By: Trailblazer News Team – Special Report
One year ago, a group of Estes Park Middle School students did something extraordinary: they identified a classroom problem, researched it, and presented a solution. Now, they’re seeing the fruits of that labor—in the form of 20 brand-new, high-performance computers transforming their computer science lab.
A Quick Recap: Student-Led, Real-Life Learning
Last school year, students in Mrs. Ravi Davis’s Computer Science class noticed serious barriers to learning:
- WiFi instability
- Outdated devices
- Lagging device performance that made coding and digital curriculum difficult
Instead of giving up, they proposed a project where they investigated the issues, identified potential solutions, and presented them to school tech leaders and community partners—including Trailblazer Broadband. Their goal? Create a modern lab where all students can learn, explore, and thrive.
The Big Reveal: A 21st Century Lab for Future Innovators
On September 29, 2025, the students got the surprise of a lifetime. Jon Anderson, Instructional Coach, and Mary Barron, Estes Park Middle School Assistant Principal, along with Trailblazer Broadband, were present to celebrate the impact of the students’ work with them.
Voices full of delight could be heard down the halls as Mrs. Davis revealed their new lab—now home to 20 sleek, high-powered machines, specifically chosen to support programming, coding, and creative game development platforms, a student favorite, according to the students present for the reveal.
“It’s really cool to know that the community cares about us,” said one student. Classmates and Assistant Principal Barron agreed—with cheers and wide smiles.
The room buzzed with excitement as students checked out their new machines, full of the anticipation of the upcoming semester when computers would be fully prepped for school use by district CIS Administrator and Cyber Analyst, Rick Compton. Some students were already thinking about what they could swap to be able to take Computer Science next semester before they even got the devices running!
District Budget + Community = Big Win
The transformation didn’t happen overnight. The project and getting the new devices took nearly a year.
- The first 15 computers were purchased by the Estes Park School District, with support from Mrs. Davis, administration and the IT department.
- At roughly $2,000 per device, this used the available technology budget for the lab.
- With district approval, the Estes Park Education Foundation opened the door for community support.
And the community showed up.
Thanks to local donors—including Trailblazer Broadband—an additional $11,000 was raised, covering five more devices, bringing the total to 20 new computers.
But Wait…There’s More – The Final Five: Still Needed
To fully accommodate the class size of 25 students, five more computers are still needed. The cost for the middle school students to reach their goal and to finish the project is approximately $9,000.
If you’d like to support this impactful, student-led initiative, donations can be made through the Estes Park Education Foundation. Just earmark your gift for “Innovations in Learning” to be sure your donation goes to this project.
Every dollar helps bring this project to the finish line—and supports the next generation of tech innovators.
Words from the Classroom
The teaching staff who work with the Computer Science class are beyond proud—not just of the upgraded technology, but of the students’ ability to envision a better learning environment and make it happen.
“This is what education should look like,” one staff member reflected. “Students recognized a need, used data to make a case, and then witnessed the results of their efforts. It’s vision, problem-solving, and real-world impact.”
We left that classroom not only impressed—but inspired. These students reminded us that future engineers, game designers, data scientists, and changemakers are already here in our community. With the right tools and a little encouragement, their ideas can become reality. Thanks to the guidance of educators like Mrs. Davis and the support of a community that believes in its students, Estes Park’s next generation of tech talent is already blazing the trail.
Bonus: Did You Know?
The Estes Park Middle School building was originally constructed in 1971—more than 50 years ago—and first served as Estes Park High School until 1976.
📚 (Source: Colorado State University – EPHS History)
Though the building’s legacy is rich, materials like concrete walls and older infrastructure make modern WiFi tricky—another reason wired, high-performance lab computers are so valuable in this setting. With wired devices like the middle school now has, the students can take advantage of the lightning-fast speed of Trailblazer’s fiber optics to work–and learn–more efficiently.
Tech Tip: WiFi vs. Internet
WiFi is the wireless signal inside a building.
Internet is the service Trailblazer Broadband delivers to the school.
In this case, the internet connection was strong—it was the aging WiFi network and older laptops struggling to connect that caused issues in the classroom. Thick concrete walls and outdated devices made learning tough. But this lab upgrade is helping fix that!
Middle School Tech Lab – Student Follow-Up Questions
Tech & Learning Impact
Now that you’ve seen the new computers, what are you most excited to try first?
(Besides gaming platforms — anything new on your radar?)
Loading times, screen quality, faster processor, graphics quality\
How do you think these new computers will help future students in this class?
(What would you tell next year’s class about what’s possible now?)
