People

: Walter G. Hirons; After moving to Grand Junction, Colorado with his wife and children from Iowa in 1909, following his father who had migrated there previously, he started teaching in Grand Junction schools the same year. He taught first in the Whittier School. The main subjects he covered were history and algebra. Later, he was named principal of the Hawthorne School, before succeeding R.E. Tope as the principal of Grand Junction High School in 1918, a position he held until 1936. He served as a Grand Junction city council member from 1922-25. He was active in the Congregational Church. *Photo from 1936 Grand Junction High School yearbook

: Walter Gaddy; He was born in Montrose, Colorado and was present, as an infant, for President Taft’s speech at the opening of the Gunnison Tunnel in 1909. He grew up in different towns around Montrose County, including Nucla and Olathe. He often missed school lessons in the fifth and sixth grades as a result of doing chores (like chopping wood for the school’s stove). He went to school through tenth grade and then apprenticed to his father for shoe repair work. He sometimes picked up seasonal work helping the local farmers stack hay or bring in crops. He became something of a jack of all trades (including but not limited to lumber, beekeeping, shipping, shaving, movie projection, and pool hall work).

: Walter Gallacher; Walter Gallacher began his thirty-year career in higher education teaching adults on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He spent most of his career with Colorado Mountain College where he was the Director of Marketing and more recently the Dean of Students. Since his retirement in 2005, he has been producing "Immigrant Stories," a radio program, podcast and oral history project that is gathering the recollections of immigrants who have settled in western Colorado. Between 2017 and 2019, Gallacher performed several oral history interviews for Vail Public Library (Colorado). In 2015-2016, Walter interviewed artists which were featured in the Carbondale, Colorado Art-Around-Town celebration.