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How Michael Washington is Uncovering Nature in L.A.

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

How Michael Washington is Uncovering Nature in L.A. Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/16/2024 - 00:00

Kiara Demare

A decade after graduating, Michael Washington (Jour’12) longed for the outdoor community he had found at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ. In 2022, he left his career in the music industry to become founder and CEO of Usal, a community-based program helping Los Angeles residents participate in unique outdoor activities, workshops and trips. Usal hosts about 20 to 30 events per month, including woodturning, astronomy, fly-fishing, foraging, surfing and cooking.

How did you come up with the idea for Usal?

I felt there was a missing link between people who wanted to get into outdoor hobbies and activities, and a place for them to go. A group setting didn’t exist that felt safe, accessible and approachable, while also providing resources and education on how to learn to do those types of outdoor activities and experiences.

Where does the name come from?

It’s a place near and dear to my heart: Usal Beach is a dispersed beach campground at the southern tip of the coast in Northern California that I would go to from time to time. It inspired me a lot, especially when trying to figure out my next career move.

How did your time in Boulder influence Usal’s creation?

Having those four years in Boulder was crucial. I was given the opportunity to explore and be curious — both in a social sense with meeting new people, and also adventuring in the foothills of the mountains. As I grew my career in Los Angeles, I began to lose my connection to nature. Thankfully, I made a point to find it again when I realized how important it was to me.

Where do you see Usal in five years?

The obvious thing I think about is growth. Growth to me is being able to offer what we do to more people and taking what we do here in Los Angeles and bringing that to another location.

Any final thoughts?

Before anything and everything else, this endeavor feels very true to the person I am and the person who I want to continue to be. I think stumbling over the past 10 years — coming out of college and trying to understand what that means — were important steps to feeling competent and learning what interests me, what excites me and what fulfills me. All those steps led me to eventually leave the music industry to start Usal at age 32. It’s finally coming together.

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Photo courtesy Usal Project

A decade after graduating, Michael Washington (Jour’12) longed for the outdoor community he had found at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ. In 2022, he left his career in the music industry to become founder and CEO of Usal, a community-based program helping Los Angeles residents participate in unique outdoor activities, workshops and trips.

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"I Don't Want To Be a Bad Guy Anymore"

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 06:00:00 +0000

"I Don't Want To Be a Bad Guy Anymore" Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/10/2023 - 00:00

Lisa Marshall

Gangs have always been part of Kelly Mahana’s life.

At age 5, he witnessed his father’s murder. At 10, he committed his first felony.

As a teenager running wild on the streets of Denver, he and his friends robbed homes and businesses and idolized gangster uncles and cousins who had spent time in prison.

They were all “broken,” Mahana recalled, and gangs provided stability in their unstable lives.

“When I looked at my future, I figured I was either gonna die going hard for the hood or I was gonna get status going to prison. Those are the dreams of a young gang member.”

At age 31, after spending half his life locked up, losing countless friends and suffering three near-fatal overdoses, Mahana had grown tired of the consequences of that dream and began to build a new one.

Thanks in part to an empathetic case manager, addiction counseling and an outreach worker who helped him remove his gang tattoos and get a job, he now has a wife and a thriving business, Authentic Recovery Homes, helping others live sober, productive lives.

“I’m still from my hood, and I still love my neighborhood, but I’ve learned that I love myself, my family and my goals more,” he said. “I don’t want to be a bad guy anymore.”

Mahana, 35, is among the dozens of current and former gang members interviewed for a sweeping multi-year study exploring a question that is top of mind nationwide: Can community interventions prevent gang members from committing violence?

The answer CU researchers found is yes — but with some surprising caveats.

An Unraveling Peace

The findings come amid a concerning surge in homicide rates nationwide and a rash of high-profile gang-related shootings in Colorado. U.S. homicide rates spiked 30% year-over-year in 2020, in part due to rising gang violence. In 2021 Denver logged the highest number of murders since 1981, and this March, a Denver grand jury indicted 13 young gang members for homicides, shootings and car thefts impacting 113 victims.

