One-time congressional candidate and lifelong Democratic activist Charles “Charlie” Oriez, 52, died Wednesday from lung cancer.
A relentless anti-smoking campaigner, Oriez blamed his illness on exposure to secondhand smoke.
In testimony in April before a state Senate committee, Oriez said he had been exposed to secondhand smoke throughout childhood and his years working for MCI Inc. He urged senators to support the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act.
Oriez also sought to put teeth in established nonsmoking ordinances, such as bringing criminal charges against a community college administrator who repeatedly flouted Littleton’s smoking ban.
A longtime activist, Oriez was in high school when he led a campaign to pressure a Long Island, N.Y., factory into cleaning up its polluted water.
Oriez in 1992 ran a quixotic campaign for Republican Joel Hefley’s 5th District House seat “but did it to make a point,” said Oriez’s wife, Gloria Shone.
During his career as a computer systems engineer, Oriez established himself as an expert on encryption and spam, becoming noted in the information technology community.
Oriez won a 1998 Webby Award for the Sierra Club website he designed. A member of the Colorado chapter, he served over the years as a regional, state and national leader. In 2004, he won the Susan E. Miller award for his work with the Boulder-based Jared Polis Foundation’s computer recycling program.
Oriez chronicled his final years at www.oriez.org/blog, the Web log he began after his cancer diagnosis in May 2001, writing about cycling the MS 150 bike tour during his first chemotherapy sessions, describing the cruises and trips he took, and castigating the leader Oriez called “Resident Bush.”
He urged readers to become organ donors, lamenting that only eyes can be recovered from cancer patients.
“Cover for me,” Oriez wrote.
In the memorial post he wrote before his death, Oriez quoted Bill McKenna:
“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well-preserved piece, but to slide across the finish line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, and shouting Geronimo!!!”
Survivors include wife Gloria Shone of Littleton; mother Katherine Oriez of Highland, Ill.; brothers James Oriez of Alamosa, Richard Oriez of Columbia, Mo., and John Oriez of Fisher, Ind.; and sisters Mary Lou Delaney of Carlinville, Ohio, and Suzanne Anderson of Marine, Ill. His father, Robert Oriez, preceded him in death.
A memorial celebration will be held at 4 p.m. today at First Unitarian Church, 1400 Lafayette St.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
