Colorado State University, Fort Collins and Loveland Communities Celebrate MLK Day Jan. 19 – March Route to Change

The Colorado State University, Fort Collins and Loveland communities will celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with several events on Monday, Jan. 19. The theme of this year’s celebration is "A Time for Change."

This year, a significant change has been made to the beginning of the Martin Luther King Day celebration in Fort Collins.

The route for the traditional one-mile community march, which starts at 11 a.m., will begin in Old Town Square, Fort Collins, and continue down College Avenue to Laurel Street. The march will proceed through the center of the Oval on Colorado State’s campus, then continue west on Isotope Drive to end at CSU’s Lory Student Center. Participants will be encouraged to sing as they march. Words to several songs will be provided in the printed program.

Traffic will be restricted during the march. Those restrictions will include delays along portions of College Avenue and Mountain, Oak, Olive, Magnolia, Mulberry, Myrtle, Laurel, Mason and Howes streets. Parking in city garages, located at Remington and Mountain and Mason and Laporte, will be free on Jan. 19.  Two-hour parking restrictions in Old Town will not apply.

The march will conclude with an address by guest speaker Denise Hall at 11:45 a.m. in the Main Ballroom of the Lory Student Center. Hall is founder and director of Mother Earth Reverence Farms and Wellness Veterinary Clinic in Greeley, Colo. She also is intern minister at Foothills Unitarian Church in Fort Collins.

Before the march, the community is invited to a 9:30 a.m. poetry and essay reading at the CSU Bookstore in the Lory Student Center. Readers will include Poudre School District students whose winning poems and essays were selected through the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. essay and poetry contest. The student’s winning MLK essays and poems also will be read on Sunday, Jan. 18, from 6-7 p.m. on KRFC 88.9 FM radio.

Loveland’s 20th annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 19, at Thompson Valley High School, 1669 Eagle Drive. For more information, contact bretteppichbeal@yahoo.com.

This year’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebration will include events throughout the week of Jan. 19 and conclude with a day of service.

The week’s events include:

– Presidential inauguration watch party at 10 a.m. Jan. 20 in the Lory Student Center Ramskeller

– "Traces of the Trade" film and discussion at 5 p.m. Jan. 21 in Lory Student Center Room 228

– Martin Luther King Jr. trivia at 4:30 p.m. Jan. 22 in the Lory Student Center Ramskeller

– Slam poet Sonya Renee at 9:30 p.m. Jan. 23 in the Lory Student Center East Ballroom

– Day of service Jan. 24

For more information, visit www.mlkfortcollins.org.

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