La Plata County, Colorado

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"Still, living on the financial edge, year after year, gets to be a real grind. We've seen a lot of people come and go. The beauty draws them in, then, a year or so later, their savings and energy drained, the economy forces them back out. They just get tired of the struggle. You can't be materialistic and make it here." Just so. Yet a few relatively good jobs do exist locally. Among the most coveted of these are the 400 or so state-salaried faculty, administration and staff positions at Fort Lewis College.

Leonard "Red" Bird, 53, is professor of literature and creative writing and chairman of the English department at Fort Lewis. He is also, to my critical ear, a poet of exceptional depth and talent. Red and his wife, Jane, live on a small ranch near Hesperus, in westcentral La Plata County, where Red spends his summers pursuing the Zen of irrigation ditching.

"I've been at Fort Lewis for 20 years," says the good professor, "and consider it to be my school; it is a unique place. As a relatively small, state-supported liberal arts college [1988 enrollment was just over 3,800], we try to give a lot of individual attention to our students and to provide them with a strong background in the liberal arts. Considering what the school can pay its teachers, Fort Lewis has an exceptionally strong faculty [of 160 full-time professors, 85% hold terminal degrees], and the curricula in a number of departments is outstanding.

"Because of our spectacular physical surroundings, we tend to draw a lot of students who are relatively independent, outdoor oriented and interested in the life of both the mind and the body. While we do get a lot of young people who are here primarily to play, we also attract students who enhance the caliber of the school—good students who thrive in the Southwest. Our graduates frequently show a strong loyalty to us, and many of them stay in the community.

"As a writer, primarily a poet, I'm nurtured by the beauty and ruggedness of the area, and feel a stronger sense of place here in the Four Corners [the region where the corners of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico meet] than anywhere else I've lived. The area feeds the psyche, and I love that. But most people have to make economic sacrifices to live here, and I think that many of those who move in and then leave do so because they expect to be able to buy a little restaurant or store and make a good living from the tourist trade—and that's very, very hard to do. Anybody who's considering a move here needs to think seriously about the economic realities. We have great scenery, great cultural and recreational variety-but you can't live on those things alone."

RATHER THAN CLOSING WITH A summation of my own, I'm happy (in fact, relieved) to delegate that chore to someone officially qualified for the job—the mayor of Durango.

Lynn Shine, 37, is the very antithesis of the stereotypical red-nosed, cigar-sucking, fat-cat small-town mayor. She and her husband, Tom, a member of the district school board, have lived in Durango for 13 years. They have one child.

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