The FBI revealed in January that it had kept a 33-page file on John Denver before he died in a plane crash in 1997. The file contains information about a narcotics investigation directed toward the Mafia, in which Denver's name surfaced; it also has mentions of threats made against the singer and his wife.
Colorado's former on-the-go governor, Roy Romer, took over as superintendent of the Los Angeles County public school district this past summer, and one of the district's first acts under its new leader was to auction off obsolete equipment, including printing presses, woodworking tables, typewriters and record players. Romer himself was not auctioned.
Kenny Be
Kenny Be
Related Content
More About
In May, a new portrait of former governor Romer suddenly appeared on a wall inside the Colorado Capitol about a year after the old portrait had disappeared. Apparently Romer had decided that the previous portrait -- in which he was wearing his trademark leather bomber jacket -- wasn't formal enough, so he'd had a second one painted, showing him in a suit and tie. Although the first painting was a gift from the state, Romer said he paid for the second one himself.
And in September, a bust of Romer that had been surreptitiously placed in the Capitol rotunda just after he left office in 1998 was removed when the Capitol Building Advisory Committee decided it violated building rules. According to the committee, commemorative memorials of people who made significant contributions to Colorado may be considered for placement in the Capitol only 25 years after that person's death. Busts of former governor Dick Lamm and former lieutenant governor George Brown, who are both still alive and kicking, will remain in the Capitol because they were installed before the rules were put into place.
In February, Jonathon Soquet, twenty, suffered minor injuries when he crashed into a snow embankment while trying to soar over U.S. Highway 6 on skis. Jumping over the highway at Loveland Pass has become a popular pastime in recent years, according to police, but so far, no one who has done so has been charged with any sort of crime.
Benjamin Moore, an employee of City Street Bagels in Boulder, filed a complaint in April under a new city anti-discrimination rule, claiming that his boss wouldn't allow him to wear a pink skirt while on the job. Moore, 38, who was saving money for a sex-change operation, dropped the complaint in June after store owner Susan Gross acknowledged Moore's right to express himself. The city policy, which had been approved in February, protects transgendered people from discrimination.
In July, federal officials revealed that workers at the Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons plant took nuclear-weapons parts home with them as mementos after the plant closed in 1989. The non-radioactive parts, all filched from trash cans, were used as paperweights, candy dishes and shelf displays, according to a U.S. Energy Department report. All of the parts were returned in 1998, the DOE added.
In July, Denver Postreporter Trent Seibert appeared naked in a picture in his own paper -- strategically posed so as not to expose too much, of course -- alongside his glowing first-person account of staying at the Mountain Air Ranch family nudist resort near Conifer.
Boulder County sheriff's deputies began patrolling an out-of-the-way area called Dream Canyon in July after residents complained that the craggy cliffs and narrow gorges behind Sugar Loaf Mountain were becoming a mecca for gay men who wanted to sunbathe naked or have sex.
Residents living on Columbine Court, a street in a housing development in St. Augustine, Florida, asked that their street be renamed because Columbine Court constantly reminded them of the Columbine High School massacre. The developer agreed, and the street is now called Cloudberry Branch Way.
JAIL BAITInmates who get involved in food fights at the El Paso County Jail are punished with something called "Nutraloaf" -- served three times a day for seven days straight. The loaf is a nutritionally complete mixture of ground beef, onions, eggs, powdered milk, cabbage, carrots, beans and potatoes.
A Denver jail inmate who was being treated for a leg injury at Denver Health Medical Center in May threw his crutches at sheriff's deputies and escaped. Since Kelly Bersagel, 22, was able to run away, police wondered if he had faked the injury. Bersagel is still at large.
Five inmates at the Larimer County Detention Center cordoned themselves off and held authorities at bay for four hours in October after they found out that their shaving privileges would be restricted. The men spilled water and soap onto the floors, pulled a phone out of the wall and covered the windows with paper. A confrontation was avoided, though, after they heard a police dog barking and decided to return to their cells. No one was injured.
WHAT A WAY TO GOCharles Darun Tyler, 34, was electrocuted in April after apparently touching a backyard fence that he'd wired with 120 volts of electricity. Tyler's wife told police that the fence was electrified during the spring and summer to keep out dogs. An electrical inspector who investigated the scene said Tyler had used a twelve-foot extension cord to rig the fence; most livestock fences, he added, only use twelve volts.
Mario Villalva, 26, was killed in June after he leapt off a West Colfax Avenue bridge in an effort to elude police. Villalva had been speeding on I-25 and driving in a closed lane.
