Home Care In Loveland, CO

Loveland, CO - - August 7, 2025 - - TapeDeck Media and the Big Laugh LLC have announced that their comedy special called, “Live in Loveland” is now streaming on Tubi, a global entertainment company dedicated to providing all people access to all the world’s stories. “Live in Loveland” was filmed at To the Fives Taproom and Lounge, formally Black & Blues, Music & Brews in downtown Loveland, CO in April of 2024.

TapeDeck Media is a newly founded comedy label and podcast network founded by Loveland resident, Dan Bublitz Jr co-founder of Laugh Out Loveland an annual comedy festival that takes place in downtown Loveland. Big Laugh LLC is a New York City production company founded by comedian Zack Lyman that produced The Big Laugh and Zen Comedy, both stand-up comedy specials streaming on Amazon and Laughing in Loveland, a documentary about Laugh Out Loveland.

“We’re excited to see our small Indy project reach a global audience,” said Dan Bublitz Jr, co producer of the special. He continued, “It’s a great feeling knowing that a project that was filmed here in Loveland will be seen across the world. Words can’t describe how good it feels to have a hand in highlighting comedy in Colorado and beyond.”

The comedy special features comedians, Luke Gaston who is a regular at the Comedy Fort in Fort Collins and was a featured performer at the High Plains Comedy Festival, Cam Kiernan who’s appeared on Amazon Prime and was a featured performer at the Knockouts Women’s Comedy Festival, Thomas Nichols who was a finalist at the Seatle International Comedy Competition and the author of the comic books, “Just Us Cops” and “T-Horror,” Mandy Kay who was a featured performer at the High Plains Comedy Festival and a semi-finalist in the Funniest Person In Austin contest at Cap City Comedy, Dan Bublitz Jr who has appeared on Dry Bar Comedy and Amazon Prime, Sam Sisson who was a featured performer at SF Sketchfest and appeared in the film “Mantid,” currently streaming on TromaNow, and Zack Lyman from Zen Comedy and the Big Laugh.

“Live in Loveland” is available to stream free on the Tubi app.

Arts and culture are fundamental to the vitality and well-being of our cities, towns and villages. The arts can inspire, heal and help our communities grow. NLC helps local leaders to leverage the power of the arts to improve the health, cohesion and resilience of their communities.

To showcase the amazing ways cities across America have used the arts as a tool for public health, NLC produced the Creative Cities video series. It profiles three communities: Loveland, CO; Providence, RI; and Tampa, FL.

In Loveland, they’ve created a partnership between the city-operated museum and local group of stroke survivors who prove that a healthy city is a creative one. NLC met with Mayor Jacki Marsh of Loveland to discuss how her health journey led her to art and shaped her leadership. Mayor Marsh was a decorated athlete with sights set on making the United States Olympic Team until a diagnosis of heart disease pushed her down an artistic path.

Mayor Jacki Marsh: Prior to heart disease, if anybody asked me “Are you an artist?” I would say “I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.” Stick figures as a kid, no talent. And then life changes…and it wasn’t a journey that happened overnight.

At the age of 30, I got my first pacemaker, and life kind of came to a screeching halt. When you experience catastrophic change, especially due to illness, your image of yourself, that image of yourself you had on Monday is no longer valid on Tuesday. It is devastating…but if you’re going to move forward, if you’re going to stay engaged in this life, you have to find a path where you’re going to have joy, where you’re going to have hope, where you’re going to see a future and where you contribute, where you have purpose.

For me, art was that shining light that showed me a path…after [moving to Loveland], I ended up opening an art gallery, and within a short period of time, I had over 100 local artists.

Mayor Marsh: A few years ago, one of our employees did some research and it showed that Loveland has more artists per capita than any city in the country. And yet I think we’re kind of the best-kept secret. We have a huge variety of art, all kinds of mediums. Whether it’s metal art, stonework, bronze paintings or murals, everywhere you go in Loveland you see art. Artists are always looking for places to show their work in Loveland.

