People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- Lester Beauvais
- He was born to Harry H. Beauvais and Helen Hope (Linton) Beauvais in Gunnison, Colorado. His father was a locomotive fireman. His mother was a homemaker who was active with the local VFW lodge. She organized their events and held state and local offices in the organization. The family moved to Grand Junction around 1931, when Lester was two years old. As a child he attended the Lowell School and Grand Junction High School. He hung out at the Lincoln Park Pool during the summers, where he met future wife Anne Louise Look. They attended the University of Colorado at Boulder together. After their marriage, he worked for the plastics firm Baxter-Travenol in Round Lake, Illinois, manufacturing hospital supplies. *Photograph from the 1947 Grand Junction High School yearbook.
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- Lester Crown
- Born and raised in Chicago, Lester Crown received a BS in chemical engineering from Northwestern University and a MBA from Harvard Business School. He is Chairman of Henry Crown and Company, a family-owned and -operated company, which includes diversified manufacturing operations and real estate, including the Aspen Skiing Company (“ASC”). In 1985, through the family’s long friendship with the Klutznick family, Lester was approached by Tom Klutznick to join him, Marvin Davis, and Mickey Miller in the purchase of the Aspen Skiing Company. After telling Tom that he doubted he would be interested because he knew nothing about the ski industry, he overcame his skepticism when an old friend with extensive industry knowledge, Bob Maynard, convinced him that it was a good business investment. The Crowns agreed to join Tom’s groups as a 50% owner, provided that it did not include involvement in management. The Crowns became sole owners in 1993, the same year that the ASC purchased Aspen Highlands in a joint partnership with developer Gerald Hines. Over the years, ASC has greatly expanded its terrain and upgraded its infrastructure. In the late 80’s, ASC began diversifying its holdings and is now the owner of The Little Nell and the Limelight Hotel in Aspen (and soon to be Snowmass Village), and operates a number of restaurants and retail stores. In 2008, in support of its guiding principle of environmental sustainability, ASC invested $1 million in Western Colorado’s largest solar array, powering a science building at Colorado Rocky Mountain School and sending excess energy into Carbondale’s grid. The Crowns had always looked upon Aspen as a unique, year-round town that combined skiing with world-class cultural institutions. The Aspen Institute was among the primary and most important organizations to them. In 1987, The Aspen Institute sold its Meadows property to a private group and planned to move to Crestone, Colorado where it has already acquired land. Savannah Limited Partnership, owned by Muhammed Hadid, later purchased the Meadows land out of foreclosure. The Savannah Partnership also planned to develop the Ritz Carlton Hotel on land also acquired in the same foreclosure, but was experiencing difficulties in getting approval for the hotel. A multi-faceted deal was struck between the City and The Aspen Institute. The then-Institute president David McLaughlin, Lester Crown and other Institute supporters worked with the City and John Sarpa, an associate of Hadid, to create the Aspen Meadows Consortium. This group negotiated with the City toward a positive outcome for the Meadows campus, for the surrounding property and for the hotel for Hadid. Lester actively worked with McLaughlin, Bob Maynard, and representatives of the Music Associates and Physics Institute in the negotiations with Savannah. The successful conclusion was that the City re-zoned the Aspen Meadows to allow for new buildings for the Institute and a limited residential development for Savannah. As part of the Meadows deal, Savannah agreed to donate the Meadows property back to The Aspen Institute. Without the agreement reached by the Consortium, the Institute would likely have left Aspen. Lester played a key role in making that agreement happen and keeping The Aspen Institute in Aspen. Concurrently, David McLaughlin, Joan Harris and Lester Crown formed and led a “Meadows Campaign” to raise $32 million dollars for the Music Festival and The Aspen Institute. The successful campaign raised money for deferred maintenance and needed capital projects on both campuses. Lester had a dream to establish an enlightened leadership program and believed The Aspen Institute was the perfect organization for it. Thus, the Henry Crown Fellowship Program was born in 1997, named for his father. The Henry Crown Fellowship Program seeks to develop the next generation of community-spirited leaders, providing them with the tools necessary to meet the challenges of business and civic leadership in the 21st century. This program was so successful that it laid the foundation for the Aspen Global Leadership Network. The AGLN is now a worldwide community of young leaders from business, government, and nonprofits with more than 2,400 “Fellows” from over 50 countries. Lester is a Life Trustee of The Aspen Institute and member of the Board of Overseers of the Henry Crown Fellowship Program. Lester resides in the Chicago area with his wife, Renée. They have seven children, 27 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.--Aspen Hall of Fame bio
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- Lester Jaynes
- According to oral history interviewee Albert Rood, who grew up in Third Fruitridge, Lester Jaynes was the resident in the Fruitridges who lived farthest from Grand Junction. His son Bryson liked to float the Grand Valley Canal in a homemade canvas canoe. He was responsible for Fruitridge road and infrastructure improvements. Uncle of Velma E. (Borschell) Budin.
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- Lester Starr
- He was born in Iowa and arrived in Fruita, Colorado at the age of four. In 1906, his family moved to land on K Road, where his father farmed apples. He attended school there until partway through his junior year of high school. He worked as a ranch hand for Tom Cuddy, Doc White and Andrew Burford from 1918-1924. He then went back to helping his father in the orchard before buying his own land, where he also farmed apples. He married Esther (Ziegler) Starr in 1933.
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- Leta Cantonwine
- Leta Cantonwine was valedictorian for Salida High School in 1942. Married Trigg Sousa, becoming Leta Sousa. Born in Salida Oct. 26, 1924 and died May 10, 2015 in Montgomery, Ala.
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- Leta Lucile (Davidson) Atchison
- She was born in in Champion, Nebraska to Champion Chase Davidson and Mable Elizabeth (Eskew) Davidson. She attended Champion Grade School, Alpha Rural High School, and Chase County High School, graduating in 1936. She graduated from Pratt’s Business College in 1939. She married Robert Atchison and they moved to Denver and then Grand Junction in 1945. She worked for the Daily Sentinel from 1945-1952, where she served as an assistant to Advertising Manager Al Look. She also served as the typist for some of Al Look’s book manuscripts. She later served as president of a branch of the American Association of Retired Persons. She was a member of the Eastern Star and the Area Agency on Aging. She left Grand Junction in 1952.
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- Leta Ruth (Funk) Benson
- She was born in Russell, Kansas to Bertha Luella (Brown) Funk and Carl Funk. Her father was a farmer and her mother a homemaker. US Census records show that the family had moved to a farm in West Cheyenne Wells, Colorado by 1920, when Ruth was ten years old. She graduated from the University of Colorado Normal School in Boulder, where she was involved in the Girl Reserve, Glee Club, Denver Chorus, Trio, Chimes of Normandy, Pinafore, Ermine, and the Quad Play. She came to Parachute (then called Grand Valley) to teach at the Granlee School in 1927. She married Charles E. Benson in Glenwood Springs on May 11, 1929, when she was twenty years old. She was a housewife who raised six children. The 1930 US Census shows them living with Charles’s family, with Charles a partner in his father’s dairy farm business. In 1940, Charles and Ruth lived on a farm with their four children near Grand Valley (the name of Parachute at the time). They sold their ranch to Union Oil in 1957 and moved into town. She died at the age of seventy-nine and is buried in Parachute’s Russey-Hurlburt Cemetery. *Photograph from 1927 University of Colorado Normal School yearbook