Opinion | Calhoun: Wake-up Call

Wake-Up Call: Ted Haggard and Norman Rockwell

"It's a Norman Rockwell scene," Ted Haggard told the reporters gathered outside his Colorado Spring home last night, where the New Life Church founder and disgraced minister was about to start his first, off-the-record prayer meeting. "It's a 'Kumbaya' moment." A Norman Rockwell scene? Only if when he was done...
By Patricia CalhounNovember 13, 2009
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“It’s a Norman Rockwell scene,” Ted Haggard told the reporters gathered outside his Colorado Spring home last night, where the New Life Church founder and disgraced minister was about to start his first, off-the-record prayer meeting. “It’s a ‘Kumbaya’ moment.”

A Norman Rockwell scene? Only if when he was done drawing Boy Scouts and barbers, the iconic chronicler of Americana dialed up male nude models such as Mike Jones, the Denver escort that Ted Haggard would call when he had a taste for meth and men.

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Patricia Calhoun is editor emeritus of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She was editor-in-chief from 1977-2026. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame (probably for her bar tab). She’s received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists, and is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS12’s public affairs roundtable.

patricia.calhoun@westword.com

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