“College kids today have grown up in one of the safest periods since we’ve been recording violence in the United States,” said sociology professor David Pyrooz, referring to a sharp decrease in violent crime between the 1990s and the turn of the century. “But in recent years that has started to unravel.”

He noted that, historically, gangs have accounted for about 13% of all homicides even though they represent only about 0.5% of the population.

While policing may curb the violence short-term, he argues, it has not proved an effective strategy in the long-run.

“The idea that you are going to solve this problem with law enforcement or incarceration is a fool’s errand,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for 40 years and it has barely put a dent in gang activity.”

In the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd and subsequent protests calling for means other than policing to make streets safer, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, appropriating $250 million to community violence intervention and prevention programs.

“It’s not like these programs are new. They’ve been around for decades. But they have always been scraping by for funds,” said Pyrooz. “Now we are seeing a whole new way of thinking, coming from the highest levels, about how we can inoculate communities against violence.”

But do such programs work?

In 2016, Pyrooz and his students set out to find out.

Learning About Gangs from Gang Members

The study centered on the Gang Violence Reduction Initiative (GRID), a program launched in Denver in 2009 after Darrent Williams, a cornerback for the Denver Broncos, was fatally gunned down in an alleged gang-related conflict in a downtown nightclub. The shooting drew attention to a gang violence problem that had been brewing since the late 1980s.

Until GRID, Pyrooz noted, most efforts relied on policing and incarceration with little success.

GRID has already served 500 people and encourages participants to desist from crime and disengage from gangs.

It uses multidisciplinary teams from various government agencies, along with an army of street outreach workers, to help high-risk gang members learn life skills and get jobs, drug and alcohol counseling, family therapy, education, housing assistance and mental health support.

“For a long time, a lot of the argument has been, if you can get people out of gangs, you can get them to reduce their criminal activity,” said Pyrooz.

To assess whether GRID achieved these goals, the research team enrolled 143 gang members, 72 of whom participated in GRID, for a first-of-its-kind randomized controlled trial.

Pyrooz and two PhD candidates, with the help of a few dozen undergraduate criminology students, spent years — as a global pandemic raged — knocking on doors, traveling to prisons and juvenile detention centers, and visiting halfway houses to, first, convince individuals to take part in the study and, then, to conduct baseline surveys and hour-long follow-up interviews after 10 months.

“Never once did anyone make me feel afraid for my safety,” said co-author Elizabeth Weltman (MSoc’20, PhD’24), a PhD candidate in the sociology department who drove as far as three hours each way for some of her jail interviews. “Some of them just seemed really happy that someone was willing to listen to them, and a lot of them seemed like they genuinely wanted to turn their lives around.”

Jose Antonio Sanchez (PhDSoc’24), another sociology PhD student, sat in on team meetings where partners with different agencies would devise an individualized plan for each participant, many of them re-entering their communities after years of incarceration.

“These are some of the most vulnerable members of our communities,” said Sanchez, recalling a client who had been shot multiple times and had lost his eyesight.

Sanchez also tagged along with street outreach workers, some of them former gang members themselves, who checked in with participants to help them carry out their plans.

“Being able to actually get out and talk to the people and peek under the hood and see how the program is really working is what distinguishes this work from other work that has come before it,” said Pyrooz.

Success, with Caveats

The findings, which they hope to publish in a peer reviewed journal this fall, are both hopeful and surprising.

GRID participants were 70% less likely to perpetrate violence during the study period than the control group, which did not participate in GRID. This finding is promising, and could have nationwide policy implications, the authors said.

But surprisingly, GRID participants were also three times more likely to identify as gang members at the end of the study period than those who did not participate. More research is needed to unpack why that is.

But research participants suggest a possible reason behind the unexpected finding: Gangs are about much more than violence.

“How can I tell these kids to not identify with where they’re from? That’s their neighborhood, it’s part of who they are,” expressed one street outreach worker quoted in the study.

Added another: “I’m not there to tell them not to be a gang member. I’m there to tell them to not be a stupid gang member.”