This particular program is helping people deal with probably one of the most, if not the most, difficult times in their lives. When they’ve been stripped of their normal, every day pleasures, when they’re having to come back and find a new life, a new path forward — to have a program that is welcoming, inviting and allows them to explore a part of themselves that they’ve probably never taken the time to explore is so important. It gives them a new image and a new self-worth.

Mayor Marsh: It could be an economic driver. But it’s also about your quality of life. It’s irreplaceable. The sculpture that’s at the corner, that mural that’s on the wall that lifts spirits; it’s a sense of community that I think every resident in Loveland feels and appreciates. I’m part of this art community, and I think it makes us better. Art is expressing your human soul…it’s part of our community, and it’s a part that our residents love and identify with.

Mayor Marsh: It is a sign of a healthy community to have art, to value art. To say that everything isn’t about a fast-paced, nonstop world, that we can take the time to slow down. We’re talking a lot about visual arts, but we have poets, we have authors. And you have breweries, you have restaurants. We have art in so many different forms in this city, and it’s all about human expression and the community slowing down and appreciating it. Because you have to slow down and you have to put all those worldly concerns aside, and you just have to sit with the art. And it’s an amazing thing when you can do that. You’ll know peace that you’ve never known.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Join NLC in celebrating National Arts & Health Day on Saturday, July 26, by highlighting how the arts contribute to the wellbeing of your community. Proclaim the 26th as National Arts & Health Day in your city, town or village and then join the conversation on social media by showing off artwork from your hometown with the official National Arts & Health Day social frame. Download the proclamation template and social media graphics now and get ready to celebrate!

Tennis, backpacking, skiing and boogie boarding, working out at Curves, curling up with a pile of books or going on a “mystery drive” (usually to the beach!) …these were some of Mom’s many interests. From start to finish, Mom’s life was one adventure after another.

In Hazel Park, MI, Grandpa Gugan dropped Mom off in front of the high school, after which she promptly walked out the back, cutting class to visit the Detroit Institute of Art. Museums and learning continued to intrigue Mom throughout her entire life. Other childhood activities included riding the streetcar into Detroit with Aunt Marlene for cooking classes, participating in synchronized swimming, teaching Bible School and singing in the church choir. Graduating from high school at 16, she hit the open road.

After 2 years at Bible colleges, one in the South and one in Southern California, Mom needed funds. She went to work at Rohr Aircraft, where she met Dad, Wesley French. He promised to “put her through school” if she married him. Little did he know that she would spend the next 25-30 years in school, with stints of teaching high school and adult education interspersed! After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Ancient History from San Jose State University, Mom taught history at Cupertino High School. She then pursued her PhD in Medieval Studies and Pilgrimage at the Graduate Theological Seminary at UC Berkeley. Her thesis director was eminent historian, Peter Brown, who created the field of study known as “late antiquity.” Along the way, she spent a summer studying at Oxford University in the UK, another in Vienna, where she honed her German skills and yet another in an intensive Greek program at Cal. She also had reading competence in Latin and French.

Mom found a professional home in the History Department at Santa Clara University, where she earned tenure in 2007. One accomplishment dear to her heart was helping to establish the St. Clare medieval garden on campus. During her career, Mom spent a month doing research at the Temple Institute in Jerusalem, attended conferences and published many articles in scholarly journals. She also travelled with UC Berkeley Bear Treks (alumni travel program) as a lecturer.

After retiring from teaching, Mom continued to study and travel. She visited Byzantine ruins in Iran and visited Jordan and Turkey. She became passionately involved with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at SCU. Under her direction, the membership grew to 1,000 members, qualifying the program for a $1,000,000 grant from Bernard Osher. Mom expanded the program to include Special Interest Groups (SIGs), Book groups and a travel program, with which she travelled throughout Europe as lecturer. She continued to take classes along with the “Ladies Who Lunch” until moving to Colorado in 2023.

