The first 20 years of local newspaper
Life on Capitol Hill.
BY STUART MACPHAIL, FOUNDER
When I conceived of this publication I never envisioned it would continue to serve Capitol Hill this long. Those many years ago I was sitting at the kitchen table in my very small
buffet apartment at 16th & Williams (now a residence for seniors),
writing copy, assembling ads and preparing the layout for the first
edition of Life on Capitol Hill, which hit the streets March 15, 1975.
I had lived on Capitol Hill for a scant six months but had already
observed that the people of the much-maligned neighborhood had a real
sense of community. Regardless what others said about crime here, the
varied and interesting peoples of this neighborhood had an especially
strong pride in their community, a sense of living in a special place.
A month before that first edition I visited the president of Capitol
Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN) and told her of my plans. She was
pleasant, but she said something along the lines of, “You have spent the
last dozen years living in Lakewood, and you plan to publish a
newspaper for our neighborhood?”
That was Rhonda Knop. She went on to become one of Denver’s top
Realtors. Her question was well-founded, but I quickly immersed myself
in the life of my new-found favorite neighborhood. I soon learned that Capitol Hill has more organizations
(neighborhood, lifestyle, religious, education-related, civic, service,
etc.) than any other community in the state.
LIFE began as a weekly with a 15¢ price tag. I quickly learned that
that wasn’t going to work. I needed to get as many readers as possible
so I could sell ads. Ultimately, advertising is what was going to pay
the bills.
We started printing by 20,000 copies. My kids, the kids of friends,
and several neighborhood people were our delivery crew in those early
days. We delivered the papers to the doorstep of every home, apartment
and condo we could get to in “Greater Capitol Hill” (a term we coined
for the area between Broadway and Colorado Blvd. from Speer Blvd. to
20th Ave.).
By the following July my new wife-to-be had arrived from rural
northern Illinois. She and her daughters joined our door-to-door
delivery effort. At the end of that weekend she asked how much money we
had made. I had to tell her that we really hadn’t even made enough money
to cover that edition’s costs, and I had a few thousand dollars of
debt.
She wisely counseled me to not put out another edition until I had enough advertising money in hand to pay for it.
LIFE suddenly became a monthly publication.
Over the years that followed a large number of writers,
would-be-writers, photographers and cartoonists chose to contribute
their work to produce a better neighborhood newspaper. I couldn’t pay
them much, but they wrote, photographed and drew anyway.
Early contributors included City Councilwoman Cathy Donohue, State
Sen. Barbara Holme and State Reps. Jerry Kopel and Jack McCroskey.
We covered the efforts of legitimate and less-than-legitimate
developers as they sought to make their mark on our neighborhoods. Most
importantly, we covered the diverse and wonderful people of Capitol
Hill, and their efforts (big and small) to make this the best community
in the state.
I observed many people as they made a variety of personal
contributions to our community, including: Colorado Free University
(CFU) founder John Hand, former DA Dale Tooley, Mike Henry, Jack
Robinson (former leader of Colfax on the Hill), Tom Knorr (long-time
community activist & executive director of CHUN), Sally Kurtzman,
Walt Young, and Grandma “A” (Anderson), who used her life to support
many neighborhood efforts while helping numerous young people.
They are just a few of the many special people I count it a privilege to have known and worked with.
Capitol Hill has also always had its share of characters too, of
course, many of whom I have known. One example: Sid King, who operated
the Crazy Horse Bar years ago at Colfax & Marion. Most of the
Capitol Hill characters I met over the years shall go un-named, however.
When finances finally allowed, I hired editors to make their mark on
our little publication. I always had other entrepreneurial activities
that divided my time.
One of the early editors was Dwight Filley. He went on to take a
leadership role within Colorado’s Independence Institute, and continues
to be a “Fellow” with them. John Kadlecek also spent a few years editing
LIFE. He later edited a variety of other newspapers and magazines,
including the once-successful glossy Peak To Peak.
Pat Pasco followed John. At the time, Pat’s husband Monty was a
Colorado legislator. After editing LIFE, Pat went on to make her mark on
the political scene, too, first as a state representative and then as a
state senator.