Such sentiments resonate with Mahana.

He first connected with GRID in late 2019, after being released from a lengthy prison stay for kidnapping. He met a street outreach worker at a halfway house and the two quickly bonded.

“He showed up for me,” said Mahana, who is no longer active in the gang and runs two sober-living homes.

When asked if he has left the gang, he says it’s complicated.

“The gang isn’t just a gang — it’s our culture, our ethnicity, our family. It’s what our parents and grandparents and uncles and cousins have always done,” he said. “When you leave the gang, you’re leaving everything you’ve ever been taught.”

A New Approach to Curbing Gang Violence?

Pyrooz said it’s too early to assert that anti-violence programs nationwide should de-emphasize gang disengagement. But his research suggests that program participants don’t always need to sever ties to gangs to turn their lives around.

“What really matters in the end is the criminal behavior, because that is why everyone cares so much about gangs,” Pyrooz said. “If gang members didn’t commit crime and get victimized by violence, they would just be a group of friends hanging out.”

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Illustrations by Brian Stauffer, Photo courtesy Kelly Mahana

Gang violence is driving a surge in violent crime across America. New research shows community interventions can stem the tide.

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King Soopers Location Reopens Following 2021 Shooting

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 07:00:00 +0000

King Soopers Location Reopens Following 2021 Shooting Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/11/2022 - 00:00

After a complete renovation, the Table Mesa location of Boulder’s King Soopers reopened Feb. 9, 2022. The store closed temporarily after a shooter killed 10 people at the store, including a Boulder police officer, on March 22, 2021.

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Photo by Matt Tyrie

After a complete renovation, the Table Mesa location of Boulder’s King Soopers reopened Feb. 9, 2022.

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Bar on the Edge of Boulder Is Full of Surprises

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Bar on the Edge of Boulder Is Full of Surprises Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/11/2022 - 00:00

Paul Danish

I used to think Boulder ended at the streetcar graveyard.

Streetcars arrived in Boulder in 1899, followed by an interurban line from Boulder to Denver. When the streetcars and trains were abandoned, a field between Boulder and Eldorado Springs became their final resting place.

One day, I continued south, past the old Matterhorn and Hornbrook restaurants.

I thought that was the end of Boulder, but then I saw the Rocky Flats Lounge glowing in the darkness — now, I'd surely reached the end of Boulder.

I once read “The Inn Outside the World,” a science fiction story by Edmond Hamilton. It was about an inn in another dimension where humanity’s greatest minds — Socrates, Voltaire, Einstein — mingled and socialized. When I saw the Rocky Flats Lounge, my first thought was, “Good Lord. I’ve found it.”

A lone tavern on a wind-swept plain across the street from a nuclear weapons plant. End of Boulder? Hell. It seemed like the bar at the end of the world.

It was, as one of the owners later described it, a neighborhood tavern without a neighborhood. But it had a clientele. Bomb plant workers, bikers, Green Bay Packers fans — it served ’em all.

The Lounge burned in 2015. But, phoenix-like, it reopened in July 2019 as the Rocky Flats Bar & Grill. It still featured the Friday-night fish fries.

And then the Great Pestilence of 2020 struck.

So a few days before Christmas 2021, I drove south on Hwy. 93 to see if it was still there.

It was.

But it was closed.

The sign on the door said “New owner, reopening soon.”

In the parking lot was a surprise: a lot full of marvelous wood carvings for sale. Eagles. Bears. Horses. Seahorses. Flamingos. Alligators. Owls. Dragonflies.

The artist, named Bongo Love, was on site.

A member of Zimbabwe’s Shona tribe, he came to Boulder in 2000.

“I use the area as a refuge. It’s not a business; it’s a refuge,” he said. “I’m free here. It’s the most creative space you can have.”

An excellent sentiment from the end of Boulder — one that, on a good day, describes Boulder from beginning to end.

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Photo by Paul Danish

The Rocky Flats Bar & Grill located south of Boulder has a rich history for many Boulder locals.

