Here's how Pueblo Chieftain journalists impacted our community in 2023

“Actions speak louder than words.”

“Don’t talk about it, be about it.”

These nearly identical well-known sayings have been at the forefront of my mind ever since I took over as editor of the Chieftain in August 2022.

The paper had seen some major management changes over the preceding year and a half and was in dire need of consistency, both in leadership and in providing the kind of quality coverage that Chieftain readers deserve.

But I didn’t want to overpromise and underdeliver, nor did I want to make sweeping declarations about all the ways I and my staff would transform the paper into the kind of community asset Pueblo needs without having first demonstrated an ability to actually do so.

For that reason, I never wrote an introductory column to outline my vision for the paper. I didn’t want us to just talk about it, I wanted us to be about it. Because one thing I’ve learned in the seven years I’ve worked in this community is that Puebloans don’t want talk, they want action. They don’t want to hear the Chieftain say the paper will hold people in power accountable for their actions, be a government watchdog, and shine a light on all the significant developments in their city — both good and bad — they want a newspaper that will put in the work and actually do it.

We very much established our ability to meet that challenge in 2022, but in 2023, we truly hit our stride.

Throughout last year, Chieftain reporters Tracy Harmon, Anna Lynn Winfrey, James Bartolo, Justin Reutter and Josue Perez, as well as sports reporter Chris Abdelmalek and staff photographer Zach Allen, did fantastic work covering the community and broke several huge stories with major implications for Puebloans.

Here’s a look at some of the Chieftain’s most impactful stories of 2023.

On the politics beat, we chronicled the turbulent year of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, from her decisions at the U.S. Capitol and her first sponsored bill to become law, to the actions that got her booted from a “Beetlejuice” musical performance in Denver and eventual decision to abandon a rematch in the 3rd Congressional District race against Adam Frisch to run for a far less competitive seat in Colorado’s ultra-conservative 4th District.

And while the Boebert headlines were some of our most-read of the year, they were far from our only or even our most impactful political coverage. We compiled comprehensive voter guides for city elections to give Puebloans the crucial information they needed to make an informed decision at the ballot box; wrote profiles and Q&As on every candidate in municipal races; detailed the plans of a religious group seeking to install candidates with a “biblical worldview” in Pueblo government; and chronicled the efforts of a group of people who sought to get rid of the mayor’s office.

And those stories barely scratch the surface of the important politics coverage reporter Anna Lynn Winfrey and the team took on last year.

Our public safety and crime reporting, led by Justin Reutter, detailed tragic accidents like the fatal train derailment north of Pueblo that shut down Interstate 25 for days and the crane collapse that killed a man at the Evraz long rail mill project. We covered all 28 homicides that took place in Pueblo County, from the breaking news of the murders to the arrests of suspects and subsequent court proceedings for those accused of those crimes.

On the other side of the criminal justice coin, we shined a spotlight on findings and credible allegations of wrongdoing against members of local law enforcement, including a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office in the 2022 shooting of Richard Ward, the firing of a former PCSO deputy and sheriff candidate for violations of department policy, and the minor discipline handed down to Pueblo police officers who failed to properly investigate the violent beating of a homeless man carried out by a PCSO volunteer medic and his son following the assault of a teacher at a local school.

When it comes to Pueblo schools, education reporter James Bartolo broke news of the departures of not one, but both presidents of Pueblo's higher education institutions: Colorado State University Pueblo President Timothy Mottet is headed for greener pastures and Pueblo Community College President Patty Erjavec is retiring after 14 years leading the college.

Bartolo is also the Chieftain’s in-house history buff and compiled several popular stories sharing little-known facts from Pueblo’s past, including a look at how Pueblo neighborhoods got their names, a list of big-time celebrities who once lived in Pueblo, and a roundup of some of the area’s oldest and most unique historic homes.

On the business beat, led by the incomparable Tracy Harmon, we covered hundreds of stories highlighting the comings and goings of local businesses, the rollercoaster that is the local real estate market, the latest developments in the food and restaurant scene, and the decisions made by the Pueblo Planning and Zoning Commission.

We also shared details about the arrival of a new airline in Pueblo with Southern Airways, the long-awaited opening of the Fuel & Iron Food Hall, the ongoing struggles of the affordable home builder indieDwell, a lawsuit in Crowley County involving a prominent Pueblo attorney and the city mayor’s former law firm, and much more.

Our general assignment reporter and jack of all trades, Josue Perez, led the Chieftain’s coverage of equity issues and marginalized populations, while jumping on any beat he was needed on any given day, from politics to sports and everything in between.

The Chieftain broke major stories about a nurse manager and the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo violating the Colorado whistleblower act, concerning accusations of poor treatment of homeless clients by members of leadership at the Pueblo Rescue Mission, and the repugnant and possibly illegal actions of a local real estate developer who spends his free time mocking homeless people with a drone for attention on social media.

On the sports beat, Chris Abdelmalek, the Chieftain’s one-man sports department and the only news professional in Pueblo who works full-time covering local sports, worked tirelessly to shed light on the tremendous achievements of local athletes.

Some of the Chieftain’s top sports stories of the year included Pueblo East repeating as 4A state champions and Weston Dalton winning his third state title, Pueblo County grad Braxton Vail crediting his adoptive family for helping mold him into the man he is today, a female football player at Pueblo West who made a name for herself on the team, and the newest inductees into the Pueblo Softball Hall of Fame.

Two Pueblo natives who now work in professional sports also saw their teams competing at the highest levels, with Albert Sandoval winning a World Series as a strength and conditioning coach for the Texas Rangers and Joe Pannunzio coaching special teams for the Philadelphia Eagles in a thrilling Super Bowl matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Lastly, Chieftain photographer Zach Allen spent the year shooting excellent photos for both news and sports, compiling galleries of local events and using his expert eye to capture hundreds of images to accompany Chieftain stories.

From breaking crime news and feel-good features to sporting events and a visit from President Joe Biden, Allen was everywhere in 2023.

These stories are just a small fraction of the impactful work the Pueblo Chieftain brought to our readers in 2023. And that’s without mentioning any of the compelling human-interest stories, big developments with Pueblo City Council and the Board of County Commissioners, coverage of important community events, or any other story that wasn't necessarily sensational or national news but was equally important to the people who call Pueblo home.

We'll continue to let our coverage do the talking for us in 2024.

Chieftain Editor Zach Hillstrom can be reached at zhillstrom@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, at @ZachHillstrom. Support local news, subscribe to the Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo Chieftain stories that had a big impact on the community in 2023