Rory Seeber was my last editor. After working together for a couple
of years, I sold LIFE to Rory and his wife Hilleary Waters in 1995. They
are still LIFE’s publishers and continue its tradition of serving the
people of Capitol Hill.
1995 to the present
BY RORY SEEBER
EDITOR & CO-PUBLISHER
Like Stu before me, I am astounded at the rapid passage of time
since my wife Hilleary Waters and I took over LIFE’s operations.
At the time, we were both working two jobs and I had to convince her
that we could eventually make the business support us and our then
six-year-old son.
I moved to Colorado in 1972 and to the Hill at about the same time
Stu was founding this publication. My wife-to-be followed in 1983. (I
met her later when I rented her an apartment. We married in 1985).
When we took over LIFE, Hilleary’s experience had mostly been in
retail sales, while I had been somewhat of a ne’er-do-well freelance
writer for the better part of 25 years. I had supported my creative
habit by a variety of vocations, including bartender, cabbie, chauffeur,
apartment manager, bookkeeper and theatre business manager, among
others.
I had published perhaps 250 articles, mostly in magazines and almost
all local, and considered myself to be a “garbage man,” able to write
convincingly on most any topic.
In addition, with my identical twin brother Rick I had written and
produced 14 stage productions, including children’s musicals (mostly
presented at the old Bonfils Theatre cum Lowenstein cum Tattered Cover)
and a variety of musical revues and comedies.
We even managed to produce an Off-Broadway play, The Singular
Dorothy Parker, a one-woman show. (Every critic loved it... except
for Mel Gussow of the New York Times.)
I got the job as a writer for LIFE when I picked up a 12-page issue
and couldn’t help but notice more than 200 errors, mostly typographical
and grammatical. I marked them all in red and sent the paper to Stu,
whom I didn’t know, telling him he needed an editor.
Not the best way to apply for a job, but it worked. I became a
part-time contributor to the paper (he wanted an ad salesman too, but in
the works of Tommy LaSorda, I “included myself out” of that part of the
biz) and over a period of five years or so I became the managing
editor.
I didn’t earn much, but it was certainly a learning experience.
When I started with the paper we didn’t still use hot lead linotype,
but the production process wasn’t much more advanced than that until
just recently. We’d submit our copy and it would be entered by a
“typesetter” using some odd software on a monster of a machine. Then
we’d pick it up, cut it into columns and begin the laborious one- or
two-day task of actually cutting and pasting together an issue on
cardboard flats.
Today I wonder how we survived those pre-PC & MAC days. Now of
course, a mere 14 years or so later, it’s all done on computers.
We’ve both learned by doing. Everything. Layout, ad design, pricing,
distribution, bulk mailing, reporting, assignments, personnel
management, and accounts receivable & payable.
After a year of ownership, we changed the layout of LIFE... creating
a new masthead, utilizing different fonts, altering add sizes, and
adding more color... almost completely under Hilleary’s and graphic
designer Tim Berland’s hands. We did that again in 2006.
I slowly changed the focus of the paper, increasing the number of
photos and illustrations and enhancing the coverage of news from the
neighborhoods.
One of the benefits of publishing a monthly is that I normally have
more time to research the news articles, which allows for fuller
coverage of distinctly neighborhood news than that provided by the
dailies.
I’ve also strived to really just report news stories and not just
pay lip service to objectivity, accuracy, fairness and a lack of bias,
preferring to cover every “side” of an issue so LIFE’s readers can draw
their own conclusions without the benefit of my opinion, or that of the
reporters.
We hope you continue to enjoy LIFE, and, if you live north of Colfax
up to Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., its sister paper, the
eight-year-old Neighborhood Life.
The “experts” (probably the same folks who predicted flying cars)
say that the future of the newspaper business is in small,
community-based coverage both in print and online.
We’ve got 33 years of experience with the print version and with the
assistance of our readers we plan on making our online version just as
complete, helpful and well-read.
Thank you for reading LIFE.
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