Adam Rayes
Reporter, Rural and Small CommunitiesEmail: adam.rayes@kunc.org
As KUNC鈥檚 rural and small communities reporter, I help further the newsroom鈥檚 efforts to ensure that all of Northern Colorado鈥檚 communities are heard. These communities have so much to tell us about themselves and Colorado as a whole. They鈥檙e all unique and simultaneously a crucial part of a bigger picture. Many of these communities exist in a news desert; their stories aren鈥檛 being told and they鈥檙e disconnected from each other and the rest of the region. I hope to bring more stories and voices from these places to elevate the conversation.
Before coming to KUNC, I worked at Michigan Radio where I was a production assistant for the statewide newsmagazine, Stateside. I graduated after just three years at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which is where I fell in love with journalism.
I love cooking my dad鈥檚 traditional Syrian recipes, even though my attempts are never up to his standards. I enjoy gaming, running, tasting new beers, watching anything Sam Esmail makes and I hope to gain new hobbies here in Colorado, like skiing.
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Last November, the 17-member Republican River Water Conservation District board more than doubled the annual fee farmers in the basin pay per irrigated acre. That increase allowed the board to also increase the amount offered to those who chose to stop irrigating. Interest in the program has since gone up, but some feel the fee is unfair. -
How did the Republican River get its name? According to History Nebraska, Nebraska鈥檚 Democratic Gov. Frank Morrison would jokingly ask Republican friends if the river got its name 鈥渂ecause it鈥檚 so shallow or so crooked?鈥� But the name has nothing to do with the modern political party or its predecessors. It鈥檚 a reference to a European settler nickname for a band of the Pawnee Nation. -
Little to no water flows from the Republican River's South Fork in southeast Yuma and northern Kit Carson counties into Kansas and Nebraska, where it merges with the main river. Officials have a plan that could cost about $40 million to save the fork. -
Part one of KUNC's Republican River series showed how dropping river flows and groundwater levels impact farmers and ranchers in northeastern Colorado. Part two examined a portion of the history that got the basin to this point. Part three explores potential farmer-centric solutions and the impact they could have in Colorado and the other two states dependent on the river basin's water. -
Part one of KUNC's Republican River series showed how dropping river flows and groundwater levels are impacting farmers and ranchers in northeastern Colorado. From a 1930s flood to extended drought today, the river has been managed by three states, sometimes cooperatively and sometimes combatively. To meet the terms of a decades-old compact, 25,000 irrigated acres of Colorado farmland must soon be shut down. Part two looks at part of the history that got the basin to this point. -
The Colorado River gets a lot of attention, but it鈥檚 not the only multi-state river that starts in Colorado. And it鈥檚 definitely not the only one facing a water shortage. On the eastern side of the continental divide is the Republican River. It flows through the cropland of Yuma County and feeds into Kansas and Nebraska. In the first of a three-part series, KUNC explores the economic and environmental challenges the Republican River basin faces. -
Damage assessments released on Saturday afternoon totaled 991 homes and businesses destroyed and another 127 structures damaged in the Marshall Fire. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said three people have now been reported missing. -
Smaller county populations are shrinking as bigger counties鈥� are growing. 2020 census data show that is as true in Colorado as it is nationally. Rural birth rates are dropping, death rates are rising and young people are moving away. Some leave behind multi-generational farming legacies and the land that comes with it. Others are coming back. -
Today, things have gotten better in many ways, three generations of the Adame and Crespin family told KUNC. In many other ways, they added, the racism has remained or gotten worse. -
Several moments during the last two years have reflected race-based problems in Loveland 鈥� at city council, school and library board meetings, during protests and in Facebook groups. Often, a key point of contention for some residents is whether racism even exists in the city, or ever did.