These new computers will help future students learn better with a faster processor and higher quality. It will give them more time to learn and not load.
What’s something that was hard to do on the old computers that will be easier now? Over 20% of the class time was loading and waiting to get into our curriculum and platforms. We won’t experience that now.
What does having modern technology in your classroom mean to you as a student?
“It is easier to traverse, more immersive, and a better learning experience.”
Future You: Looking Ahead
Has this project changed what you might want to study in high school or after graduation?
(Are you thinking about tech, design, cybersecurity, or other STEAM fields?)
“I would continue to pursue it in high school and college because it’s good to have a handle on modern technology.” / “I want to be an engineer when I grow up so having experience in creating stuff will help me.”
If you could build your own tech class in high school, what would you include?
Using more up to date platforms expanding beyond gaming, such as “pre-aeronautics education” and include a flight simulator.
Imagine it’s 10 years from now—you’re working in tech. What job are you doing? What’s something you helped invent or build?
“I would be in naval architecture – I invented the first modern ocean liner.” / “I would be working in contract IT to help kids use modern technology.”
Community Connections
If you could say something to the people who donated or helped make this possible, what would it be?
Thank you for donating money to us. Thank you for helping our current students and future students have more time learning and less time waiting (for websites to load).
Thank you for contributing to our learning experience. This will help us in the future with hands-on experience using technology.
How do you think having stronger tech education here in Estes could help your town’s future economy?
(Ideas: more remote jobs, local startups, or even tech careers based here.)
Starting up a private company to help our elderly community.
Fun Bonus
If your class was designing a logo or motto for your new lab, what would it be?
(Bonus points if it involves lasers, robots, or elk.)
-
- Name – Wapiti Laboratories
- Logo would be a robotic elk shooting red lasers out of its eyes
- Motto – “We are the Future”
Trailblazer’s tagline is about “Connecting Our Community.” What’s one way YOU think tech connects people?
“It helps you communicate in a quick and efficient way, which is an important luxury of modern day.”
Reprinted with permission from the Allenspark Wind, December 2023 Vol. 50, No. 11, June 2024 Vol. 51, No. 5, by Edward Yagi
As Allenspark’s snowbirds return to our area and the annual rituals of opening up cabins, repairing snow and wind damage, and checking up with friends and neighbors are in full swing, a new item should be on everyone’s checklist this year: keeping abreast of the Trailblazer internet rollout.
In order to be good consumers, it is incumbent on all of us to do our homework and understand the terminology. It is with this in mind that the Wind has compiled this handy list of high-speed internet terms.
Broadband: In the distant past this referred to music groups like the the Bangles, the Go-Go’s, and Bananarama. Now it refers to high-speed data access, and by “high” we mean really high:10 gigabits per second (10 Gbps), which is 100 times faster than DSL – and 178,571 times faster than the old dial-up you used when the internet first came out.
DSL: An increasingly obsolete form of internet connection that uses existing telephone lines. Dial-up simply hijacked voice bandwidth and replaced it with data (which was why you couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time in 1994). DSL uses “black box” software and equipment that separates voice from data on the same line at different frequencies. We told you this before.
ONT: OK this is new one. An Optical Network Terminal is the device in your home that converts optical signals from the FOC into the electrical signals used by your computers, phones, WiFi routers, etc. You can think of it as a fancy, advanced modem but you won’t be very “with it” if you do.
FOC: Fiber optic cable. C’mon, you should all know this by now.
EPP&C: Estes Park Power & Communications. Trailblazer is an ISP (internet service provider) that operates within EPP&C. Abbreviated to just “P&C” by cool people. The only people up here who have and are bringing you FOC.
UPS: This could either be the folks who deliver pack-ages to your doorstop or Uninterruptable Power Supply. In the latter case, a UPS is a kind of fancy battery that you install between the electrical outlet and the device you want to power or protect. A UPS can provide voltage regulation, surge protection, and backup power from anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. This last part is important because you might suffer from a….
PSD: This is as bad as it sounds: Power Supply Disruption. Basically, a blackout, due to either equipment failure, an accident, or probably the most common in Allenspark, weather factors such as high winds or heavy snow. But if you were an Xcel customer a few weeks ago, you probably got it with a…..
PSPS: Public Safety Power Shutoff. This is where a utility intentionally shuts off electricity to prevent power lines from sparking fires in potentially dangerous conditions. According to Estes Park Director of Utilities Reuben “Bomb.com” Bergsten, EPP&C is reluctant to do a PSPS, since this tends to mess up your morning, afternoon, or evening. But since anything is better than a Maui or a Marshall (fire), it will always be a possibility.