Mom and her 5 siblings had riotous fun together their whole lives. They loved to sing boisterously around the piano and in the car as kids. As adults, they held reunions at the slightest provocation, traveling to Europe and golfing and playing tennis in Las Vegas. They even took surfing lessons in Hawaii.

Favorite memories of Mom include: reading “The Wind in the Willows” and “Mary Poppins” at bedtime; making Yule logs out of Eucalyptus bark; making brass rubbings at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in the UK and going on a mystery bike ride with my cute, boy cousins. She designed the activity to help us discover treasures of the area autonomously. It was also fun to be traveling in Europe with her and hear someone yell either “Mrs. French!” or “Professor French!” We ran into her former students everywhere.

Mom and Dad loved being around their grandkids. They sent the kiddos to tennis camp at Stanford, took them to France several times and attended their concerts and athletic events in Colorado and around the country. Something they particularly enjoyed was having the kiddos and their college friends camp out in their small house before competing in a giant scavenger hunt in San Francisco for Chinese New Year.

Mom and dad were a team. Together they produced 40+ travelogues, volunteered at Kaiser for 25+ years, took classes at SCU OLLI, played tennis with the same friends for 50 years, gardened and attended theater and classical music and choral concerts around the Bay Area.

Dad called Mom an “action figure” and a “sweetie.” Both are accurate. She leaves behind daughter, Elizabeth, son-in-law Jimbo, grandchildren Phillip (and partner Katie), Darcy (husband Kale and bun-in-the-oven) and Wesley (and partner Maggie) and sister Marlene. I imagine that Mom is already organizing new activities on “the other side” with Dad, her siblings and friends who have gone before. Love you, Mom!!

A Celebration of Life for Dorothea will be held on July 19, from 2-5 pm in Vari Hall at Santa Clara University. Free parking is available in the parking structure just across from the hall. Drop-off in the circular drive is also available.

Major changes are coming to the health care industry landscape here in Northern Colorado.

On Thursday, September 4th officials from announced their intentions to "invest, transform health care in Northern Colorado."

This confirmed some important information about the status of multiple medical facilities in Weld and Larimer counties.

McKee Medical Center emergency room to close November 5, 2025

Greeley’s freestanding ER and urgent care also set to shut down

Over the summer, Banner bought out Village Medical’s clinics in our area. This brought in approximately 200 workers to the fold.

Now, two of this healthcare system's Northern Colorado ER facilities are set to transition to provide different services.

The from Banner confirms that the emergency room at McKee Medical Center in Loveland and Greeley's freestanding ER and urgent care will close on November 5th, 2025.

Facility to transition into Banner North Colorado Medical Center – Loveland

Loveland's facility will become the specialty hospital of Banner North Colorado Medical Center. They will focus on cancer care, surgery, rehab, heart care, imaging, and specialty clinics.

Moving forward, UCHealth’s Medical Center of the Rockies will be the only ER facility in Loveland.

In regards to the Greeley center, they will be moving their OB/GYN services to another Banner location in Larimer County.

Expectant parents in Greeley can still give birth at North Colorado Medical Center, as the hospital will continue to provide full pregnancy and delivery services.

Banner's other hospitals in Northern Colorado will be keeping their full ER facilities.

"We are responding to the community and making the best use of this facility by prioritizing convenient and accessible health care services,” said the CEO of Banner’s Northern Colorado hospitals, Alan Qualls.

Officials say the declining ER numbers are part of the reason for these changes. McKee's emergency room cases are down for the 4th year in a row and only a quarter of their hospital beds are being used.

Approximately 88% of these cases are outpatient, meaning they don't require an overnight stay.

Job Cuts and Staff Transitions in Northern Colorado

“The communities of Northern Colorado are among the fastest growing in the country and Banner is planning to make significant capital investments in the next three years to best meet the health care needs of this region,” said Todd Werner, Banner’s President of Care Delivery.

