The late Bill Armstrong was a lifelong friend of mine. I first knew him when he owned and operated a radio station in Aurora. It was with great pleasure to attend his first election party to the state legislature.
Later in life he became a distinguished United States Senator and served for 12 years in Washington D.C. He never lost an election.
He came back to Colorado and put his talents to work aiding and abetting Colorado Christian University, serving as president and elevating the institution to become one of the top Christian universities in America.
His vision of faith in education has been preserved and enhanced by his successor Dr. Donald Sweeten who followed Armstrong in the university presidential leadership role. They were open every day during the past pandemic.
The university assists in sponsoring a separate entity, the annual Western Conservative Summit headed by Jeff Hunt, a Cherry Creek high school graduate who operates and organizes the largest conservative gathering in the Western States. This year they greeted over 500 registered attendees for the two-day program and joined by over 50,000 viewers in all 50 states and some foreign countries.
Bill would be very proud of his colleagues who have carried on The Western Conservative Summit separate from CCU.
This year’s theme was “Frontier Freedom” and featured the beauty of Colorado mountains and streams and local speakers and Washington dignitaries and media professionals like Victor Davis Hanson, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute. Hanson is a regular contributor on FOX news and a noted Greek scholar, with a brilliant mind. He described in great detail how we are losing “citizenship” to “residency” where some newcomers to America follow “tribalism,” and want to transform America to their beliefs.
He related that America had never had a complete “national lockdown” keeping 50 million kids out of school. Hanson said that America is living in a “climate of crisis.” He bemoaned the student debt of our young people in debt for $1.7 trillion dollars that he believes will never be paid off.
His message was hard hitting, and his entire speech can be heard at WesternConservativeSummit.com
U.S.Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Ken Buck, and Rep. Doug Lamborn appeared together on a short panel. Boebert related that she believes that Colorado is a red state, with blue cities. She said that she ran for Congress to do more for the future of her four boys. Rep. Buck chimed in jokingly, “No wonder she ran with four boys at home.”
Hon. Rick Santorum told the audience, “You don’t have to put on a uniform to serve your country.” He urged active participation.
The Summit in prior years has been held at the Denver Convention Center, but this year was at the nearby Hyatt Regency.
As we were leaving the event on Saturday afternoon the street was crowded with demonstrators with lewd signs shouting obscenities. Friday night some violence occurred between the attendees and the mobsters. How ironic that the citizens attending the Summit are fighting inside for individual and collective freedoms while others outside want to stifle people’s rights to gather peacefully by bullying and vocal violence. We noted the “Hate Police” signage. The speaker was right, we live in “critical times.”
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