"The Most Legit Dude" in the Colorado Capitol: Senator Becomes Unlikely Celebrity

One Colorado legislator has become the subject of fan pages, a weekly holiday and an effort to replace Mayor Mike Johnston’s greeting at the Denver airport with his voice instead.

As state Senator Perry Will walks through the Colorado Capitol Building on Friday, May 3, staffers stop him to ask for photos. Dozens of people roam the halls wearing bolo ties — Will’s signature look — in homage to the year's last “Perry Will Friday,” which has been celebrated every week since the legislative session began in January.

Now four months in, with legislators preparing to adjourn this week, Will is a bona fide celebrity under the gold dome.

“I just love it. I crave it,” Will says. "I'm not your garden-variety legislator, but I work across the aisle; I try to do all the right things for all the right reasons. ... I think if you treat people the way you want to be treated, it pays off."

The Republican lawmaker's star began rising with the Instagram account @paul_lundeen_everyday, which has posted the same photo of state Senator Paul Lundeen every day of the 2024 legislative session. But to shake things up on Fridays, the account posts special photos of Will — some showing him driving vintage cars, riding horses and wearing his characteristic wolf fur coat.

Will quickly stole the show, with the spinoff fan page @perry_will_fan_club forming, dedicated to the New Castle legislator. Before long, senators formally announced “Happy Perry Will Friday” on the Senate floor, Will started offering weekly "Perry's Pearls of Wisdom," and a petition demanding that Will's voice welcome visitors to Colorado on the Denver International Airport train garnered hundreds of signatures.

"The mayor said that I could [be the voice] when the Broncos win the Super Bowl," Will says. "I countered with, 'I challenge you to a Rocky Mountain oyster-eating contest,' and I didn't hear back. So maybe he doesn't want me as the voice."

Nearly a dozen senators surprised Will by sporting bolo ties on Friday, in addition to numerous staffers, aides and sergeants donning the garb. In a display of bipartisanship, Democratic Senator James Coleman and Republican Senator Cleave Simpson brought extra bolo ties to lend to people in the chamber.
"It's good to find fun ways to have camaraderie on the floor in the final days," Senate President Steve Fenberg says, wearing a bolo tie borrowed from a staffer. "It's been fun."

Camaraderie was the goal all along. The anonymous creator of @paul_lundeen_everyday and "Perry Will Friday" says the account was designed to foster bipartisan relationships within the Capitol. Although the posts only show Republican legislators, the creator identifies as a Democratic political employee who works closely with the legislature.

The creator calls Will "the most legit dude I've ever come across in this building," explaining that Will was chosen for the special Friday posts because of his memorable quotes during debates — "You can fix the inside of a human by touching the outside of a horse," for example — and because he sings an extended verse of the "Happy Birthday" song every time the legislators sing for each other. 

"I’m glad Perry Will Friday took off, but I always try to center that, at the end of the day, it’s Paul Lundeen every day," the creator says. "It’s about bringing together people. And I don’t think people could have come together without Paul and Perry, together. It’s the yin and yang."

Will cares about bringing people together, too. Even before he learned of the "Perry Will Friday" posts spreading on social media, Will had his own Friday tradition of providing "bipartisan breakfast burritos" to legislators and aides from both parties. "It's really been healthy here at the Capitol to have people understand each other," he adds.

He was surprised by his fan pages when they first sprang up, but he's honored to be the object of their affection, noting that he doesn't even know how to post on social media.

"These kids have so much fun with that. They're so talented and so smart, and I'm not," Will says. "It makes me proud that they do that and enjoy that. ... I love it. They keep me young."

Will has served in the Colorado Legislature since 2019, starting in the House of Representatives. He moved to the Senate in 2023. This was his final Friday in the Capitol, as he is not running for re-election in November, instead planning to go for a seat on the Garfield County Board of County Commissioners.

"The Senate will miss him," Fenberg says.