A Drowsy Town Now Wide Awake

As the sun slips behind a rocky peak above this sleepy mountain town, bored teenagers check out the action in the parking lot of the Texaco Star. Cigarettes and souped-up cars are badges of cool. Kids flirt, cuss, primp and preen.

“There’s nothing else to do,” Jason Peters says, pulling the bill of his cap over his eyes.

Lately, though, excitement overflows as the locals mingle with big-city reporters and television producers, and young voices that adults never seemed to notice are broadcast on “Today” and CNN.

All because a former Eagle Valley High cheerleader and choir member whose name pops up in almost every conversation used to hang out here too.

She is the 19-year-old whose allegations led to Laker star Kobe Bryant being charged with felony sexual assault. The Los Angeles Times has a policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual assault in most cases.

Now this gas station, which shares a slab of asphalt with a convenience store, carwash and drive-through Taco Bell, is a center for debate. The opinions and observations of the accuser’s peers matter. So do those of their parents and neighbors. Who knows who might sit on the jury if Bryant goes on trial here?

Eagle is home to about 3,500 of Eagle County’s approximately 45,000 permanent residents.

The county “is a diverse mix of people,” says Rohn Robbins, an attorney with a practice in Avon, its largest town with about 6,000 residents.

“There is a very high education level, and there is a large group of service industry workers. A lot of people come here to get away from the real world, so I don’t know how much they are even paying attention to this case.”

Interstate 70 forms the backbone of the county in the Rocky Mountains about 115 miles from Denver. If big-money, big-snow Vail is the county’s welcome mat, blue-collar Eagle is the bottom step of the back porch. The towns are separated by 30 miles, yet are worlds apart -- the cost of living in Vail was 132% of the national average in a 1997 study; in Eagle it was 27% of the average.

Folks around Vail appear insulated from all things Bryant. One day after the Laker guard was charged, locals and tourists strolled the steep streets of fashionable Beaver Creek Village, an enclave of resorts and boutiques five miles west of Vail. A mountain bike race was underway, a jazz band played outdoors and children frolicked on an ice rink.

“It’s almost like [the case] happened in a different part of the country,” says Cindy Osborne, working at Beaver Creek Fine Art Gallery. “It’s a big yawn.”

A few more miles west on the interstate, beyond Beaver Creek and Avon, is the town of Edwards, an odd mix of trailer parks, high-end restaurants and exclusive resorts. It was here, at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, a faux-Belgian hotel perched on a hillside, that Bryant met his accuser.

She says he raped her in his room the night of June 30. He says they had consensual sex. She drove west 13 miles to her parents’ Eagle residence and the next day went to police with the accusations.

Ever since, it has been Eagle -- not Vail or Edwards -- that has been the epicenter for the hundreds of reporters covering the case.

As the county seat, it is home to the Sheriff’s Department, the district attorney’s office and the courthouse. On Friday, the day charges against Bryant were announced, the parking lot those offices share was overrun by more than two dozen television news vans. The previous week, as news on the case broke, law enforcement officials closed the street where the woman’s family lives because of the traffic caused by reporters and their rental cars.

“Everybody wishes the media would just go away,” says Lindsey Lucas, a 20-year-old former Eagle Valley High classmate of the accuser who works delivering flowers. “I want justice for whoever deserves to have justice served, but we don’t want the attention.”

The charges “split us down the middle. The people who support her are thrilled and the people who support Kobe aren’t,” Lucas says.

Until a recent housing boom, Eagle was little more than a truck stop, and the gleaming Texaco sign remains a beacon for vacationers headed for Vail or Aspen, which is 80 miles to the southwest.

In recent years, middle-class suburban-style developments have sprung up in the tranquil valley that is home to more deer and elk than people. The population has more than doubled in 10 years and the buzz before Bryant was about a movie theater opening in an old building on Capitol Street, the main drag that, despite vacant storefronts, retains a distinct Old West flavor.

A general store, pizzeria, bakery and two saloons are the extent of commerce. A weekly farmers market brings folks out of their houses for a couple of hours, and kids can take a hayride while moms and dads pick through locally grown fruit, elk horn-handled utensils and smoked fish caught in the Eagle River.

Home prices are rising but remain within reach of workers who provide the infrastructure for the high-dollar resort areas. Families value the open spaces, clean mountain air and what they perceive as safe surroundings.

“Don’t call us Mayberry,” says Eagle Valley Fire Protection District Chief Jon Jon Asper.

“This is a great little town with nice people. You should see our fund-raising barbecue in September. Cars are lined up for miles.”

Advertisements in downtown windows plug the nearby Beaver Creek Rodeo.

“My daughter’s the [rodeo] queen,” Eagle County sheriff’s spokeswoman Kim Andree says. “There are talented cowboys around here. Between big weekend shows, there’s always room for another prize check” locally.

Sheriff Joseph Hoy, the target of pointed criticism from Bryant’s high-priced Denver attorneys, returns phone calls with the homespun, “Hello, this is Sheriff Joe.”

Even with the town’s calm disrupted by the allegation that one of its own was raped by an NBA star, an unmistakable politeness endures.

The father of Bryant’s accuser covered the windows in his home with white shades to keep the reporters staked out in the street from seeing inside. Yet he answers the door and engages in small talk after referring questions about the case to Dist. Atty. Mark Hurlbert.

“Do you like the new screen door I just put in?” he asks proudly. On a recent Friday, he commented to out-of-town reporters he knew were going to remain in Eagle through the weekend, “You should drive down to Sylvan Lake. It’s beautiful there.”

Growing up amid these serene streets and small schools, however, does not insulate kids from what residents say is an undercurrent of drug and alcohol abuse. Ski resorts and partying go hand in hand, and the large number of local teens who work at the lodges and restaurants find easy access to dangerous substances.

“The kids are sheltered until they become teenagers, then they have nothing to do except ski and party,” said Cheri Conway, a mother of two who has lived in Eagle County for 14 years. “It’s a drug-infested area. Pot, cocaine, Ecstasy, it’s everywhere. It’s scary.”

Many of the kids hanging out at the Texaco already have set their sights beyond Eagle County.

“Everyone wants to leave this place,” says Dani Walker, sitting on a stucco ledge and propping her heels on a trash can outside the convenience store. Meanwhile, they talk about Bryant, and the woman they know who is his accuser. Their opinions are based more on feel than facts, ranging from unquestioned support for the woman to staunch support for Bryant.

Janelle Medina, 19, who sang in a choir with the woman throughout high school, pulls into the Texaco with the windows of her compact car decorated with white shoe polish: “Kobe Is Innocent. Go Lakers! No. 8! Yeah, Baabbee!”

Friends gather around her car and nod in agreement. Medina and two boys scribble the same pro-Bryant slogans on the car of friend Lindsey McKinney, and everyone laughs.

But moments after Medina drives away, McKinney grabs a squeegee from a gas pump and wipes off the words.

“I definitely don’t think she was out to get anyone,” McKinney says. “Right now, it’s impossible to know what happened in that room.”

The case must wind its way through the justice system, and that means Eagle County will remain in the spotlight.

“I wish it would all go away, but it won’t,” says Jon Cornell, another Texaco regular. “You can’t forget about it, but it’d be nice if you could.”