2023 in obituaries: Pikes Peak region mourns several notable deaths
A Colorado Springs city councilwoman with a lengthy record of public service, a respected member of the legal community for more than 40 years, the owner of downtown’s popular movie theater complex and two longtime supporters of the local arts scene were among several notable current and former Pikes Peak region residents, public officials, business people and civic leaders who died in 2023.
The list includes:
Kathleen Fox Collins, 80, Jan. 9.
Susan Edmondson, left, and Kathleen Fox Collins. Collins, who spent five decades supporting and promoting symphonic music, opera, theater and cowboy music in Colorado Springs, died Monday. She was 80.
She spent five decades supporting and promoting symphonic music, opera, theater and cowboy music, including various roles over a quarter century with the then-Colorado Springs Symphony Orchestra and 15 years at the Western Jubilee Recording Co.
Collins also was a founding director of the Bee Vradenburg Foundation and Opera Theatre of the Rockies; a founding partner of the MeadowGrass Music Festival; and co-founder of Ride for the Brand Ranch Rodeo.
“She was a doer. She was opinionated,” said Downtown Partnership President and CEO Susan Edmondson. “She had verve and determination, warmth, a love for this community. And a real belief the arts are a great way to enrich a community.”
Kimball Bayles, 70, Jan. 11.
Bayles was the longtime owner of Kimball’s Peak Three Theater in downtown Colorado Springs. For years, his theater complex was the only place to see independent films in town and the only venue for movies in downtown.
Kimball Bayles, owner of Kimball’s Peak Three Theater in downtown Colorado Springs, died Wednesday of cancer. He was 70.
After he graduated from Wasson High School and the University of Colorado, Bayles taught at several schools, including CU, University of New Mexico and University of Colorado Colorado Springs.
In 1991, he left teaching and bought his first movie house in the Springs, the old Poor Richard’s Cinema on North Tejon Street. In 1994, he spent $1.5 million to renovate and open Kimball’s Twin Peak Theaters at 115 E. Pikes Peak Ave. Around 2009, he installed a third movie screen to create the Peak Three Theater.
Mary Mashburn, 85, Jan. 28.
Mary Mashburn, the longtime former executive director of the nonprofit Imagination Celebration, who was also widely known as the fairy godmother of the arts, died Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023. She was 85. (Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette)
The longtime former executive director of the nonprofit Imagination Celebration was also widely known as the “Fairy Godmother of the Arts.”
After traveling with her Air Force husband for three decades, the Mashburns became permanent Colorado Springs residents in 1978. In 1981, Mary Mashburn co-founded the Mashburn-Marshall Tactile Gallery, a please-touch-the-sculpture gallery designed for the blind and visually impaired and those with disabilities at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College.
In 1989 Mashburn expanded the Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration from a weekend festival to a year-round arts organization, which was first based at the Pikes Peak Library District and then as its own organization in 2000. She went on to lead the nonprofit for 18 years, and brought the arts into schools and businesses and helped connect arts groups, teachers and artists.
Mashburn also served on the boards for many organizations around the region, including the Fine Arts Center, Friends of the Pikes Peak Library District, Colorado Springs Children’s Chorale and Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services.
Julian Becerra, 35, Feb. 11.
Fallen Fountain police officer Julian Becerra.
The Fountain police officer suffered serious injuries in a fall while trying to apprehend a suspect; he fell from a bridge as he and other officers pursued several carjacking suspects on Feb. 2.
He had served with the Fountain Police Department for 4½ years and was assigned to its canine unit. He also was an Air Force veteran.
Stephannie Fortune, 59, June 13.
Stephannie Fortune
The longtime civic leader was appointed to the Colorado Springs City Council in January 2022 to represent downtown and the southwest side. In November 2022, Fortune announced she was diagnosed with leukemia. She finished her term and did not run for reelection in April.
Among other roles, Fortune served as assistant director and legislative liaison for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment; executive director for University Partnerships and Public Policy at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs; president of Governmental Affairs and Public Policy for the Greater Colorado Springs Chamber; and chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Jane Norton under Gov. Bill Owens.
She also had experience on many nonprofit boards, including Pikes Peak United Way, the Colorado Springs Conservatory, Pikes Peak Workforce Investment Board and the Girl Scouts of Colorado.
With United Way, Fortune helped start Colorado Springs Promise, which provides life coaching to Harrison High School students and will be a part of the new Family Success Center that opened last year in the former Pikes Peak Elementary School.
Max Morath, 96, June 19.