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Marshall Fire Devastates ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Community

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Marshall Fire Devastates ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Community Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/11/2022 - 00:00

Sarah Kuta

Matt Sparkman (Mgmt’16) was enjoying a relaxing day off from work at his home in Marshall when he stepped outside and smelled smoke on Dec. 30.

Sparkman, who works as senior program manager for principal gifts in the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ advancement office, ran into the house to grab some warm clothes and a scarf to cover his face. By the time he got back outside, he could see black smoke billowing over the ridgeline west of his house.

“I decided that, with the wind as strong as it was, I was just going to leave,” he said. “I didn’t take anything, I was just like, ‘I have to get out of here.’”

Sparkman safely evacuated to his parents’ house in South Boulder just in time. As the fire barreled east toward Superior, and then Louisville, it reduced the cozy rental cottage where he’d spent the last four years to a pile of charred rubble.

So far, he’s maintaining a positive outlook about losing all of his belongings — he knows he can replace them easily enough. But Sparkman is still mourning the damage caused to the landscape and the fact that he’ll have to move out of Marshall, the small, unincorporated community just south of Boulder and east of Hwy. 93.

“More so than missing things, it's the ability to just go out my door and go for a run, go link up to Marshall Mesa so quickly, the neighborhood community — those are the things I miss most about Marshall,” he said. “It’s just sad to see the scorched landscape and the trees. It was such a unique place because you had creeks,you had huge trees, you had open space. I’d see all sorts of birds and wildlife, and it’ll take some time for the land to look like it used to.”

Sparkman is just one of the many ��ƷSM��ӰƬ community members affected by the Marshall Fire, which forced an estimated 899 students and 771 faculty and staff members to evacuate. It ultimately damaged or destroyed approximately 155 of their homes.

All told, the blaze destroyed 1,084 homes and damaged 149 others in Louisville, Superior and unincorporated Boulder County, causing more than $500 million in damage to residences, according to Boulder County totals. As of press time, one death was confirmed from the fire.

For many people, the disaster was a wakeup call: Front Range communities and subdivisions are susceptible to wildfires, just like the Colorado mountain homes surrounded by trees. According to Jennifer Balch, a leading fire scientist and ��ƷSM��ӰƬ associate professor of geography, it was only a matter of time before a fast-moving urban wildfire like this one swept through a heavily populated area.

Research led by Balch and colleagues in Earth Lab, part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, found that 1 million U.S. homes were within wildfire perimeters over the last two decades, and 59 million others were within a kilometer. They also found that humans were responsible for touching off 97% of wildfires that threatened homes over the same period.

Taken together, the findings paint an already harrowing picture about the potential dangers wildfires pose to residential areas. Add to that rising temperatures, drought, dry grasses and strong winds brought on by big temperature swings — factors researchers say are linked to climate change — and the West could experience more destructive wildfires like the Marshall Fire in the very near future, Balch said.

“I can tell you for sure that we're going to have another event like this at some point — I don’t know where and I don’t know when it’s going to happen, but our communities are at risk,” said Balch, whose team is already making plans to study the Marshall Fire. “Our ecosystems are adapted to fire, we’ve just put a lot [of structures] in the way and now we have to reckon with that. To me, this is climate change in the here and now in Colorado.”

While many people were fleeing the fire’s path, Ryan Chreist (Kines’96;MPubAd’09), who lives just north of Louisville, headed straight into the blaze. On top of his job as assistant vice chancellor and executive director of the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Alumni Association, Chreist serves as a volunteer firefighter with the Louisville Fire Department, a post he's held since 2002.

For 14 hours, Chreist helped battle the fire on the ground in Louisville. In addition to using hoses to fight the flames engulfing structures, trees, bushes and grass to try to slow the spread to other houses, he used wildland tools to cut down wooden fences and remove grass and brush to keep them from catching fire. When He finally got home a little after 3 a.m., he was exhausted and covered in ash and soot; the fire had singed his hair andthe constant barrage of smoke and debris made it painful to keep his eyes open.

