Richard Stevens (MGeog’58)

A legend grows

The knotted, age-worn fingers calculate $1.60 in their familiar dance across calculator keys and handwritten spreadsheets. Richard Stevens (MGeog’58) tenderly picks six tomatoes off the scale and hands them to the waiting customer.

The methodical exchange is one the 79-year-old farmer has patiently and happily performed for more than three decades. He has been selling at the Boulder County Farmers Market since it began in 1986 and still runs a stand sporadically with the help of his wife Betty from April through November.

Richard has become a legend at the market not only for his produce, which customers claim is infinitely more flavorful than the rest, but also for the authenticity of the experience that he unconsciously creates when selling it. His meticulous record keeping is captivating in its simplicity, while his bounty of carefully collected knowledge about produce, storage techniques and agricultural history seems never ending.

His path to agriculture is one that began in academia and continued around the world. After earning a doctorate in geography at the University of Kansas in 1961, Richard was recruited by CU to develop the geography department at the Denver campus. He remained a professor at the campus until 1996 but took several hiatuses, including a yearlong trip to Lesotho on a Fulbright scholarship to study local agricultural practices.

He also served four times with the Semester at Sea program, teaching college students about the agricultural practices of the different cultures they visited.

Meanwhile, the couple started a garden at their Boulder home as an academic experiment to see if they could reproduce the techniques they witnessed abroad. Through the endeavor, they discovered a passion for farming and decided to buy 10 acres of land outside the city. Using Richard’s grandfather’s simple methods — compost, manure, crop rotation and attention to soil quality — they have created a produce paradise that churns out enough crops to pay all of the bills and allows Richard and Betty to avoid all but occasional trips to the grocery store.

As the couple prepares to gradually retire from the farmers market, Richard preaches a beautifully humble and inspiring view of his profession.

“Anybody with an acre of land to plant can do this,” he says. “It keeps your mind active, your body active and you get good food out of it.”

— Emery Cowan

Latigo Ranch

When Randy George (ChemEngr’71, MBA’78), left, and Jim Yost (MAnth’67, PhD’72), right, met in Boulder during the late 1960s, they had no idea they’d end up running a guest ranch together in western Grand County, Colo.

But since 1987 they’ve been operating the rustic Latigo Ranch, an 82-year-old spread near Kremmling, Colo., that offers stunning views of the Continental Divide.

Visitors dine in a historic log lodge, eat delicious meals prepared by Randy, take nature walks with Jim and go on trail rides — including overnight pack trips — with him and his skilled wranglers.

When the pair graduated from CU, they headed in different directions.

Randy, a New Jersey native, worked as an engineer for several years in Minnesota, Texas and Indiana.

Jim headed for South America with his young family — and stayed for a decade — to do anthropological research and Christian missionary work with the Waorani people in the Ecuadorean jungle.

He continues to visit the tribe, recently publishing an article in the National Academy of Sciences about the Waorani.

It didn’t take Randy long to get back to Colorado. By 1975, he was working as mountain manager at the Eldora Mountain Resort.

“I missed this state a lot,” says Randy, who worked at Eldora for three seasons while completing an MBA at CU. Later, he became manager of the C Lazy U, another Grand County guest ranch.

Eventually he reconnected with Jim, who returned from Ecuador in 1982. A native of Colorado Springs, Jim had led mule trips up Pikes Peak as a teenager.

“Working with Randy while I figured out what I wanted to do was a natural,” Jim says. “Truth be told, I’d always wanted to run a ranch.”

They raised their families at the Latigo — each has three kids — and the partnership is still going strong.

“The secret to our success has been to not let the smaller things derail us,” Randy says.

Jim concurs, noting they both have a lot of skills in a variety of areas, so they can cover each other.

“And that’s allowed me to go back to Ecuador for my research,” he says. “From my perspective, the partnership has been great.

For more information on the Latigo Ranch, go to www.latigotrails.com or call (800) 227-9655.

— Brian E. Clark

Annie Lyons (Comm’03)

My life’s over, worried Annie Lyons (Comm’03) after learning she’d received a staff assistant position with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in July 2006. She wanted the job but realized the hours would be unimaginable.

