DID YOU KNOW
Colorado’s first female senator
Helen Ring Robinson, D-Denver, was elected to the Colorado Senate in 1913, becoming the first woman to serve in that position.
Before being elected, Robinson was a teacher, a newspaper editorial writer and a literary critic.
While in the Senate, her interests mainly focused on child-welfare issues and gender equality. She was the author of the Colorado Minimum- Wage Act for Women.
After serving in three General Assembly sessions, she was appointed by the secretary of the Navy to the Navy Department Commission on Training Camp Activities in 1917. Robinson was a member of the Women’s Council of Defense for Colorado and was state chairwoman of the Women’s Liberty Loan Committee from 1917 to 1919.
In 1920, she was a delegate to the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance Convention in Geneva.
At the time of her death in July 1923, she was a member of the Denver Woman’s Press Club.
Sources: Denver Post archives; “The Colorado Almanac,” by Thomas J. Noel
No fare for $50
The latest casualty of Amendment 41: Gov. Bill Ritter, who said he has been forced to turn down the opportunity to fly aboard Lufthansa’s inaugural nonstop flight between Denver and Munich, Germany.
The amendment prohibits lawmakers from accepting gifts valued at more than $50.
Can we quote you on that?
“Wait a minute – Schultheis is standing, and we’re standing.”
– Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, after he discovered that he was casting the same vote as his conservative Republican colleague, David Schultheis, right, of Colorado Springs
Compiled by Bonnie Gilbert and Jeri Clausing