Though it took Chreist a few days to process the “apocalyptic” scenes he'd witnessed while fighting the fire, he said,eventually, the sense of loss began to hit him in waves.

But as he began to reflect on all that Boulder County has been through in recent years — the 2013 floods, the pandemic, the King Soopers shooting, other wildfires — he also found himself thinking about something more hopeful: resilience. In all of those instances, the community immediately stepped up and found ways to help, both big and small.

“We tend to think of ourselves as being separated by the name of our towns, but really, we’re all dealing with the same benefits and challenges of living in this place,” he said. “Things like this bring the community together in the long run. We’re all in this together.”

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Photos by Matt Tyrie and Glenn Asakawa

Drought, dry grass and gusting winds lead to wildfire.

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Closing the Generation Gap

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 07:00:00 +0000

Closing the Generation Gap Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 02/01/2020 - 00:00

Inquiry: Eric Klinger

Eric Klinger, senior writing instructor and associate faculty director of the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Writing Center, teaches “Intergenerational Writing,” a course that pairs juniors and seniors with community members over the age of 60 for research and writing projects. For many students, the class is the most memorable of their college careers.

Where’d you learn to write?

My father is a retired newspaper publisher and editor and my mother is a voracious reader, so they inspired a love of the written word in me from my earliest memories. I’ve been teaching collegiate writing courses since 2001. Writing has always been my intellectual home and I strive to foster that feeling for as many students, friends and colleagues as possible. When we write, we think better. When we think, we write better. Surely, that has to help make things a bit better for everyone.

How’d you come to teach this particular class?

A former student took me to brunch in 2018 and pitched the idea of me taking over this class that he was a volunteer in. I’ve always loved having conversations with people who have taken more trips around the sun and seen more of the world than I have. This class was the perfect opportunity to do that.

Why invite community members to a student class?

The concept of inviting community members from previous generations to share this class with students is the brainchild of Jack Williamson, who wondered, ‘Wouldn’t it be neat if we could find a way to connect local elders with undergraduates? Imagine how much they would have to talk and write about.’

Intergenerational understanding is one of the most important human resources we have in society, yet we tend to squander it in the U.S. George Norlin challenges us to know one another with his words above the west entrance to Norlin Library: ‘Who knows only his own generation remains always a child.’ Community members talk about how getting to know younger generations in this class inspires new hope and faith in the future, and students talk about all that they discover in common with those who have come before them. It also prepares students for collaborating with older generations in the workplace.

What are the initial expectations of the students?

The first day of class is quite amusing. Although the class is described in the course catalog, most students arrive on the first day quite confused about the gray-haired folks sitting in every other seat around the room. Most stop, look around, take out their phones to verify that they’re in the right place and then cautiously take a seat. After I’ve finished describing the class syllabus, expectations and policies, I ask everyone to participate in a simple icebreaker. The pin-drop silence rushes out of the room as everyone circulates and learns something about one another, such as a hometown, a college major, a life passion, etc. By the end of the first class, there’s a self-charging electricity to the room.

How does the class work?

As an educator, I’ve long attempted to foster an environment of unconditional positive regard, something I learned about when I encountered the writings of Carl Rogers. I’ve discovered over the years that too much hierarchy is not productive to an enriching and intrinsically motivating classroom.

Both students and community members write papers for the class. The ‘magic sauce’ of the class is the profile essay, where community members and students pair up to write a biographical narrative about their partner. The experience is profoundly affecting for many, if not most, in the room. To authentically know and be known by another adult is a unique experience. I’m proud to be part of providing that rare opportunity for CU students.

This past semester, your students explored the concept of the American dream. Why that topic?

Every single person in the room has a connection to the American dream, whether we’re conscious of it or not. It evokes stories of immigration, work, families, geography, language, food, news, history, music, art and so much more. This topic bridges the past, present and future. It enables conversations that weave aspirations, frustrations and shared experiences into a tapestry no one can foresee.

What were some positive results of the class?

People share class conversations with neighbors, friends, family and even people at the grocery store. I’ve also heard how the class has rescued holiday dinner conversations from domination by cranky uncles.

