Matt Bloom

Potential recruits were everywhere inside the bustling food court at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Daniel Barr, the area census office manager for Northern Colorado, stood in front of a table covered in neat stacks of fliers, hoping to find the people he needed to carry out the mission of the country’s largest peacetime movement organization: the 2020 census.

A pile of melted metal is all that's left of Eva Bednar's toolshed. The ponderosa pine trees, shrubs and ground on her mountaintop property in Livermore are charred black from the fire that almost devoured her home.

"It's upsetting," she said, walking through the rubble. "Every time I look out the window, I go, 'I can't believe it happened.'"

Starbucks in hand, Nicole Towne sat on the bus hoping to get to work on time. The recent Colorado State University grad had recently started an internship with the Town of Windsor. Keeping up with the shuttle’s schedule, she said, was a good motivator.

“I think ideally I’ll take it twice a week,” Towne said. “The seats are nice.”

Mary Collins, a lifelong resident of Fort Collins, didn’t expect to feel so nostalgic. During happy hour at Road 34, a local bar just west of Colorado State University, she sat down at a long wooden table with a group of friends and a glass of New Belgium Citradelic in her hand.

“Figured I’d get some in before they sell out and I end up buying Odell,” Collins said.

Hop on Interstate 25 in Denver, drive an hour north and you'll find yourself in the middle of one of the country's fastest-growing regions: Northern Colorado. But where exactly does it start? Where does it end?

Earlier this month, we invited six residents from Fort Collins, Greeley, Evans, Loveland and Wellington to KUNC's offices to help answer that question.