Dale Hollingsworth wasn’t happy unless he was doing something for his favorite place: Grand Junction.
The former mayor and longtime chamber of commerce director seemed nonstop in promoting the town, the college, the airport and the business climate.
Hollingsworth was 83 when he died Oct. 28 after two heart attacks.
“He was a man capable of conjuring bold initiatives that would seem beyond the rest of us,” according to an editorial in The (Grand Junction) Daily Sentinel.
Calling him a “perpetual civic leader,” the editorial said Hollingsworth was successful with civic projects because of “his fundamental humanity, generosity of spirit and easy- going humor.”
“He could talk people into things without being pushy,” said his wife, Phyllis Hollingsworth.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time, he had a twinkle in hie eye,” said longtime friend and former Club 20 president Bill Cleary.
Hollingsworth spearheaded drives to spruce up Grand Junction’s Main Street, involving planting trees and flowers and encouraging business owners to remodel their stores.
He helped bring in new businesses after the oil-shale bust in the 1980s, helped get the new terminal built at Walker Airport and worked with college and civic officials to expand Mesa College from a two-year to a four-year institution.
He was on the organizing committee for the creation of the Museum of Western Colorado and a co-founder of Crime Stoppers in Mesa County.
When the chamber built a new building in 1984, it was named for him.
Dale Hollingsworth was born in Duluth, Minn., on Nov. 22, 1922, graduated from Morgan Park High School there and from Duluth Junior College.
He was a Navy pilot in World War II, serving in the Pacific.
While there, he corresponded with Mary Phyllis Dyer, whom he had met at a dance while he was in pilot training. They married July 8, 1946.
They lived in Duluth, and then Hollingsworth worked for a bank in La Grande, Ore., and the Boise, Idaho, Chamber of Commerce. The couple moved to Grand Junction in 1957, where he had two stints as director of the chamber: from 1957 until 1969 and from 1972 to 1984. Between the chamber jobs, he was vice president of U.S. Bank in Grand Junction.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by four daughters, Joan Hollingsworth of Glenwood Springs and Mary Hollingsworth, Anne Connolly and Janet Hollingsworth, all of Grand Junction; two sons, Jim Hollingsworth of Durango and John Hollingsworth of Salt Lake City; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
