People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
-
- David Combs
- He was born in Evansville, Indiana in 1956 to RoyAnn and James Webster Killebrew. US city directory listings for that year show James working as a porter. RoyAnn later remarried to Thomas Lee Combs, David Combs’ stepfather. Thomas Lee was a hospital orderly who also worked as a caretaker. RoyAnn Combs was a nurse. David was one of eight siblings. The family was “raised Baptist” though the children went to a Lutheran church. He grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota in a mixed-race neighborhood that consisted of apartments, single-family homes and the projects (where his family lived). He attended Harrison Elementary School and Lincoln Junior High School. He went to North High School for one semester before transferring to West High School, where he believed he would receive a better education. He began playing football in the fifth grade. In high school, he was an All City player at the linebacker position, and received offers to play in college. Acting on a tip from his high school football coach, he attended college at the University of South Dakota on a football scholarship. There, he defied unfounded stereotypes of Black athletes by excelling in his studies. After college, he volunteered with at-risk youth for the Hennepin County Human Services Department. He then worked in the oil and gas industry in Rock Springs, Wyoming, which he described as the “wild West” at that time in its attitudes about race. He later settled in Denver, where he worked in the youth services arm of the Five Points Action Center. He came to Colorado’s Western Slope in 1980, where he worked again in oil and gas. In Grand Junction, he had problems finding a place to live due to the color of his skin. He became a basketball referee by answering an ad in the newspaper. In this profession, he sometimes experienced or observed racial discrimination. Out of such experiences, he saw the need for an advocacy group for Grand Junction’s African-American community. He co-founded the Black Citizens and Friends organization in the early 1980’s. He also helped start an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at the Handy Chapel that still goes on today. He worked at a transitional group home run by the Mesa County Department of Social Services from 1982 to 1987. He worked for Ford Motor Credit from 1988-2000, and briefly relocated to Detroit, Michigan for the position, before moving back to Grand Junction. He also continued to referee games for many years. It was after refereeing a game that a spectator asked him to apply for a position at Aspen National Financial. He has worked there since 2000, and is now the Vice President of sales. In 1991, he married Melissa A. Orton, a Minnesota native that he happened to meet in Western Colorado. She is an occupational therapist who has worked at Grand Junction's Regional Center, St. Mary's, and Family Health West. They have four children and four grandchildren. Combs is still an active member of Black Citizens and Friends, and has long been active in civil rights issues in the area. He recently served on the hiring committee for Colorado Mesa University football coach Jermaine Jackson, and also serves on a CMU task force tasked with making a better environment for BIPOC students.
-
- David D. Schlegel
- He was born in Russia, where he farmed sugar beets. He served for three years in the Russian Army, and following a hunch that a war would be coming soon, took his family to the United States. The family settled with a cousin in Windsor, Colorado, where he worked for the Great Western Sugar Company for four years. In 1917, they homesteaded in Idaho, but their wheat and potato crops were eaten by jack rabbits. They then moved to Delta, Utah, but the soil was very poor, and the sugar beet crop failed. They followed a recruiter from Holly Sugar who was looking specifically for German sugar beet farmers, and came to Loma, Colorado. In his first year farming in Mesa County, he raised a sugar beet that was the largest ever raised in the Grand Valley to that point. His picture and the sugar beet were viewable for a time in the Fruita Bank. He also raised the meat for his family and was a farmer, meat preserver and butcher.
-
- David Delaplane
- Considered the Founder of Colorado Mountain College, in 1966 newly appointed Glenwood Springs Chamber of Commerce director David Delaplane found a file folder labeled “Education Committee” with a few names listed inside. “There really ought to be a college here,” he said to himself. That began months of campaigning in multiple counties to bring the idea of a tax-funded college district to a vote. Source: http://cmcbecauseofyou.org/history/ Test Link
-
- David Eachus
- He moved with his wife and family to a homestead in the Glade Park, Colorado area in the 1890’s, after living in Missouri and Oregon. Born in Ohio in 1865.
-
- David Edwin "Dave" Butler
- He was born to Joseah Butler, a road worker for the WPA, and to Eileen Butler, a homemaker who was involved with Grand Junction’s Handy Chapel. He attended Grand Junction High School, where he was the student body president. He was also the student body president in college. He became a civil rights investigator, and later opened the first African-American bookstore in Denver, Colorado. He also made appearances on radio and television, and once interviewed white supremacist Richard Butler. During the interview, Dave Butler suggested that two could be related, which was in keeping with his sense of humor. He was the uncle of oral history interviewee Janielle Butler.