On February 12, the Colorado Music Hall of Fame will induct its second class of honorees: Barry Fey and Harry Tuft.
But they are far from the only people with a claim to fame in this state. Colorado is home to dozens of halls of fame, both large and small, including the Denver & Colorado Tourism Hall of Fame, the Colorado Business Hall of Fame, the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, the National Mining Hall of Fame, the Colorado Agriculture Hall of Fame, the Broadcast Professionals Hall of Fame, the Colorado 4-H Hall of Fame, the Colorado Community Hall of Fame, and many, many sports-related halls of fame, among them the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame, the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, the Colorado Motorsports Hall of Fame, the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, the World Figure Skating Museum and Hall of Fame, the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, the Colorado Tennis Hall of Fame, the Colorado Running Hall of Fame, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame — Colorado Chapter, the Colorado Springs Sports Hall of Fame, the Colorado Lacrosse Foundation's Hall of Fame, the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame, the Colorado Badminton Hall of Fame, the Colorado Handball Hall of Fame and the USA Power-Lifting Colorado Hall of Fame. And then there are arts-related halls of fame, which could give the Colorado Music Hall of Fame a run for its money: the Stained Glass Hall of Fame (those noble Coloradans who are commemorated in stained-glass pieces in the State Capitol rotunda), the Colorado Bandmasters Association Hall of Fame, the Colorado Performing Arts Hall of Fame, the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame, the redundant-sounding Country Music Legends of Legends Hall of Fame (an outgrowth of the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame that plans to start its own museum and then spread beyond state lines, with "its own TV show, various types of education and various types of music shows, donor drives, product sales on this website and special fund drives to help give it the money it will need to enhance its programs and help with various capital improvement purchases...the CMLOLHOF efforts will give the general public the greatest number of benefits to see, take part in, enjoy and understand country music from its rural beginnings to its present day status") and even the Cow-Lorado Hall of Fame.
That last hall is a virtual one, started by Vincent Vin back in 1996, on the Colorado Arts Net website. "My vision for Colorado Arts Net is to make it the ultimate, the most informative and most exciting tool any local fan of the arts could possibly encounter, regardless of what facet of the arts they prefer," he explains. "As a starting point, Colorado Arts Net will tell you where to go. As a biographical and listing reference, Colorado Arts Net is a valiant effort to list a huge diversity of offerings. And nobody, simply nobody, has more web links, from the brim to the dregs."
Among those in the Cow-Lorado Hall of Fame are Fey (a repeat from the Colorado Music Hall of Fame), Jello Biafra, Hunter S. Thompson, Mamie Eisenhower and Ted Bundy. Which is the brim and which the dregs? We leave that to you. But remember: Fame is the name of the game.
A clash of symbols: Colorado doesn't just have weird halls of fame; it also has many weird state symbols, not including the Western tiger salamander, which legislators discussed making Colorado's official amphibian on Monday. If elevated to that august title, the salamander would join such official state mascots as the greenback cutthroat trout, which swam into fame as Colorado's state fish in 1994; the stegosaurus, carved into stone as the state fossil in 1982; the aquamarine, polished into the state gemstone in 1971; the square dance, twirling into position as the state folk dance in 1992; skiing and snowboarding, sliding into place as the state's recreational sport in 2008; and, of course, not one but two official Colorado state songs, since John Denver's pot-promoting "Rocky Mountain High" was added as a second option to 1915's florid "Where the Columbines Grow" in 2007.