How do you plan to expand the class in the future?

The community organizers and I share the goal of promoting this class far and wide. Currently, we do not know of any other intergenerational university writing classes being offered at other U.S. universities and colleges. We believe our core model of co-mentorship across generations has exciting promise in multiple learning environments including nursing, counseling, ethnic studies, management and other academic fields. We plan to continue offering the class each fall semester and look forward to seeing new iterations spring up around the country.

Condensed and edited by Christie Sounart (Jour'12)

More information on the course can be found here.

Photos courtesy Eric Klinger; Jack Williamson

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Feedback

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 07:00:00 +0000

Feedback Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 02/01/2020 - 00:00

Life Back When…

It was the fall of 1969 when I moved into Sewall Hall for my freshman year. I lived in a corner room on the fourth floor (a long walk up!). It was an unforgettable year (the first Earth Day, the student strike and the breakup of the Beatles), and I met some great women there with whom I remained close throughout my four years at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ. We had such a good time together that we were devastated when they turned it into a freshman-only coed dorm the following school year.

Markie Greer Sparks (Math’73)
Magnolia, Kentucky

Mary Lou and David Rife

I met my now husband of 58 years in the fall of 1959. He was one of the leading rushers on the CU Buffaloes football team [Dave Rife (PE’62)]. We were married in September 1961, but had not yet graduated. Each of us had another semester to finish our degrees. In order to survive, Dave got a job as a married counselor in a freshman men’s dorm, Willard Hall, for free room and board. We lived and ate in the dorm with several hundred freshman men our first year of marriage. We had a bedroom, bathroom and small sitting room on the second floor. I was the only female allowed past the first floor. Since we were only four years older than the freshmen, we did many activities with the students, like hickey bobbing behind cars on snowy roads! I guess CU dorm living was a good start for our marriage because we are still happily married!

Mary Lou Rife (PE’62)
Blairsden Graeagle, California

As a CU grad and a 25-plus-year CU Housing & Dining Services employee, I was glad to see the pictures and article about the recently opened Williams Village East residence hall in the Fall 2019 Coloradan. It would have been more appropriate, though, if the headline of the article was 21st-Century Residence Hall rather than 21st-Century Dorm. Residence Hall is a more fitting term than the mid-20th-century word “dorm.” A dorm is a building where students sleep. A residence hall is a place where students live, learn, interact with faculty, staff and other students and build community — in addition to sleep.

Elise Graninger (Edu, PolSci’81, MEdu’84)
Louisville, Colorado

Thank you for the delightful article about the gorgeous clay roof tiles capping the buildings on the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ campus. The first time I saw them, visiting the campus with my father, John Nelson (ElEngr’31) at age 16, I found them irresistible and enrolled two years later.

Martha Nelson Harmann (A&S’61)
Denver

During the winter of my freshman year, 1970-71, Boulder encountered a week of constant high winds, ranging up to 70 mph. I found a full red roof tile on the sidewalk near Willard Hall that had been blown loose by the ceaseless gales. I was grateful that this three-pound flying projectile didn’t harm anyone. I kept it for years as a souvenir of the beautiful and unique architecture of ��ƷSM��ӰƬ.

Doug Henninger (Mktg’74)
Denver

More on Ralph Carr

Ver Smith’s letter [Feedback, Fall 2019] lauds Colorado Gov. Ralph Carr for refusing to put Japanese Americans in internment camps, and inviting them to come to Colorado to avoid internment elsewhere. Carr’s courageous, principled stand is to be commended. But... Carr’s defiance didn’t succeed long. In February 1942, little more than two months after Pearl Harbor, the federal government authorized internment camps. It purchased land near Granada in the southeast corner of Colorado for one of them; and on Aug. 27, 1942, in the year before Carr left office, a Japanese internment camp, Camp Amache, opened there.

How forces overrode Carr’s opposition is a story worth the telling. Camp Amache had a peak population of 7,318 (mostly U.S. citizens) before closing Oct. 15, 1945. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. Under the direction of John Hopper of Granada High School, students are involved in researching and preserving the site.

