1125 Pine Street
Boulder, CO 80302
303-441-3110
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Call Number OH3117Date 2023Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 32 minutes, 08 secondsDescription Stuart Lord details his childhood years growing up in a foster home in a culturally diverse neighborhood in New Rochelle, NY. In addition to many positive things that he discusses about his foster parents, his neighborhood, his schooling, the nurturing community of the Black church, and good experiences and role models in the Boy Scouts, he also speaks frankly about long-term sexual abuse that he experienced by an assistant scoutmaster. He relates that when he was 40 years old, he returned to his childhood city to hold his abuser to account, and the abuser then confessed the abuse to the police. Recently, he told his story as part of the documentary film, Leave No Trace, which led to his founding the BSA Survivors Group. He talks about the impact of the death of both of his foster parents during his childhood. He goes on to discuss his college years at Texas Christian University, experiences of racism during his life, becoming a minister, getting in touch with and finally meeting his birth mother when he was a college student, organizing a protest during high school because his city did not recognize Martin Luther King day as a holiday, attending seminary at Princeton University, working as a campus chaplain, associate dean, and associate provost at various college campuses, teaching students about diversity and leadership, and serving as president of Naropa University. He discusses his involvement in many non-profit organizations after he stepped down from the Naropa presidency, including with Delta Developmental, a leadership consulting firm; the Pine Street Church; the Floyd Rights Project to implement police reform in Boulder. He also talks about his wife and daughter and the meaning of family for him. He ends by reflecting on the purpose and meaning of his life.
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Call Number OH3118Date 2023Contents Single recording; 57 minutes, 24 secondsDescription Jon Cline describes growing up as an African American child in Boulder. He mentions African American scientists and other professionals who were role models for him. He also describes racial bias he experienced in the Boulder school system and in other venues, such as at the Elks Club. After graduating from high school, he attended Stanford on a Bell Labs engineering scholarship and went on to work at Bell Labs. He talks about work he did there and also about his current job at the MITRE Corporation, where he studies large-scale models of the underlying physics, climate, and hydrology and how it affects living systems, including people. He speaks about the challenges of being a person of color in the sciences for himself and for others. Throughout, he mentions people who have served as role models and mentors.
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Call Number OH3119Date 2023Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 31 minutes, 52 secondsDescription Thomas Windham describes his childhood in New York City as part of a large, extended, loving family. He talks about his early schooling; his development of racial identity; and his foundation in music, including being a student at Music & Art High School. He describes his college education at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, NM, where he entered intending to study music composition, but ultimately studied psychology. He goes on to discuss his graduate work in psychology at the University of Wyoming and Nebraska Wesleyan University, and the University of Colorado-Boulder, including work he did to increase recruitment of Black students, and to improve representation of people of color and women in Scott Forsman textbooks. He details his subsequent career as a psychologist and activist, including work at Denver General Hospital, as the director of the Park East Comprehensive Community Mental Health Center, as a Boulder Valley School Board member, and as director of student services for the Boulder Valley School District. He also helped develop a mentoring program (SOARS, Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science) for NCAR/UCAR to attract and serve students of color, and was science advisor to the director of the National Science Foundation. After retirement, he worked with a group that created the Charles and Mildred Nilon Endowed Scholarship, worked with the NAACP, and did fundraising for the Center for African and African-American Studies at CU. Other topics include his experience of going to the 1963 March on Washington; his marriage to Paula Madrid Windham and the family they created; and reflections on his accomplishments, what has been important to him, and how he would like to be remembered.
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Call Number OH3120Date 2023Contents Single recording; 50 minutes, 30 secondsDescription Eileen Lingham Walker is a Boulder, Colorado, native who grew up at 24th St. and Mapleton Ave. She describes her childhood, her neighborhood, and her schooling. She also details her family’s history in Boulder—beginning with her paternal grandfather, who came to Boulder in the 1890s. She relates her four grandparents’ roles in helping to found Second Baptist Church in Boulder and the ongoing place of church in her and her family’s lives. She discusses her interest in working in the health field, which dated from her high school years. She worked in the Navy Hospital Corps, earned an LPN degree, and eventually found her way to the field of medical technology and hematology, after which she worked both at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and for the 9 Health Fair for 30 years. She discusses people who lived in the Goss-Grove neighborhood in Boulder and attended Second Baptist Church. Other topics include her father’s upholstery store, Lingham’s Upholstery; artistic endeavors among members of her family of origin; travel she has done including medical mission trips; becoming the first woman minister at Second Baptist Church, including her work in prayer and intercession; and the general importance of religion in her and her family’s lives.
