Cary Stiff, who followed his dream of running a country newspaper, died Saturday at his home in Petersburg, Va.
Stiff, 71, and his wife, Carol Wilcox Stiff, left their jobs at The Denver Post in 1973 to open the Clear Creek Courant — a paper they ran 26 years.
A service for Stiff, who died of a pulmonary embolism, is planned for 1 p.m. July 12 at The United Church in Idaho Springs.
Wilcox and Stiff founded the Courant in Georgetown in 1973, then moved it to Idaho Springs. Over the years, it was named the best weekly in the state by the Colorado Press Association and won 50 other CPA awards for its news coverage, columns, editorials and general excellence, Wilcox said.
In 1997, Stiff and Wilcox were given the Eugene Cervi Memorial Award of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.
The Courant “was a major force in that little town and had a great influence on the community,” said Fred Brown, former political editor at The Denver Post.
Stiff and Wilcox sold the paper in 1999. Stiff once told his former pastor, the Rev. Pat Jordan, “I don’t miss owning the paper, but I miss having a soapbox.”
Cary Packard Stiff II was born Feb. 10, 1937, in Grand Rapids, Mich., and earned his bachelor’s degree at Dartmouth College and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University in New York City.
He worked for nine years at The Denver Post as a reporter, assistant city editor and a staff writer for Empire, then the Post Sunday magazine.
He married Carol Wilcox, also a reporter at The Post, on Sept. 3, 1967.
While at The Post in the 1970s, Stiff and several other Denver journalists founded a weekly paper called The Unsatisfied Man, or TUM, which critiqued the Denver dailies. The name came from one of The Post’s slogans: “There is no Hope for the Satisfied Man.”
Stiff, the first editor, “had a dry wit and saw the irony in life,” said Brown, another founder of TUM.
Stiff loved talking with people, Jordan said. “He started a Saturday morning breakfast meeting in Idaho Springs, and anyone could come, and the subject could be anything.” One of Stiff’s favorite subjects was freedom of the press, Jordan said.
Stiff began piano lessons as a child and played the classics all his life. He also sang in and was sometimes choir director at The United Church.
In addition to his wife, Stiff is survived by two daughters, Meg C. Spodick of Framingham, Mass., and Catherine Andrzejewski of Baldwinsville, N.Y.; his son, Cary Stiff III of Twin Falls, Idaho; eight grandchildren; his brother, Dr. David P. Stiff of Charlestown, R.I.; and two sisters, Winona C. Lincoln of Reed City, Mich., and Martha C. Wallace of Madison, Wis.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