Franklin Bell (Jour’70)
Bluemont, Virginia

The Theatre Pipe Organ

Regarding “The Sound of the Silent Film” in the last issue, how can this article not mention the theatre pipe organ which was specifically developed to accompany silent films?

Piano and orchestra accompaniment was described, but the theatre organ was in reality a unit orchestra that provided all the music and special effects required to provide perfect accompaniment for all action and moods. Both of the Grauman Theatres mentioned in the article were equipped with impressive theatre pipe organs. There were many builders, but Wurlitzer was the best known.

With the advent of the “talking pictures” these amazing instruments were mostly retired and many destroyed. However, there are still many in playing condition maintained by loving owners, most of whom are members of the American Theatre Organ Society, an organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of these instruments. Fine theatre pipe organs still impress audiences today in the Denver Paramount and Colorado Springs City Auditorium.

The theatre pipe organ was the real “Sound of the Silent Film” and a truly amazing sound it was!

David Weesner (Arch’72)
Colorado Springs

Victory over Penn State

I am a 1973 CU grad, and was so happy to see that you chose the Sept. 26, 1970, victory over Penn State as one of our biggest wins!

I was at that thrilling game, and I will never forget watching an interview with Joe Paterno prior to the matchup. Paterno stated that CU was lucky to even be playing a team of Penn State’s caliber!

Words cannot fully express how exciting it was to be in the stands that day to witness such a sweet victory.

Nancy (Schweda) Nicholson, PhD (A&S’73)
Durham, North Carolina

I was sent reeling back in time when you published the 1970 Sports Illustrated cover of the Buffs’ huge win over Penn State in your last issue. There’s a story in that photo.

I was 12 and, growing up in Boulder, naturally, snuck into the game.

It set up as one of the most cataclysmic games in Buff history — Bad Dude Stearns, Cullen Bryant and the heart-stopping Cliff Branch vs. the No. 4 Nittany Lions. I was loitering around by the field, looking for an old chinstrap or towel to add to my CU wall collection, when a cool-looking young guy with a beard and New York sunglasses yelled up, “Hey kid.”

It would turn out to be Walter Iooss, who would become arguably the greatest SI shooter of them all. “You wanna carry my cameras today?” he asked. “I’ll pay you.”

I spent that unforgettable day carrying lenses that were almost as tall as me and watching my glorious heroes stomp the Nittany out of the Lions, 41 to a paltry 13.

True to his word, Mr. Iooss gave me $12, cash.

That Thursday, I sat on the lawn waiting for the mailman to deliver the SI to see if one of “our” pictures made it. When he handed it to me, my 12-year-old heart stopped. We got the cover. Even better, it featured no less than a Boulder hero, LB Phil Irwin.

Later, when I became a writer at SI, I met Walter Iooss at a restaurant and told his whole table the story.

“Yeah?” said one of his photog buddies. “How much did he pay you?”

“Twelve dollars,” I said.

They all broke up laughing and hooting.

Walter and I became great friends, and I never once accused him of shorting me. He’d given me a gift — a day that I can still see right now, in Technicolor.

Rick Reilly (Jour’81)
Hermosa Beach, California

Photos courtesy Mary Lou Rife; Glenn Asakawa; CU Athletics; David Weesner

Residence hall nostalgia, silent film instruments, Ralph Carr and game-day memories.

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Photo of the Week: Final Stop on the Chancellor's State Tour

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 18:21:03 +0000

Photo of the Week: Final Stop on the Chancellor's State Tour Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/21/2019 - 12:21

Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont was the final stop of the Chancellor's State Tour on June 19. Chancellor DiStefano brought along Chip and the spirit squad to perform at the festivities. New head football coach Mel Tucker, basketball coaches Tad Boyle and JR Payne and athletic director Rick George also were in attendance.

Photo by Patrick Cambell

Oskar Blues was the final stop on Chancellor DiStefano's state tour June 19. Ralphie, Chip and the spirit squad joined in on the party.

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