Max Morath, in spotlight, sits on a piano stool while speaking into a microphone in front of his piano on stage at the Imperial Hotel melodrama in February 1961 in Cripple Creek. PHOTO BY MYRON WOOD, COURTESY OF THE PIKES PEAK LIBRARY DISTRICT, 002-1561
The Colorado Springs native’s illustrious career as a ragtime pianist earned him the moniker “Mr. Ragtime.”
Morath graduated from Colorado Springs (now Palmer) High School in 1944 and attended Colorado College, where he received a bachelor’s in education in 1948 and paid for his schooling with jobs as a radio announcer and pianist for KVOR. He also worked as a ragtime pianist and musical director with melodrama companies around Colorado, including the Iron Springs Chateau in Manitou Springs and the Imperial Hotel melodrama in Cripple Creek.
According to the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, which inducted Morath in 2016, the pianist made numerous appearances at the Gold Bar Room in Cripple Creek in the 1950s; wrote, announced, acted and sang at KKTV; and created the “Ragtime Era” series — 26 half-hour TV programs about early American popular music, comedy and social history for National Educational Television.
Charles “Dewey” Reinhard, 92, June 29.
Charles “Dewey” Reinhard, founder of the Labor Day Lift Off is pictured in 2020. Commemorative T-shirts from each year of the event were made into a quilt for him.
Reinhard, considered by many to be a trailblazer in the hot-air ballooning world, was the founder of the Labor Day Lift Off in Colorado Springs.
Reinhard was born in Pueblo in 1930, enlisted in the Navy in 1951 and began an electrical engineering firm in 1962. His love of hot air balloons began in 1974 after he and his wife traveled to California and saw a hot-air balloon for the first time.
Two years later, in 1976, Reinhard launched the first-ever Labor Day Lift Off. The initial Lift Off was a small event for hard-core enthusiasts. More than 45 years later, the event attracts thousands of attendees and balloon participants each Labor Day weekend.
Kathleen “Kathy” Hybl, 78, Aug. 1.
The Colorado Springs philanthropist and wife of former El Pomar Foundation CEO Bill Hybl was remembered as the “rock-solid force” who drove the family behind southern Colorado’s largest foundation.
According to her family, Kathy Hybl invested her time in The Broadmoor Garden Club and Pauline Chapel Committee, committed to the upkeep of the chapel built by pioneering Colorado Springs philanthropist Julie Penrose, and the Junior League, an organization promoting volunteerism and community activism in women.
Kathy and Bill Hybl in an undated photo.
She was particularly passionate about providing resources to homeless people and the elderly population, family members said, and was heavily involved in the now-shuttered Ecumenical Social Ministries organization. The charity, which served tens of thousands of people each year, provided low-income or indigent individuals and families in crisis with food, health care, clothing, housing and transportation assistance, as well as access to services to help them get back on their feet.
Orville Lambert, 78, Aug. 24.
Owners of Indendendent Records & Videos, Judy Hegley (top), Lewis Lambert (bottom) and Orville Lambert (right) are getting ready to open a new store on N. Academy Blvd. Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette)
With his brother, Lewis, Orville Lambert launched Independent Records & Video, which went on to have a 45-year run as one of Colorado Springs’ most popular record and music retailers.
A California native, Orville Lambert moved to the Springs in 1978 and started Independent Records on Platte Avenue. The business grew over the next four-plus decades, as the Lamberts added apparel, posters, games, smoking paraphernalia and other so-called lifestyle products to go with vinyl records, CDs and DVDs.
Independent Records expanded to multiple locations and was one of the last locally owned record stores. The business shrank in recent years and its storefronts closed; its last location shuttered Sept. 30.
Charles Vorwaller, 89, Sept. 1.
Charles Vorwaller is retiring after 30 years at Pikes Peak Mental Health. Reis photo
As president and CEO of the Pikes Peak Mental Health and Family Council Center from 1970 to 2000, Vorwaller grew the nonprofit from 22 employees and an annual budget of $225,000 to 600 employees, 1,000 volunteers and a budget of $20 million.
Vorwaller was considered a visionary, who developed sharp lobbying skills for an industry that largely had been relegated to margins of society and suffered from funding cuts from state coffers.
Some 350 community movers and shakers attended a private retirement party for Vorwaller held at The Broadmoor, where he was remembered as “an institution,” according to a June 24, 2000, article in The Gazette.
Christine Guerin-Sandoval,50, Sept. 28.
Courtesy of CSPD
A state parole officer and Pueblo resident, Guerin-Sandoval died in the line of duty after being fatally struck by a fleeing suspect’s vehicle on Colorado Springs’ west side, authorities said.
Guerin-Sandoval was with the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Department for 12 years and with the Department of Corrections for the last five years.
Nick Colarelli, 93, Oct. 15.
Nick Colarelli, 91, poses for a portrait at his home in Colorado Springs last week
.