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Call Number OH3121Date 2023Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 6 minutes, 20 secondsDescription Estes begins by describing his mother’s work history during WWII and in the aerospace industry. He talks about his stepfather, Benny Caldwell Channel, and all the positive ways he shaped Mr. Banks. He describes being recruited at the age of 8 to play baseball in a boys’ club, alongside many other boys who also became professional athletes. He tells why he made the switch from baseball to football. He talks about attending the University of Colorado, Boulder, and playing football there in the 1960s, including treatment of Black football players at CU in the 1960s, and the team pulling together and declining to play in Bowl games. Other topics relating to football include quotas and racism in the National Football League in the mid-twentieth century, and playing football for the Oakland Raiders and the Cincinnati Bengals. After getting injured, he moved from football to a corporate career, often blazing trails as a Black sales executive in the clothing industry and working his way up to be a divisional vice president. He discusses the importance of diversity in business and in society. Finally, he talks about: his close-knit family; wife, Mary Banks; children and grandchildren; his sister and her family; the highs and challenges in his life; the importance of understanding one’s history; and the importance of giving back to one’s community.
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Call Number OH3123Date 2023Contents Single recording; 43 minutes, 20 secondsDescription Andy Gup has been instrumental in the administration and development of Indian Peaks Wilderness Alliance (IPWA). IPWA is a volunteer organization associated with the United States Forest Service and has a mission to protect and preserve the Indian Peaks and James Peaks Wilderness areas. Wilderness areas are federal lands that have been set aside for the enjoyment of all, and are some of the few remaining places where people can experience solitude and respite from urban life and activity. The presence of IPWA volunteers in the wilderness helps protect these areas as they exist today, also shielding the areas from possible future encroachment, and educating all peoples in order to instill a desire to protect wilderness for future generations. Andy discusses the history and evolution of the organization and the many programs of the organization, adding detail about the founding of winter patrol and the sawyer program. He reflects on the meaning of “wilderness” in personal terms as well as by definition, according to the Wilderness Act; he speaks to the impacts of population growth, with increased traffic and use of wilderness areas as a result of proximity to the Denver metropolitan area; he talks about specific concerns of his, and the role of IPWA in addressing concerns and challenges (wildfires and wildlife interactions, as examples).
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Call Number OH3124Date 2023Contents Single recording; 48 minutes, 19 secondsDescription In this oral history, Don Johnson shares memories of time spent in Eldora and surrounding areas. Don first went to Eldora in 1936 or ’37 as a child, when his aunt, Florence Bell, and her husband, Bob Whiting, had a cabin there called Bonnie Brae. One early experience was exploring a large cabin that had belonged to Molly Brown. Johnson married his “high-school sweetheart,” Dorothy Evanson, who has since passed away; Dorothy’s parents bought a cabin in Eldora in 1954, which is the cabin still being enjoyed by the Johnson family. Other details: Don served in the Navy during WWII; his second wife is Nellie Brown Johnson; his daughter, Signe, lived in and made improvements to the Eldora cabin; the hotel in Eldora, built 1897, serves as a community gathering place with regular talks on history. Johnson recalls hiking and fishing; he talks about the old Eldora post office/store as well as early community events in Nederland. Johnson reflects that not much has changed since his first visits to Eldora, and he credits the Eldora Civic Association with maintaining the town’s character and keeping the ski resort development to a minimum.
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Call Number OH3125Date 2023Contents Single recording; 51 minutes, 10 secondsDescription LeBrent (Brent) Warren moved to Nederland on Magnolia Road in 1976, a time when old miners, hippies and rednecks had frequent clashes. Weekend entertainment included pizza at Neopolitan’s Italian Restaurant and music at the Pioneer Inn, where recording artists from Caribou Ranch were encountered. In 1987, Warren married Teresa Crush-Warren, who ran Off Her Rocker Antiques in Nederland. Warren was an artist who transitioned into being a magician going by the name of Doc Murdock. He also made a documentary called Marvin’s Flying Boat, about Nederland local Marvin Lewis and his obsession with Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose airplane. Warren was instrumental in the founding of the Backdoor Theater, which brought first-run and classic movies to Nederland. After Warren and his now ex-wife, Teresa, helped to found Dead Guy Days. Warren describes his first impressions of Nederland in the 1970s and recent changes, such as the founding of the Wild Bear Nature Center and the creation of the Carousel of Happiness. He tells about a Nederland sheriff who allegedly murdered a hippie and got away with it, and the friend who later tried to avenge the murdered man by attempting to blow up the sheriff’s office. Warren was a volunteer firefighter, but was out of town when the Caribou Ranch recording studio burned down. Warren talks about Led Zeppelin musicians who came into his wife’s store, and famous bands that started in Nederland. He wishes Nederland would never change.
