barn, La Jara Elementary and Capulin Library, among other scenery that shows up in the film. “The truth is, this movie owes the debt of gratitude to people and places in the Valley so deeply it truly was just made by so many people here,” Max Walker-Silverman, the writer and director of Rebuilding told us in this interview. Also in the starring role were Adams State cross country runners Tristian Spence and Kidus Begashaw. They became the first duo to win the women’s and men’s NCAA DII cross country titles in the same season. Spence and Begashaw did it at the cross country national meet held in Kenosha, Wis., then took us through their thrilling victories in this episode of The Valley.

Cattle rancher Greg Higel said he nearly cried when he learned that the San Luis Valley’s highly-anticipated district water court case — the water trial of this century if you will — had been pushed back six months to the summer of 2026. The water trial dealing with the Fourth Amended Plan of Water Management by Subdistrict 1 in the Rio Grande Water Conservation District was originally scheduled to last five weeks beginning in January. Then a series of contentious October emails by a key witness in the trial came to light that had Colorado Water Court Division 3 Judge Michael Gonzales erring on the side of caution with his decision to move the trial to the summer months of 2026. The reaction by Higel and others, who anxiously await the outcome of what will be a defining water trial, was understandable given the lengthy process of developing a new plan of water management in the all-important subdistrict. As the month closed, more record heat – four consecutive days from Dec. 19 through 22nd – defined the Valley landscape and the idea of winter never seemed so far away.

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We’ll tell you what awaits in the new year with “The Year of Colorado” preview that will publish January 1, 2026 – the 150th year of Colorado statehood.