The co-founder of the Colorado Springs-based charitable organization Fostering Hope, Colarelli was known for helping abused and neglected children to have an equal shot at succeeding in life.
Colarelli and his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Colarelli, had started a small family foundation in 2002 in Colorado Springs to support “ordinary people doing extraordinary things.” Nick Colarelli and daughter Dr. Angela Colarelli Carron, one of the couple’s five children, founded Fostering Hope with some of the foundation’s seed money in 2006.
Through Fostering Hope, the father and daughter duo — he a clinical psychologist and she a child abuse pediatrician — discovered an unconventional antibiotic for healing childhood trauma, with an eye toward children in foster care.
Carron said the pair realized that the key elements of the concept — creating a sense of stability, improving developmental experiences and showering unconditional love through relationships with trustworthy adults — weren’t part of the medical, judicial or child welfare systems.
Fostering Hope helps fill that gap; the organization deploys trained volunteers from 40 churches and other faith communities to assume the role of extended family, akin to aunts and uncles who babysit, transport, prepare meals, help with homework, and supply other support for foster kids and parents.
Bobby Keese, 55, Oct. 20.
A Colorado Springs Fire Department member for more than 30 years, Keese led a life of dedication and service and left behind a “tremendous legacy,” according to Fire Chief Randy Royal.
Keese joined the department in May 1993 and was first assigned to Stations 11, 8 and 1.
He was promoted to a department driver in 1999 and later gained experience with the department’s HAZMAT and decontamination teams. He worked the past seven years with Station 22 as a driver and engineer.
Keese was known for teaching fire safety to middle school students, helping Boy Scouts earn merit badges in fire safety and emergency work, assisting stranded motorists along roadways and helping to build props for firefighter testing centers. In February, Keese received the first Carrie Sloan Award for his role as an outstanding mentor to the department.
Gilbert “Gil” Martinez, 72, Oct. 30.
Division 10 Chief Judge Gilbert Martinez retired at the end of the week and posed for a portrait at the El Paso County Judicial Building on Wednesday, July 26, 2017 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Martinez was a chief target of Bruce Nozolino, the so-called courthouse shooter. (Photo by Dougal Brownlie, The Gazette)
The two-time El Paso County chief judge and former public defender was a fixture in the local judicial community for more than four decades.
Martinez, a Trinidad native, grew up in the Denver area and graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver with an engineering degree before he pursued a career in the judicial field. After he obtained a law degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, he began his legal career at Pikes Peak Legal Services before joining the Colorado Springs Public Defender’s Office, where he served as director for the final four years of his 11-year tenure there.
Martinez accepted a judicial appointment in 1989. During his time on the bench, he presided over a wide variety of cases, including lawsuits, domestic disputes and murder trials. He developed a reputation for being dogged in his pursuit of justice, even after surviving an assassination attempt in 2001.
Rev. Dr. John Stevens, 85, Dec. 2.
The Rev. Dr. John Stevens retired in 2005 after 34 years as senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs and working at the church for a total of 36 years. Stevens died Dec. 2, 2023, at age 85.
Stevens served as the longtime pastor of First Presbyterian Church in downtown Colorado Springs, one of the city’s largest and oldest churches. He arrived at First Presbyterian Church in 1969 as an associate pastor and became senior minister at age 32, a job he held for 34 years. Stevens retired in 2005.
The Rev. John Goodale worked for Stevens for the decade before Stevens retired.
“When you see a lot of leaders up front, you’re never sure how much it’s about them. For John, it was always about what was best for this church,” said Goodale, pastor of caring ministries at First Presbyterian Church.
The influential Stevens elevated the church in the 1970s and 1980s from a Sunday-only venue to an everyday destination for spiritual, physical and emotional sustenance.
Scott O’Malley, 77, Dec. 22.
He was the owner of the iconic Western Jubilee record label in Colorado Springs and founded the Western Jubilee Recording Co. in 1996. Set in a warehouse in downtown Colorado Springs, the music venue and recording studio was the spot to hear live western music.
Western Jubilee Recording Co. founder Scott O’Malley poses inside the Warehouse Theater. Western Jubilee doubles as a recording studio and venue; it typically hosts only 10 concerts or less in a year.
“He had a wonderful sense of humor; his shows were top notch,” said Frankie Tutt, a close family friend of O’Malley. “He leaves a hole in the community. He filled a really unique spot in the local entertainment community.”
.
Information for this compilation was gathered from news stories that appeared in The Gazette and its sister publications, as well as online obituary notices.
The marquis at Kimball’s Peak Three Theater bears the news of the death of Kimball Bayles on Thursday.
Christine Guerin Sandoval
Colorado Springs Police Department
