David Harmon led Colorado Mountain College students on work trips to Nicaragua for 20 years.
He was preparing to go again this summer when he had a massive stroke. He died at his Grand Junction home four days later, on May 4. He was 75.
Private services were held.
Harmon told people that the trips did more for the students than for the people they were helping.
“(He said) they got an idea of poverty in the world, more than they ever would have learned sitting in a classroom,” said David Frey, a reporter for the Aspen Daily News, who as a reporter joined Harmon on two trips.
Harmon started the trips — to the rural village of Teoteccacinte — after suggestions from students, said his son David Jr. of Rifle. “His idea was not to build grand buildings but to help the local people get clean drinking water and empower women,” said his daughter, Debbie De- leeuw, of Superior.
Students held fundraisers to get money for the trips and materials, she said. “He was a good fundraiser, loved to talk to people and knew how to direct people,” she said.
The students helped build a safe-water system, hauling bricks, cement and rods up a hill, said David Jr. There had been a high mortality rate in the village because the water wasn’t clean, he said. The project took three years.
They also built a high school and helped women start cottage industries, said Deleeuw.
David Harmon was influenced by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and was a peace activist during the Vietnam War, his son said.
He was a campus minister at the University of Colorado at Boulder and worked at the Rifle Correctional Center before going to Glenwood Springs.
He was born in Pontiac, Mich., on Jan. 16, 1934, and moved with his parents to Denver, where he graduated from high school.
He graduated from Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn., attended a seminary in Denver and was an ordained an American Baptist minister.
He earned a degree at CU and taught ethics, sociology and history at Colorado Mountain College. After retiring, he was an adjunct professor at Mesa State College in Grand Junction.
He and his first wife, Leona Lantz Harmon, had three children. The marriage ended in divorce. He later married Carmen Ponce.
In addition to her and his son and daughter, he is survived by another son, Daniel, of Longmont, and four grandchildren.
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