He was Greeley’s mayor for eight years, the president of the Colorado Senate and director of the Colorado Department of Transportation, but Tom Norton said if there was a “most likely to” line in his high school yearbook, it might have predicted a future working at a filling station.
That’s probably not entirely true. After all, Norton, a four-year varsity wrestler in Lander, Wyo., was voted president of his class at Lander Valley High School.
But Tom Norton, 77, has a penchant for downplaying himself and his accomplishments. Any good politician does, and for Norton, it helps balance an often brash public persona.
But after eight years as mayor of Greeley — a step down considering he once ran for governor — the hard-charging, no-nonsense Norton says he’s finished with elected office.
He’s got golfing to do, and family spread across the United States, and he plans to visit them, especially after his wife, Kay Norton, retires as president of the University of Northern Colorado in 2018.
At his home Tuesday in central Greeley, Norton dished on the successes and failures of a variety of past lives, opening up about everything from a childhood of trail riding and backwoods camping to his first foray into elected office.
“I got involved because I was complaining profusely about government, how terrible it was,” Norton said. “The more I complained, the more Kay (Norton) said, ‘Well if you’re so damn smart, why don’t you go fix it?’ ”
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