Ralph Luna’s motto could have been “you have to help these kids,” which was the way he operated for decades.
Luna, who died at his Commerce City home Feb. 8 at age 76, helped literally hundreds of kids – many of whom he taught to box and many to whom he gave bicycles he had built.
Luna also helped kids in his day job as shift supervisor at the Gilliam Youth Service Center, where youthful offenders are taken.
He “never gave up on anyone,” said Joe Silva, 21, who was a boxing student of Luna’s since he was 10.
Other adults would be ready to kick out a troubled kid from the gym, Silva said, “but Ralph would sit down and talk with them” to get the kid back on the right track.
Luna’s daughter, Mercedes Archuleta, said her dad could be firm, telling kids who had repeatedly gotten into trouble: “You’ve got to understand there’s more in life than what you’re doing. You could get hurt or imprisoned or killed.”
She said he turned around a lot of young lives. “The kids loved him. He’d find jobs for them, maybe helping him build and repair bikes,” said Archuleta of Highlands Ranch.
Luna himself was a boxer but gave that up to be a coach. Ernesto Vigil, now 59, was one of his students years ago.
“He didn’t wag his fingers at kids, but he could talk to them, and they would talk to him. Kids saw him as a father figure,” Vigil said.
Luna was known for telling jokes and stories. “He’d tell the same corny jokes hundreds of times, but we’d all laugh again,” Vigil said.
Once a year a bell is rung 10 times at the boxing gym to note the passing of members, Vigil said. “Now Ralph will get his 10 count,” said Vigil, choking up.
Luna got into the bicycle “business” because he came from a family of 10 kids, and they all had to share two bikes. Luna thought every kid ought to have his own bike, his daughter said.
He repaired bikes to give away and even built some from the ground up, picking up parts wherever he could find them. He bought coats from thrift stores, dry cleaned them and gave them to kids.
Luna played the guitar and harmonica and loved to sing, especially songs by Frank Sinatra and Frankie Laine.
Luna was one of the 16 people who, along with the late Corky Gonzales, founded the Crusade for Justice, a Denver-based civil rights organization formed for Latinos. Gonzales too was a boxer, and the two of them, friends from childhood, were once in the bail-bond business together.
Ralph “Raul” Luna was born in Denver on June 22, 1930, and graduated from Manual High School.
He served in the Army Rescue Services for four years and then went into boxing.
He married Susie Garcia on Nov. 21, 1948.
In addition to his wife and daughter, he is survived by another daughter, Carolyn Luna of Commerce City; and two sons, Ralph Luna of Brighton and Raul Luna of Thornton; 17 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren. A son, Jesse Luna, preceded him in death.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