What began as a summer internship with the State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs before her senior year at CU has turned into a varied career.

“I take risks and see where I land,” she acknowledges, reflecting on her moves from the Bureau of Public Affairs job to the Secretary of State’s office and then chief of staff to Rice at the Hoover Institution, a think tank at Stanford University dedicated to research in domestic policy and international affairs. Annie is responsible for Rice’s foreign and domestic travel and oversees the office.

During a March 2006 trip with then Secretary of State Rice, she assisted with the traveling press pool on a two-day trip to Berlin, Paris and Liverpool. It was a precursor for her job as staff assistant to Rice. Riding in a speeding motorcade around Paris in the rain, Annie wondered, “How did I end up here?”

She recalls becoming adept at changing clothes in airplane bathrooms.

“I remember one trip waking up in Jerusalem, driving out to the West Bank around lunch, flying to Aqaba, Jordan, for dinner at the King’s summer house and then ending up back in Jerusalem later that night,” she says.

Her foreign travel experience started when Annie volunteered to go to Iraq to help the press office cover the referendum vote in October 2005. She flew with journalists to Hillah and then returned to Baghdad on a “kind of scary” night flight aboard a Black Hawk helicopter. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. State Department sent her to New Orleans to help with media for Prince Charles’ visit in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

“I’ve met and worked with so many amazing people of high caliber,” Annie says. “I’m fortunate. There are so many wonderful mentors,” noting associate professor Cindy White of communication was one of her great role models at CU.

“How many Longmont, Colo., kids does it take to handle a Secretary of State’s phone call?” she asks, remembering her time in Washington, D.C., working together with her brother, foreign service officer Richard “Trey” Lyons III (PolSci’00). From the State Department’s Operations Center, Trey worked as a senior watch officer to patch incoming calls from foreign ministers to Annie for connection to Rice.

Working in locations where Ivy Leaguers predominate, Annie enjoys representing CU.

“The Buffs dominated the Secretary of State’s office when Dan B. Smith (Hist’77), Trey and I worked together,” Annie states proudly.

— Marty Coffin Evans

Henry Claypool (Geog’89)

Henry Claypool’s (Geog’89) commitment to working on behalf of Americans with disabilities is a deeply personal one.

More than 25 years ago, he suffered a spinal cord injury that left him a triplegic. The accident happened while he was skiing, a sport he loved for the freedom and independence it offers. As newly appointed director of the Office on Disability for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, he now oversees the implementation of all health and human services programs and initiatives pertaining to Americans with disabilities. He also serves as the primary adviser to the secretary on disability policy.

As director, Henry wants to ensure that people with disabilities have access to the services and support they need to lead fulfilling lives in their communities. He remembers the marginal campus accessibility during his undergraduate years at CU.

“Everyone has insights into the struggles of life but they are magnified by a loss affecting the body,” he reflects. Working through chronic pain, he felt a sense of accomplishment in his ability to graduate from CU. “It was difficult to stay focused,” he remembers.

After a successful procedure relieved his pain, Henry was eager to utilize the insights acquired from his disability. A graduate-level “Rhetoric and Persuasion” course taught by political science professor Dennis Eckart opened his eyes to how strongly he felt about using his political interests to shape policies.

This combination served him well when he became director of CU’s Disability Services Office. As director from 1993 to 1998, he participated in a project to retrofit some of the old buildings to improve access for those with disabilities.

“My legacy was to make a modest attempt to improve access for others on the Boulder campus,” he says proudly.

In his more than 10 years in the Washington, D.C, and New York City areas, Claypool has been a policy director for a managed long-term care provider and served in an advisory capacity to the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security administrative offices.

“It’s been a pretty interesting journey, one where I’ve given back,” he reflects. “Health care reform is the biggest challenge on the horizon.”

As for skiing, he returned to it but didn’t enjoy it as much.

“Letting go was part of the healing,” he remembers.

His work today is both time-consuming and enjoyable. “Find something you feel passionate about and pursue it,” he advises. “It makes life meaningful.”