BTW, Trailblazer has its own internal emergency pow-er sources. This means that even if the electrical grid goes down, assuming you have EPP&C Trailblazer FOC and a UPS hooked up to your ONT, even with a PSD or PSPS you should still have internet connectivity long enough to at least access EMER INFO.
Just FYI. M.O.N.E.Y.: In 21st century Colorado, a series of zeros and ones in electronic financial ledgers that greatly deter-mines in what month, probably this year, Trailblazer service will reach our homes in Allenspark.
Vault covers & non-service impacting lines: Forget it. You don’t need to know.
Shock: A powerful but not-unpleasant emotion of surprise such as that felt by “Sean E” when Trailblazer hiked 1/8 of a mile through three feet of snow to do an installation at their home on March 15. If that date rings a bell, it was the day after Snowmageddon 2024. A “great bunch of dudes,” according to Sean, spent most of the day shoveling in order to do the installation. The dudettes, presumably, had the day off.
So unless you really enjoy having your internet crash frequently or waiting five minutes for your cat videos to download, you should have Trailblazer’s phone number on speed-dial and start making tentative preparations now, especially if you’re not a year-rounder, to get hooked up as soon as the service is available at your location.
And one more btw, Estes Park just had a new Town Board and new Mayor sworn in recently. Maybe they can help Trailblazer complete its roll-out by finding some M.O.N.E.Y.
Technological development never sprouts from thin air; it inevitably arises from some kind of existing practice or concept. There is a direct line, for example, from Ramses II in his chariot at the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE (famously shooting his horses in the back of their heads) to the width of 21st century high-speed rail gauge. In its first ten years, home internet access in the U.S. mainly piggy-backed on existing telephone lines: the dial-up modems of the 1990’s. But it quickly shifted to the cable TV paradigm, which reached its peak in the U.S. in 2000…penetration was 65% of all households and close to 100% in metropolitan areas.
Ironically, cable TV first appeared in the 1950’s to reach remote areas that couldn’t receive radio TV signals, but a generation later found its true niche as an alternative to traditional network programming. Key inflection points were HBO going nationwide in 1975 and CNN’s start up in 1980. The concept is simple and was adapted from other services supplied to individual homes such as electricity, gas, and telephone. A supplier builds a physical network to supply its product in high volume from its source outward along major routes. From the largest supply lines, smaller supply lines branch out into neighborhoods and large buildings (sometimes to junction boxes known as “nodes”), and from there into individual homes and units.
The term “last mile” (itself adapted from supply chain management of physical goods) refers to the final leg of the network delivery component to the end user. The “last mile” is typically the speed bottleneck and limits the bandwidth of data that can be delivered to an individual customer. In the 80’s and 90’s, customers learned first-hand how the “last mile” hugely affects price or even service availability. In some neighborhoods, the last mile is a few inches; in others it could be hundreds of miles. Most cable TV is owned and operated by private companies that have all added internet services to their service offerings in recent years, but do not service remote areas because the “last mile” isn’t profitable, or profitable enough.
In 2019, Estes Park’s power company (EPP&L, L for “light”) changed its name to EPP&C (C for “communications”) and boldly jumped into the game. A coin was flipped for who got to hang out in warm, brightly lit offices all day chatting up customers, and who got to freeze to death, drown in mud, attacked by woodpeckers, and maybe shot at while actually installing the cable.
The Fiber Team lost the toss and bravely set out on their 4+ year adventure to build a roughly 1000-mile network from zero. Day-to-day installation and operations are managed today by Crew Supervisor Adam Edwards and Head Fiber Technician Skye “Vanilla Splice” Stiner, so-called for his fiber splicing expertise. Fiber Team members are Devin “Disco Dev” Gelsinger, Thom “Stop petting the deer and get back to work” Ingram, Cory “Corn Dog” Ramacher, AJ “AJ” Schwarz, Greg “Go Rams” Smith, Joel “Shortz” Ziegler, and Mike “Mark Hollinger” Barringer – and most recently Nico Randazzo, Landon Donaldson, and Ian Hodde.
