By Tom Brock

Dear Reader: Welcome to Boulder Magazine’s exciting 30th-anniversary issue. They say time flies when you’re having fun and it must be true, because it seems like yesterday when we started this publication. Back then, there weren’t personal computers, fax machines or voice mail. We used typewriters. The closest thing to a cellphone was that cool flip-up thingy on Star Trek. Clunky Walkmans were yesteryear’s iPods. My diehard friends and I watched the Broncos lose their first SuperBowl in l978 on the largest color TV any of us owned at the time—a whopping 21-incher. Projection, plasma and LED screens were a long way off. All four Beatles were still jamming, although not as a group. It was REALLY a great time to be alive!

Getting here ...

I’m the prototypical baby boomer. My entire generation was in a period of great movement in the early 1970s. We had fought in or helped stop a war, gotten rid of a bad president, attempted or completed college, and challenged just about everything that moved. And we traveled. Many of us thought nothing of hopping in a car (in my case, a ’66 VW beetle) and driving coast to coast, then back again. I finally landed in Boulder in 1974, via Washington, D.C. (where I was a social worker in child welfare), and Aspen (where I was a ski bum). I talked my way into CU’s English grad school, then switched to journalism a semester later (relevancy issues). I graduated in l976 with a master’s in journalism and $150 a week’s worth of freelance jobs with daily and weekly newspapers across Colorado.

While having a beer with a professor pal that summer, he (somewhat politely) suggested I would always be a lousy employee and a disgruntled writer (those darn editors, always rewriting MY stuff!). He advised me to learn the advertising side of the game. With that, I’d have both pieces, and maybe even publish my own magazine some day. Could have been the beer, but the idea made sense at the time. I’d already lost my biggest freelance contract, the Durango Herald, for quoting ON the record comments about mine safety (or the serious lack thereof) made OFF the record by one of the area’s largest mine owners (he was less than pleased, as was the Herald’s publisher). With little to lose, I accepted an ad sales position with the U.S. Ski Association Rocky Mountain Division. The rest, as they say, is history.

Being here …

Because of my small-town ski-bum experience, living and working in the same town became a goal of mine. As with many kids who grew up in the American suburbs of the ’50s and ’60s, the idea of living where you worked was uniquely strange. Fathers worked in urban areas miles from home, accessed by cars or trains after at least an hour’s commute. The idea of being part of a community where you could get involved, watch your kids grow, and (heaven forbid!) even eat lunch at home now and then appealed to me. This didn’t happen right away, however. My first publishing venture, a terrific little ski guide for the Rocky Mountain region, took me far afield for months at a time. I quit after a squabble with the new ski division director, then spent some time with a handful of startup publishing ventures, all losers. I soon found myself jobless.

With nothing to lose (again), and eager to start a new magazine for Boulder (three efforts had failed in the previous four years), I teamed up with tennis pal Bob Wells to explore local magazine ideas. Bob had published a pithy little Boulder Guide that had gone dormant, and I was full of ideas and impressed with some of the summer guides I had seen in mountain resort towns. It was l978. The Pearl Street Mall had opened and the Boulder Summer Guide was launched. Bob saw that first issue through. I joined him full-time for the second Summer Guide, and then a Winter Guide. Bob left for a real career and I remained to publish a magazine in the town where I lived, with a new passion for printer’s ink on my fingers.

Our mission is born …

Boulder was one of the country’s most vibrant towns in the mid-1970s. There was an incredible amount of creativity and energy here. Even before the Pearl Street Mall opened, the town was thriving with new shops, boutiques, restaurants, live music, dancing and nightlife. Arts, poetry, and festivals were fresh and exciting. New businesses included Celestial Seasonings, White Wave tofu, Green Mountain Granary and KBCO. Institutions such as the Colorado Music Festival, KGNU, Kinetics, Eco-Cycle and Boulder Philharmonic were just getting going. The high-tech community was flush with startups: NBI, StorageTek and dozens of others. The number of 30th anniversaries being celebrated now testifies to the creative energy then.

The mission of Boulder Magazine has always been to build a sense of community throughout Boulder County. I believed then, and still do, that the backbone of every community is its independent business owners and artists. They’re the ones who serve on nonprofit boards, fuel the PTA and create vibrancy. With each major national chain that arrives, it seems a little of our town’s soul is lost. With this idea in mind, we’ve tried to create a vehicle that allows every local business to market their goods or services to a diverse community of local readers for an affordable fee. I can’t thank the business community enough for their strong support for 30 years. We also offer free editorial space for arts groups, events, galleries and restaurants to promote themselves. Our articles and features educate and inform about local people and issues. We hope that, in some way, this has helped develop, support and encourage the community we love.

Of course, it’s been a lot of fun for me personally. The chance to meet and interview governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, commissioners, world-class athletes, Nobel Prize winners, scientists, remarkable visionaries and movie stars has been unbelievable. Photos of four of my favorite interviewees—Walter Orr Roberts, Scott Carpenter, Joan Van Ark and John Echohawk—are included in this issue.

About the 30th-anniversary issue ...

We’ve been blessed to have some of the community’s best minds share their thoughts in this issue about where Boulder’s been, where it is now, and where it’s headed. These people are the real movers and shakers, and their comments are sometimes startling, sometimes reassuring. Their interviews start on page 20 and continue throughout the first 50 pages. The overwhelming response from the community to share thoughts about the past 30 years was far greater than we anticipated or have print space for, so look for additional commentaries, photos and memories on our website at getBoulder.com/30th.

Here’s what I think …

I think we’re all INCREDIBLY lucky to live in Boulder Valley. This is a very special place, a spiritual place—not religious, necessarily, but the “spirit” of the earth is very strong here, at least to me. I’m no world traveler, but it seems places of extraordinary physical beauty have always been identified as powerful places. A look out the window to the west, toward the Flatirons and the “Sacred Cliffs” above NCAR, is proof enough for me.

One of my favorite life experiences was being a patrol leader in Boy Scouts, and sharing the common objective of some goal with eight to 10 other people. I had to laugh as I reflected that, in essence, I’ve been doing the same thing here for 30 years—helping a team of eight to 10 or more reach the common goal we’ve set. And how fortunate I’ve been to be surrounded by SO MANY wonderful friends at Brock Pub. It’s made coming to work fun for all of these years, and I thank every one of them for a great run!

I sometimes think that, giving the overarching importance of MONEY in today’s society, I could have spent a little less time on the mission, and more on the bottom l

ne. But probably not. Honestly, who could ask for more?
Everyone at Boulder Magazine has worked very hard to give you a really memorable 30th-anniversary issue. We hope you enjoy it. Have a terrific summer!