People

: Richard D. Besecker; Contributor to "In Our Own Write," (source: In Our Own Write: A Gunnison Valley Journal)

: Richard E. Tope; He was born in Ohio to Richard and Rebecca (Ervin) Tope. US Census records show him living in Harrison, Ohio and teaching by the time he was 24, in 1900. He married Elizabeth Jones in 1903, and together they moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, where Richard served as the principal of Grand Junction High School from 1911 to 1918. In 1918, he became the superintendent of schools for Grand Junction School District 1, a position he kept until 1938. He went over and above the mandate to visit the schools in his charge at least twice a year. He visited every Saturday to make sure that the teachers all had resources available to them. He was a chairman of a small local committee that organized the opening of Grand Junction Junior College (now Colorado Mesa University). According to oral history interviewee Richard Williams, Tope was part owner of the COPECO fruit growing operation for a brief time after Cravin and Moyer sold the business. He was a member of the Citizens Finance company board of directors.