The Mighty EPP&C Groundworker Team consists of Dale Duell, Brett Rassmussen, and Matt Pavlish. The following are actual quotes from Fiber Team members confirmed by Trailblazer: “Are 45 mph winds too dangerous for overhead installs?” “Who slid down the hill in the mud and are they okay?” “What do you mean we can’t do the install today because there’s no fiber to the house yet?” “Why didn’t you tell us?” (It is not clear if the previous two quotes are related, but at some point they probably were.) “Someone actually shot the fiber line?” (Apparently there was a 2022 incident involving firearm discharge, but it’s not clear if the target was the fiber optic cable line, a Northern Flicker woodpecker attacking the line, a member of the Fiber Team working on the line, or something else entirely, like celebratory shooting into the air like you sometimes see in old western movies. My money is on the woodpecker…that’s what I would have done.) “The client wants us to run the fiber where?” — this quote no doubt generated several creative and humorous comments in good fun about where this particular customer was more than welcome to run their own fiber. “Who didn’t put their site review notes in the Customer Support system again?” (People! …some things never change!) “We’ll look back at this someday and laugh.” “No we won’t.” And the infamous quote “Of course we can start the Raven Circle condo installs in July!” is attributed to Trailblazer Line Superintendent Joe “Can Do” Lockhart, who remains superintendent today because hey, he was only one month off.
It is worth noting that although these folks are technicians, they are also de facto support and sales advisors because when out in the field they are naturally bombarded with questions from ordinary people, possibly armed, about all things broadband. They also now and then take a little heat from onlookers, again, possibly armed, because there is [SPOILER ALERT!] actual digging and modest construction involved in infrastructure creation. Along these lines, a few other quotes were provided by Trailblazer but regrettably cannot be reproduced here because the Wind is a family newspaper.
So when you see Adam, Skye, Thom, Devin, Greg, AJ, Joel, Cory, Mike, Dale, Brett, Matt, or any of the others – and you will see them – just wave and give them a big HI. No celebratory shooting required.
Reprinted with permission of the Allenspark Wind, September 2023 Edition, Vol. 50, No. 8, by Edward Yagi
The day was September 11, 2013 – ten years ago this month. A huge, slow-moving cold front from Canada stalled directly over the Colorado Rockies, clashing with extremely warm, humid monsoonal air coming up from the southwest. The result was a once-in-a-thousand-year downpour and flooding along the Front Range from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins. Estes Park was deluged by 9.31 inches of rain in seven days: more than half of what normally falls in a year. Roads were destroyed, neighborhoods were washed away, and Estes Park’s sole Internet connection with the rest of the world – mostly copper line between it and Loveland – simply vanished, not to be replaced for months.
The catastrophe vividly demonstrated our area’s dangerous over-reliance on Internet access – now a necessity of daily life – to a single, non-looped thread of connectivity. It also exposed the scattered, expensive, unreliable, or non-existent access throughout our mountain areas to begin with. It got smart people thinking. Might there be a better way to manage Internet service in our mountains, and if so, who could be trusted to run it?
Six years of research, debate, and preparation later, the Town of Estes Park’s municipally owned and operated broadband service, Trailblazer, became the definitive answer to these questions. Estes Park Power & Light, with the new name Estes Park Power & Communications, kicked off the Trailblazer Project in 2019. This month, September, Trailblazer celebrates its fourth anniversary with 780 miles of fiber optic cable (FOC) installed and its final run into Allenspark just around the corner.
But no project this ambitious is absent its challenges. In March 2020, as Trailblazer was in its initial rollout phase, it received some service calls from a handful of its first subscribers in the Carriage Hills neighborhood of Estes Park. The problem was bewildering given the brand-new, stateof-the-art fiber optic network, technology, materials, and EPP&C’s workmanship. The Trailblazer team was baffled.
The key break in the case was an anonymous note that read “Die Internet Die!” near a damaged stretch of freshly laid cable. Careful analysis by the FBI and the University of Colorado determined that the note was written using a quill from a bird feather; specifically, the Northern Flicker. This is a medium-sized migrating woodpecker with a gentle expression and handsome, black-scalloped plumage, identified in flight by a yellow or salmon tint under the wings and a delightful sustained laugh that cunningly disguises a murderous hatred of all things Internet.
Further investigation confirmed that it was the Northern Flickers themselves sabotaging brand-new fiber optic cable. Ornithological experts determined that this particular pecker had suffered a series of bad experiences on social media and was accordingly engaged in a vengeful and sustained anti-Internet crusade (sharp-eyed Wind readers will recall that wild animal conspiracies against we in our mountains are nothing new). Problem now identified, the Trailblazer team sprang into action. A race of wits ensued with the entire intellectual firepower of Estes Park pitted against a bird with a brain weighing approximately 1/20th of an ounce. The birds, predictably, won hands down for the longest time. They burst into especially sustained laughter at Trailblazer’s failed attempts to keep them off the cables by installing dummy owl decoys.