“Northern Colorado is instrumental to Banner’s 10-year strategic growth plan which includes reimagining where and how we offer services to modernize care delivery using the latest technology to improve access and affordability.”

In a report from 9News, more than 300 positions within Northern Colorado will be affected by these changes, this includes around 60 on-call workers.

that they will help more than half of their employees find other jobs while the other half are getting a severance package, career counseling, and other "transition resources."

The company said it will help more than half of those employees find other jobs within the healthcare system in Northern Colorado. The other half are getting a severance package and "transition resources" such as career counseling.

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Banner Health will transition McKee Medical Center into a specialty hospital, closing its ER and affecting 351 positions across Northern Colorado facilities.

LOVELAND, Colo. — Banner Health announced Thursday that it will shut down the emergency room at McKee Medical Center in Loveland on Nov. 5, part of a sweeping plan to convert the facility into a specialty hospital focused on cancer care and surgery. More than 300 positions across its Northern Colorado facilities will be affected.

The move means UCHealth’s Medical Center of the Rockies will become the only emergency department in Loveland. The next closest Banner ER is about 20 minutes away in Fort Collins.

In a statement, Banner Health described the closure as part of a long-term transformation of its Northern Colorado operations. “The transition of Banner McKee is driven by community demand," said Alan Qualls, CEO of Banner’s Northern Colorado hospitals.

Qualls said emergency room volumes at McKee have continued to decline over the last four years, according to the hospital, with only 25% of the hospital beds in use. Of the surgeries performed there, 88% are outpatient.

Banner said 351 positions across Northern Colorado will be affected, including 64 per diem staff.

The company said it will help more than half of those employees find other jobs within the healthcare system in Northern Colorado. The other half are getting a severance package and "transition resources" such as career counseling.

Employees at McKee told 9NEWS they learned of the changes on Thursday and had no prior notice. Workers who spoke with 9NEWS requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation and said they were warned they could be fired if they spoke to the media without sticking to company messaging.

Employees said other services will close as well, including inpatient behavioral health at McKee and certain imaging services, and that patients are already being redirected to Banner’s North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley.

For patients, the changes may mean longer travel times and complications with insurance coverage. The employee noted that “people [with] Banner insurance can’t go to UCHealth” for emergency care, even though UCHealth’s Medical Center of the Rockies will soon be the only ER in Loveland.

“We expect to be caring for more patients with urgent and emergent medical needs in northern Colorado when Banner Health changes take place in November,” a UCHealth spokesperson said, adding that their staff and providers are prepared for the increase.

Banner emphasized emergency care will continue to be available at Banner’s other hospitals in the region — in Greeley, Fort Collins, Brush and Sterling. Banner noted that its Loveland urgent care clinic is located 1.4 miles away from the hospital.

The new campus, to be called Banner North Colorado Medical Center – Loveland, will focus on inpatient and outpatient medical and surgical services, outpatient rehabilitation, a cardiac catheterization lab, cardiac rehabilitation, interventional radiology, mammography and specialty care clinics.

“The communities of Northern Colorado are among the fastest growing in the country and Banner is planning to make significant capital investments in the next three years to best meet the health care needs of this region,” said Todd Werner, Banner’s president of care delivery. “Northern Colorado is instrumental to Banner’s 10-year strategic growth plan, which includes reimagining where and how we offer services to modernize care delivery using the latest technology to improve access and affordability.”

In a statement to 9NEWS, Banner Health said:"We are committed to supporting all affected team members through this transition and will be working diligently over the next 60 days to place as many people as possible. Banner recruiters will work closely with each team member to determine their interests, including training for roles outside of their skillset. We are also providing staff with comprehensive resources and assistance, including first choice for open positions throughout the organization, career counseling, mental health resources, financial planning resources, extended benefits coverage and more."

Banner Health employs more than 3,000 people in Colorado, including more than 200 employees who joined earlier this year through Banner’s acquisition of Village Medical’s Northern Colorado operations. Across its system, Banner employs nearly 60,000 people nationwide.