— Marty Coffin Evans

Elizabeth “Dee” Graham Demmon’s (A&S, Edu’32) life has been straight out of a history book. The longtime Boulder resident, who recently celebrated her 100th birthday, attended Mapleton Elementary School as a little girl, watched the Boulder Courthouse burn down Feb. 9, 1932, and attended CU during the Great Depression. She even met Buffalo Bill Cody.

“You can’t imagine the dust that his horse stirred up! But it was the thrill of my life,” Dee says.

She has seen Boulder change around her, although she has lived in the same house on Ninth Street for decades. She’s lively and exuberant as she eagerly shows visitors her walls, which are covered in photographs documenting her incredible life. A photo of Dee and her late husband Irvin Demmon (A&S ’34) at the Great Wall of China hangs on one wall. In another frame, there is a photo of her son, Bob Demmon (Mus’62), who was the leader of the legendary 1960s Boulder band, The Astronauts.

Dee was born on Feb. 11, 1910, and has lived in Boulder for nearly all of her life. When she attended CU-Boulder, the country was in the midst of the Great Depression.

“CU back then was like it is today but much smaller,” she says. “I lived at home to save money.”

Dee’s other son, Bill Demmon (A&S’71), elaborates proudly on his mother’s achievement.

“In those days, it was rare for a woman to earn a college degree, especially in the Great Depression,” he says.

On campus, she stayed involved through her activities as a Pi Beta Phi sister.

After graduating from CU, Dee spent part of her life working first as a teacher in Boulder, Delta and Magnolia and later in administration with the Boulder Valley School District. As an educator, she worked with many children at University Hill Elementary School who later became Boulder professionals. She also kept busy raising her two sons.

Decades later, she has had Buff football season tickets for more than 50 years and in 2007 attended a special ceremony for longtime season ticket holders.

“When my mom can’t make it to the games, she rewards sons, grandchildren and neighbors with the tickets,” Bill says.

These days, Dee enjoys being driven around the Hill and north Boulder, pointing out houses and commenting on who used to live in them. She has had a rich and rewarding life, surrounded by supportive and friendly family and friends. She has been an inspiration to many Boulder residents and is a force that will never be forgotten.

—Alex Bak

Anthony Jackson (Bus’05)

Vicki, a petite 18-year-old with bleached-blond hair and wide brown eyes, was desperate when she met Anthony Jackson (Bus’05). After aging out of the foster care system, she was living in Denver — and was homeless. For months she slept on whatever couch she could find. Although she dreamed of getting a job and going to college, she was more concerned with finding a home.

Anthony works for the Mile High United Way’s Bridging the Gap program and administers Section 8 Family Unification Program housing vouchers. These 18-month vouchers help former foster youth who lack adequate housing become independent.

“Forty percent of foster youth experience homelessness in their lifetime,” Anthony says, blaming this alarming statistic on the instability of foster care, an imperfect system that bounces youth between placements. “To move 20 times, you don’t have a home. There’s nothing stable about that.”

He spends countless hours helping foster youth avoid homelessness at all costs, mediating between angry landlords, exhausted caseworkers and frustrated youth. Anthony manages youth enrollment in the program, the ever-growing wait list and housing inspections. His least favorite aspect is paperwork, averaging around 250 pages per youth. He spends his remaining time tackling crises. Each morning his voice mail is filled with emergencies ranging from landlords who need their rent money to youth facing eviction.

“CU helped me figure out who I was and how to succeed at a role like this,” Anthony says.

All his hard work is worth it when he sees a youth get his or her first set of apartment keys.

“The excitement they have when they sign their lease and move into their apartment is what makes this job so easy for me,” Anthony says. “They now know they have a place to call home and no longer have to deal with couch surfing and possibly being kicked out of their place.”

Family Unification vouchers provide hope and a safety net for youth like Vicki.

“It adds a great deal of stability to their lives. At least for 18 months they can call that their home,” Anthony says.

In the meanwhile, Vicki is working hard to reach her goals. Six months after receiving her voucher, she is in a better place: living in her own apartment, attending school and finally finding permanency.

Stories like Vicki’s are common in Anthony’s world, which lead him to say, “I’ve never had greater job satisfaction.”

