What a tough time of year to lose a loved one.
My heart goes out to Susan Stiff, PR pro for the Westin Tabor Center and the Sheraton downtown, who lost her husband, John R. Haigh, on Wednesday.
He died of natural causes in hospice care at the Arizona home the couple bought a year ago. He was 71.
“Seventy-one seems so young, but he is the one person that I know, from the day he can remember, he knew what he wanted to be,” Stiff told me. “He wanted to be a geologist and travel around the world and see things, and he got to do that.”
Haigh was well-known among Denver’s mining community as the executive director of the Denver Gold Group until he retired. He last served as spokesman for Ascendant Copper Corp. in Denver.
“He was a hard-rock geologist all his life,” Stiff said. Haigh graduated from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, with a degree in geology. He and Stiff were married more than 30 years. Haigh is survived by five children from a different marriage and seven grandchildren.
“During his last few days, I asked him, ‘How do you want people to remember you?’ ” Stiff said. “He said, ‘I want them to remember I tried.’ I’m sure that comes from his Midwestern work ethic.”
Stiff plans to drive with Haigh’s ashes from Arizona to Colorado and will host a memorial service in Denver on Jan. 6. Details to come.
Stiff, who’s a serial bargain shopper, bought a vessel for her husband’s ashes at TJ Maxx.
“They had this one (container) that looked like an old-fashioned steamer trunk with maps all over it,” she said. “I left the price tag on because it drove him crazy.”
Toast tradition.
Roger Sherman, chief operating officer of CRL Associates, a Denver- based government-affairs firm, kept what’s now a four-year tradition alive by hosting a toast at the Palm on Wednesday.
“In keeping with tradition, everyone joined in — both front and back of the house,” Sherman said. “Eighteen folks total.”
The holly-jolly employees sipped Hennessy Paradis Extra Cognac at roughly $40 a shot. Sherman started the toast when his flight was canceled during the 2006 blizzard. “We couldn’t get rebooked until after Christmas, so we naturally thought of the Palm.”
Pot shot.
Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown, a fierce supporter of medical-marijuana dispensary regulations, sent out a Christmas e-card based on a Westword cover drawn by the weekly’s cartoonist, Kenny Be.
The card features a dead-on replica of Charles Schulz’s Charlie Brown, but in the card, Brown is dressed in Western gear a la Denver’s Charlie Brown. He’s next to a scrawny marijuana plant with a single ornament bending a branch to the snowy ground.
The card reads: “A Charlie Brown Christmas. Merry Merryjuana and other package deals for the holidays.”
The seen.
Avalanche players Wojtek Wol ski, Matt Duchene, David Jones, Paul Stastny and T.J. Galiardi having a postgame dinner at Elway’s Cherry Creek last week.
Eavesdropping.
Sent in by a reader: “A Jewish friend’s father passed away, and he asked me if I would be willing to come to his house that evening. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I wasn’t invited over to ‘sip Chivas.’ “
Penny Parker’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Listen to her on the Caplis and Silverman radio show between 4 and 5 p.m. Fridays on KHOW-AM (630). Call her at 303-954-5224 or e-mail pparker@denverpost.com.