However, it was the Internet itself that won the day for Trailblazer. Customer Experience Manager Kim Smith read on Wikipedia that woodpeckers have a strong aversion to nacho-flavored Doritos. Trailblazer accordingly switched to a type of cable known as “flat drop” and seasoned them lightly with nacho cheese. As a result of this foxy move, the frustrating flickers finally forgo their ferocious but futile fight.
In addition to installing a brand-new, region-wide, FOC infrastructure across EPP&C’s entire mountainous service area smack in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, in its first year Trailblazer had to replace thousands of feet of bird-damaged fiber, cursing the evil flickers with each breath. In the words of Ms. Smith: “We are hopeful that our woodpecker problem is a thing of the past. Trailblazer is delighted to confirm that we are now heading into the final stages of making our super-reliable, super-high-speed fiber optic cable broadband Internet available to anyone who receives power from EPP&C, including our wonderful neighbors in Allenspark. And if anyone wants to purchase a slightly used dummy owl decoy, I have about 6000 of them in my office and they’re available for the low, low price of only $5.99 each. Plus shipping.”
Congratulations to NOCO Community Fiber for winning the Fiber Broadband Association’s 2023 Star Award at this year’s FBA Fiber Connect conference. Each year at the Fiber Connect conference, the Fiber Broadband Association celebrates outstanding contributions to the fiber industry. The Star Award specifically recognizes a person, community, or company that has gone above and beyond what is expected in the advancement of fiber internet to the home.
NOCO Community Fiber is a partnership between municipally-owned communications utilities and the county they empower, dedicated to the delivery of reliable, high-quality, affordable, and fiber-optic broadband. We have demonstrated that ubiquitous, affordable, high-quality access to critical resources is an achievable goal when communities collaborate on creative solutions, and profitability is removed from the equation.
Trailblazer Broadband is proud to be part of the NOCO Community Fiber collaboration along with other organizations including Loveland Pulse, Fort Collins Connexion, Poudre Valley REA, and Larimer County Government, which are all working tirelessly to bring fiber to their communities and the entire region. The excellent teamwork of NOCO Community Fiber entirely deserves the Star Award!
Trailblazer Broadband is municipally owned and is Estes Park’s only locally supported high-speed broadband service providing fiber directly to homes and businesses. The Town of Estes Park provides information only and does not endorse any listed companies, the views they express, or the products/services they offer. For more information about internet service, contact Trailblazer Broadband at info@trailblazerbroadband.com or (970)577-3770. More Trailblazer news is available at www.trailblazerbroadband.com and https://www.facebook.com/TrailblazerBroadband/.
The “glue” of Trailblazer Broadband is someone you don’t always see, but she’s everywhere, keeping the wheels of progress – and construction – moving. She is Linda Swoboda, Estes Park Utilities Business Manager. Having worked with the Town of Estes Park since 2015, Linda has spent much of the last 4 years coordinating operations for Trailblazer Broadband as well as other utility projects for the Town. In her role with Trailblazer, she has created and coordinated the entire construction schedule with the fiber team and manages day-to-day operations, subcontractors, supply management, contracts, grant writing, and budgeting.
Swoboda has a dual expertise in Construction Management and Architectural Studies, backed by two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and an MBA. In addition to all her other responsibilities, she used her unique talents to design and renovate Trailblazer’s headquarters at 1180 Woodstock Drive. She has also provided independent estimating consulting services for building contractors and architectural design firms.
Linda grew up in Nebraska where she was a tenured associate professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, teaching estimating courses. She was also a project manager for The Weitz Company in Nebraska and Arizona.
After relocating to Estes Park in 2010, Linda and her husband Gary became active community members. Swoboda is an occasional snowshoer, hiker, quilter and long-time member of the Estes Valley Quilt Guild.
“I am so happy to be here in the beauty of Estes Park and surrounded by such a great community of friends. The Trailblazer project has been a labor of love, and I am really looking forward to bringing it to its planned completion in the next year, ” Linda says. Trailblazer is incredibly fortunate to have Linda as its guiding force!
Trailblazer Broadband is municipally owned and is Estes Park’s only locally supported high-speed broadband service providing fiber directly to homes and businesses. The Town of Estes Park provides information only and does not endorse any listed companies, the views they express, or the products/services they offer. For more information about internet service, contact Trailblazer Broadband at info@trailblazerbroadband.com or (970)577-3770. More Trailblazer news is available at www.trailblazerbroadband.com and https://www.facebook.com/TrailblazerBroadband/.
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