— Beth Phillips

Tyler Silverman (ChemEngr’08)

When he graduated last December, Tyler Silverman (ChemEngr’08) wasn’t even in the country.

He was in Seville, Spain, getting ready to jump into a career in solar energy with Abengoa Solar New Technologies. After completing an internship with the sustainable engineering company during the fall semester, he so impressed company leaders that they invited him to stay onboard to continue his work on solar concentration. In May, Tyler began a full-time engineering position with Abengoa working on a project making superheated steam.

Tyler had his sights set on a senior internship in Spain since his sophomore year when he studied abroad on the country’s southern coast and loved the experience. To make it happen, he got help from engineering professor Al Weimer (MChemEngr’78, PhD’80) [June 2009 Coloradan] to contact the head of Abengoa who offered him an internship.

In his four months with the company, Tyler worked on improving the design of Stirling Dish solar concentrating technology. The stand-alone structures concentrate sunlight to a specific point where a local generator produces high-efficiency electricity. Temperatures at the focal point can easily reach 500 to 800 degrees Celsius and the device captures the equivalent power of 1,500 to 2,000 suns.

“I really felt like part of the team,” Tyler says of the internship experience, also mentioning that the 25-to-35-year-old age range of most employees made the work atmosphere less intimidating.

The youth in the company hasn’t stopped it from making an impact on the industry, though, and Abengoa’s solar tower was featured on the cover of National Geographic’s June 2009 collectors’ edition on energy. The company receives support from the Golden,Colo.,-based National Renewable Energy Lab and the government of Seville as a part of its energy initiative, which ultimately aims to fulfill all of the city’s electrical demands through solar power.

In terms of the cultural experience of living and working in Spain, Tyler says he initially found it hard to adjust to siestas and work-time socializing after spending four years intensely focused on his studies at CU. After getting used to it, though, he says the relaxed work ethic and the opportunity to travel and spend time with European friends can be “kind of refreshing.”

— Emery Cowan

Kirsten Murray (EnvDes’86)

While in her 20s, Colorado-born Kirsten Ring Murray (EnvDes’86) moved to Seattle with an enthusiasm for its romantic landscape — woods, mountains and water and, hopefully, a career in architecture.

These days, as the newest managing partner at Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen — one of the Pacific Northwest’s most heralded architectural firms — Kirsten can hardly drive through the Emerald City without seeing her thumbprint on one of its most iconic structures, from the downtown library and Woodland Park Zoo to the Seattle Art Museum.

“Kirsten is a terrific, smart architect who is able to balance a keen sense of design with the management skills necessary to pull off the sort of work we try to create,” says Tom Kundig, a firm partner.

Her interest in architecture ignited in a science fiction class at Boulder’s Fairview High School and broadened at CU where she came to realize the importance of ecology, environmentalism and the social impact of architecture.

“When I got to Seattle (after grad school), [the city] was beginning a phase of redevelopment and urban renewal,” she says. “Coming here was an economic opportunity. It was the start of the Microsoft boom, and there were rumors of affordable housing. We’re just way up here and out of the way, but there has been a lot of growth and much of it was pretty grass roots.”

With a fascination for utopian theory, Kirsten believes you can design places, structures and environments in a way that brings greater usefulness, social benefits and even sustainability. She toils on the top two floors of the century-old Washington Shoe Building in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood, where she and the 80-plus employees of her firm have implemented projects throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

Earlier this year the firm received the American Institute of Architects’ most esteemed honor, the 2009 Architecture Firm Award, becoming the second Seattle firm to win the award.

“We have always worked without seeking out regard and attention, but we were very humbled,” Kirsten says. “Being a 40-year-old firm, we’re kind of like a band that’s been around forever. The quiet integrity of the work is what drew me to the firm.”

Now a true Seattleite, she is raising two daughters while still finding time for backpacking, hiking, biking and civic involvement, including Habitat for Humanity and Architects Without Borders. Still, her true devotion is to the firm that helped put her on the map — and vice versa.

“My role as a partner is to be a steward,” she says, “and that means providing the next steps to those who will lead the future of this firm.”