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Call Number OH3128Date 2023Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 15 minutes, 52 secondsDescription Max Krimmel and Bonnie Carol discuss how they came to live in mountains towns in Boulder County. After meeting in 1970, they lived in Wallstreet in Fourmile Canyon for 17 years, bought property at 15 Sherwood Road outside the town limits of Nederland in 1976, and eventually built a house on that property, which was finished in 1996. The house included a large woodworking shop where Max built guitars and marimbas, and they both made mountain dulcimers. It also had a large music room which accommodated piano, guitar, dulcimer, and marimba playing. Max describes his alabaster-turning business, and Bonnie talks about her activities as a musician. Other topics include the Caribou Ranch recording studio, the Cold Springs Fire, Nederland in the 1970s, the Carousel of Happiness, changes in Nederland over time, wildlife near their house, Eldora Mountain ski resort, underground mine fires, the model of Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose that was built by Marvin Lewis, and stories about various Nederland businesses.
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Call Number OH3132Date 2024Contents Single recording; 45 minutes, 03 secondsDescription This interview is a part of a collaboration with Out Boulder County where members of the LGBTQ+ community in Boulder were interviewed to share their unique stories and experiences; the objective of this collaboration was to amplify queer voices in Boulder. Cecil Kelly (they/them) moved to Boulder County approximately two years prior to this interview to attend the University of Denver’s graduate program in social work. Cecil interned at Out Boulder County’s youth program where they combined their passions for youth and animal services to bring awareness to queer identities in the county. They discuss the differences they have encountered living in Boulder as a queer person compared to where they grew up in Texas. Among these differences is Boulder being more supportive of LGBTQ+ youth by providing them with spaces where they can express themselves. During their time at Out Boulder County, Cecil was moved by how welcoming the staff was to those who used they/them pronouns. Near the end of the interview, Cecil shares their goals for their career after they graduate and the changes they would like to see within the LGBTQ+ community at large.
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Call Number OH3138Date 2024Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 35 minutes, 52 secondsDescription Renowned poet Zan Johns describes her family and childhood in Hammond, Louisiana. She talks about attending the University of Colorado in Boulder in the 1970s, including her experiences with the Black Education Program, groups for students of color, the new things to which she was exposed, and Boulder people who were her mentors, especially in the Black community. She discusses raising Black children in the predominantly white city of Boulder and the role of Second Baptist Church in the family’s life. She talks about her professional life—a 29-year career working at the University of Colorado in the payroll department, as assistant to the Vice Chancellor, and as head of the human resources department. She reflects on working for the Obama presidential campaign after her retirement. She delves into describing her career as a poet—her motivation, the trajectory of becoming published, and her notable success. She discusses her legacy as a Black leader at CU and as a poet. She ends by reading two of her poems: “Why I Write,” and “What Matters.”
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Call Number OH3142Date 2023Contents Single recording; 1 hour, 33 minutes, 32 secondsDescription Adam Bradley pioneered the study of rap lyrics as poetry, has been a professor of English at both UCLA and CU-Boulder, is a founder of the Laboratory for Race and Popular Culture (the RAP Lab, now known at CU-Boulder as Ritual Arts and Pedagogy), and is the author of numerous books. In this interview, he describes his childhood in Salt Lake City as a biracial child being raised by his white mother and her parents (his grandparents) and how he came to understand the Black half of his identity, in particular through hip hop music. He talks about the profound influence his grandmother had on his intellectual development. He relates finding his father and his paternal family as an adult and explores what that meant to him. He discusses the role of rhythm in literature in general and poetry in particular. He describes his college years at Lewis and Clark College; his mentor and collaborator John F. Callahan, who was Ralph Ellison’s literary executor; and the book Three Days Before the Shooting that they edited, incorporating drafts and fragments of an unfinished manuscript that Ralph Ellison left behind. He explores various aspects of his work, including scholarly writing, books he has written, and his analysis of rap and hip hop as forms of poetry. He talks about being a professor at CU-Boulder, beginning in 2009: raising a family with bi-racial children in Boulder, founding the RAP lab, and work done at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Institution.