Brad Bailey, a lawyer who served in metro Denver city attorneys’ offices, died of metastatic melanoma at his Evergreen home May 26. He was 52.
“He was a terrific attorney and a great help to other city attorneys,” said Larry Berkowitz of Greenwood Village, who hired Bailey as an assistant when Berkowitz was Littleton city attorney.
“He was always cheerful and always had a joke,” Berkowitz said.
When Berkowitz left the city, Bailey became acting city attorney. Berkowitz is in private practice.
Bailey never was in private practice, said his wife, Deborah, “because he loved city law.”
Before Littleton, Bailey was a law clerk in Larimer County District Court; assistant, deputy and acting city attorney for the city of Longmont; and county attorney for Clear Creek.
He was named Outstanding Assistant City Attorney by the Metro City Attorney’s Association in 2004.
He had been president and vice president of the attorney section of the Colorado Municipal League and the Metro City Attorney’s Association.
Bailey often was contacted by other city attorneys and assistant city attorneys, here and in other states, when they had questions, Berkowitz said.
Bailey was vitally interested in his daughters’ activities, friends and family said. Sometimes he’d use time he had coming at work to go camping with them or on school field trips.
“He’d be the only dad on the bus with all those moms,” his wife said.
Bailey was a rabid Colorado State University fan — to the point that Kelli Narde, communications director for Littleton, sometimes had to tell him to “zip it” because some of their co-workers were University of Colorado fans.
A reader of broad interests, “he was the master of useless trivia,” Narde said. “He knew the most bizarre and obscure things.”
Brad D. Bailey was born in Denver on April 26, 1958, earned a bachelor of arts degree in political science from CSU in Fort Collins and his law degree at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash.
He married Deborah Jones on May 23, 1981. In addition to her, he is survived by his daughters, Lauren and Mackenzie; his parents, B.D. and Carol Kettner Bailey of Sierra Vista, Ariz.; and his sisters, Kelly Bailey McCray of Bend, Ore., and Wendy Bailey of Boston.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
Other Deaths
Garry Shider, 56, a legendary funk guitarist whose work with Parliament-Funkadelic earned him a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has died.
Shider was known to millions of fans as “Starchild” or “Diaperman,” the latter because of the loincloth he often wore on stage.
Shider’s son, Garrett, said his father died Wednesday at his home in Upper Marlboro, Md. He had been diagnosed with brain and lung cancer in March.
A New Jersey native, Shider first met P-Funk mastermind George Clinton in the late 1960s at a barbershop Clinton owned. He became a mainstay of Clinton’s wide-ranging musical family, eventually serving as its musical director and co-writing some of Parliament-Funkadelic’s biggest hits.
Sebastian Horsley, 47, a self-styled dandy and noted British eccentric who found fame by having himself nailed to a cross in the Philippines, died Thursday.
Horsley’s dysfunctional childhood and catastrophic personal life provided the fodder for his memoir, “Dandy in the Underworld,” which describes his adventures in drugs, gambling, alcoholism, prostitution and high fashion.
London’s Metropolitan police did not give a cause of death, but British media reported that he had died of a suspected overdose.
Thomas W. Ludlow Ashley, 87, a 13-term Ohio Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives who was chiefly known for his work on housing and addressing the energy crisis of the 1970s, died of melanoma Tuesday at his home in Leland, Mich.
Ashley — known colloquially as “Lud” — served Ohio’s 9th District, which includes Lucas County and the city of Toledo, from 1955 to 1981.
As chairman of a House subcommittee on housing and community development, Ashley was a key supporter of legislation to provide federal grants to cities and counties to improve low- and moderate-income housing.
Denver Post wire services