—Scott Holter

Sandra Cortner (Ital’68)

In her first assignment as a photojournalist in 1968, Sandra Cortner (Ital’68) moved her subject outside because of necessity — she hadn’t earned enough money yet to buy a flash. Her editor loved the result, and Sandra was propelled into a career in black-and-white portraiture that has since been highlighted in the 2006 Crested Butte Stories…Through My Lens (Wild Rose Press).

The teenage Sandra arrived in Crested Butte, Colo., in the summer of 1964. There were few people her age, and the mountain climate was unlike anything she had experienced in her hometown of Tucson, Ariz. She returned to Tucson at summer’s end, but by then the tiny town and its colorful residents had grown on her. After she graduated from CU, she drove her VW Bug home — to Crested Butte, not Tucson. And she’s been there ever since.

The “three-job shuffle” of waitressing, working for the town’s struggling weekly newspaper and clerking at her mother’s store gave way to full-time newspaper work when Sandra, then 24, started an advertising flyer that quickly morphed into the Crested Butte Pilot. Thanks to experience gained on the staff of CU’s Colorado Daily, she wrote articles, took photos, sold ads and single-handedly managed and published the fledgling newspaper.

Each week Sandra put everything into an envelope, rode her bike to the edge of Crested Butte and waited for a car to stop at her outstretched thumb. Then she’d implore the startled driver to deliver the envelope on his or her way to Gunnison. “The typewritten stories were originals, with no copies, so if they were lost we had to start over from scratch,” Sandra recalls in her book.

The Pilot covered Crested Butte as it grew from a coal-mining town to a renowned resort and vacation spot. Throughout, Sandra composed portraits of the town’s “old-timers”— men and women whose lives bridged the time between the closing of the last coal mine in 1952 and the opening of the ski area in 1961. She sold the Pilot in 1977.

Her portraits grace the walls of the town’s museum, and many can be found in Crested Butte Stories, along with reminiscences of her experiences from the 1960s through the ’80s. Her book gives insight into an era of the town’s history that is all but gone — when keys were left in ignitions, Fourth of July was synonymous with polka parties and you only dialed four digits to make a phone call.

Read an excerpt from Sandra’s book and order copies at www.crestedbuttestories.com.

— Michelle Starika Asakawa (Jour, Mktg’87) )

John Roberts

John E. Roberts (IntlAf’64) has visited 183 countries and aims to travel to the 23 remaining. While his trips were initially paid for through the Peace Corps and the U.S. State Department, these days they’re on his own dime.

Nearly 50 years ago, President John F. Kennedy’s call to service inspired John’s Peace Corps application. Shortly after graduation he accepted his first two-year assignment in Somalia teaching and helping build schools.

Once home John thought he wanted to go to law school and enrolled in American University in Washington, D.C.

“One day I walked over to the State Department and they gave me a language aptitude test,” he says. “I studied Vietnamese for the next 11 months.”

During his first tour with the State Department in Hue, Vietnam, the former imperial capital, John worked in refugee relief and a translator. He adopted his daughter, Genevieve Roberts Weil (Math’95), while on his second tour there.

Robert’s assignments provide a lesson in geography as he was transferred from one position to another by the State Department. Whether in Nicaragua, Indonesia, Egypt, Botswana, Liberia, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, Nepal or Kenya, his emphasis was on economic development.

“I loved Africa and got sent back to Botswana in 1986. I came home for all the [CU] bowl games,” he chuckles. “I flew from Botswana to London and on to Miami for the Orange Bowl games in 1990 and ’91.”

His most exotic location? Madagascar.

“It’s a fabulous place with its flora and fauna,” he reminisces.

John laughs as he talks about learning the languages where he’s been stationed. Now able to speak nine languages, he remembers struggling with Russian at CU!

The Peace Corps called John out of retirement in 1993 to serve in three more locations. As country director, he added Tunisia, Malta and the South Pacific Soloman Islands to his list of countries he’s lived in or visited. Five years later he came home to Fort Collins where he teaches a course in international studies at Colorado State University.

“I think it’s part of the culture at CU — helping others,” John comments. “It’s been my watchword. Never give up and always help people.”