Looking Back Through Villager Pages…
The first pages of The Villager rolled off the press on December 2, 1982, now in our 43rd year of serving our faithful readers in Greenwood Village, Cherry Hills, and across Arapahoe County.
This week we celebrate Greenwood Village’s 75th birthday. We have covered the news in Greenwood Village through an amazing period of the city’s growth and success with over 2000 editions of this newspaper published. We have diligently saved single copies of each issue, bound in historic books (see photo below). These books reflect on so many memories of people and events during these past 43 years. We’ve aged through the years, along with our faithful readership and advertisers as local history has transpired. What a great place to live, work, and educate our children.
I remember first meeting Mort Marks at a Republican breakfast in 1982 and convincing him to take his oratory skills into the printed word. I said, “write like you talk,” and he graced our pages for over 30 years, winning many Colorado Press awards. And how we loved John Hanford, a language teacher at Kent Denver who penned the “Cops and Robbers” column for decades. Astute, Ed Phillipsen, blazing away at Greenwood Village leader’s, week, after week, urging more transparency from city council. We’ve known all of the mayors on a personal basis and witnessed upheaval in the growth of the city from George Wallace on the DTC eastside and John Madden on the rural west side of the city. Fiddler’s Green was just a hole in the ground and the elegant Metropolitan Club was a gleam in Madden’s eye, along with Club Greenwood and the Museum of Outdoor Arts, and many of the elegant buildings in GV were created by Madden and his family.
George Wallace was a master developer financed by a British steamship company; he envisioned Greenwood Village as a beautiful city where business could thrive with residents living and working close to an airport. His dream succeeded with the growth and fabulous success of Centennial Airport. And yes, the conflicts of the growth of aircraft traffic, and noise, impacting area residents. The debates occurred, limiting passenger service to only private charter jet and private aviation. There was a day when today’s DIA could have been south of Arapahoe road stretching into Douglas County. Wallace was a pilot and had an aerobatic biplane that he would fly over his beloved Greenwood Village and do loops in the sky, no doubt laughing all the way. Falling on faltering health, he would invite me to lunch where he was smoking cigarettes with the oxygen feeding into his nose fearlessly. He would rave about Cherry Creek Schools and the great place to raise a family; he feared going to downtown Denver where he might be mugged and his Rolex watch snatched. He and Madden, were both visionaries and Ray Bullock was Wallace’s’ right-hand man. Ray was tall, and stately, and the power behind the throne of the DTC success.
These talented titans had to have developers to build their dreams and the Koelbel family emerged as the architects of impressive homes and today’s elegant The Preserve and The Crossing communities. These were hard-fought battles at the time with traffic and environmental concerns over the virgin prairie land by Greenwood Hills residents. “Save the Prairie dogs’’ brought Denver TV stations to council chambers during Koelbel land hearings with Buz Koelbel sweating blood over the little creatures. He won! The Preserve was developed into a world class neighborhood.
The Villager and Jo Cole were instrumental in the development of the Curtis Art Center and Freda Poundstone fought for the Koelbel Library at its present location in Greenwood Village. How can we forget Susie Ocrant, councilwoman who always had Poundstone’s back as she engineered successful developments, expanding the city boundaries, fighting off Aurora’s influence, and improving building facilities along with a needy children’s fund at Christmas time. She was both criticized and praised, just the same as leaders today who dare to go where none have ventured before.
Poundstone was a great mother and home builder along with making the history books as a lobbyist, passing the famed and “infamous” Poundstone Amendment, limiting the growth of Denver to the suburbs and giving rise to Cherry Creek School District.
It’s all there in our binderies; books of city histories, hopefully to always be cherished and preserved. They describe in detail the trip down memory lane marveling the work of Glory Weisberg, John Hanford, Mort Marks, Scottie Iverson, Peter Jones, Betty Todd, Cheryl Blackstock, Elizabeth Denton, Jean Moore, Becky Osterwald, Betty Wotring, Shirley Klotz, B.K. Galloway, Peter Schlipf, and today’s scribes; Joneen MacKenzie, Denny Dressman, Freda Miklin, Dorothy Rosby, Dr. Brian Joodeph, and lawyer Donald Peterson.
Scottie is still dedicated to covering the multitude of nonprofit events, raising millions to fight hunger, disease, and societal challenges. Freda Miklin, using her city council experience and CPA skills, is our 12-time award-winning governmental reporter.
Noted, Rocky Mountain News columnist, Bill Husted, once wrote, calling The Villager out because we refused to cover smoking events with Glory Weisberg leading the charge. He wrote that we were a “fly on the wall” to have such a policy and within a month the smoke filled rooms disappeared with our influence.
Co-publisher Gerri Sweeney, the pillar of The Villager, keeps the news flowing and the bills paid along with diligently putting together the “Around the Town” calendar weekly, because attendance at events does matter.
A “Big Thank You” to all of our loyal subscribers and advertisers who make it possible for The Villager to record history as it happens. A huge thanks to Edie Marks as our longest advertiser appearing in the very first edition of this newspaper.
Tom McTighe, talented, awarded-winning graphic artist, working with my daughter Susan Sweeney Lanam, the VP of Marketing, to win sweepstakes awards from the Colorado Press Association annually.
We miss longtime advertising associates Linda Kehr who moved to Arizona, and Valerie LeVier, who both were friends and colleagues for 18 years and a fond farewell to B.T. Galloway who managed our front office until his untimely death.
The Villager has been a talented team with dedicated staff members from day one in 1982. The Villager would not have survived without our family members, Saundra Sweeney joining the first edition with myself and Gretchen Peacock pictured on page one of Volume 1, No. l 1982.
Our first staffer was Cathy Pepper Neistat, now a mother in Greenwood Village. Along the way Sharon Sweeney added her strength and personality, joining the business and also publishing a successful gaming publication for 25 years.
Keeping all the computers running and programmed has been son, Patrick Sweeney, CU and Cherry Creek high school graduate. The Villager remains one of only a few locally-owned family newspapers in the metro area with an expanding and growing digital footprint – www.villagerpublishing.com.
It’s been a grand ride for Greenwood Village with The Villager covering the dynamic city. The names of Bullock, Kerber, Ingebretsen, Hilton, et al, moving on with term limitations. Mayor’s willing to serve during our 43 years were Patton, Poundstone, Barnard, Pheifer, Sharp, Rakowsky, and Lantz, all willing to take a turn at the wheel for the good of the city. No purple hearts given for valor or service, but some gratitude by citizens to our city fathers and mothers who take time and effort to make our cities great. HAPPY 75TH BIRTHDAY TO GREENWOOD VILLAGE.
So many stories, so many memories, what a glorious trip. To be continued…
Bob Sweeney, Chief Wrangler with 43 years of weekly editorial columns.