After searching for a fitting way to memorialize Denver’s first woman to be elected to a City Council seat, the council on Wednesday formally renamed its chambers in the City and County Building to honor Cathy Reynolds, who died in 2020.

“She was really a star,” said former council member Stephanie Foote, who served with Reynolds from 1983 to 1993. “She was always thinking ahead about the issues we were dealing with at the time.”

Foote and other former council members returned downtown for an unveiling of repainted doors bearing Reynolds’ name. They swapped stories about the years when Denver was creating landmark projects like Denver International Airport and Coors Field.

“She was respected, trusted and compassionate, and had a ferocious commitment to democracy in all of its messiness,” said former council member Allegra “Happy” Haynes, who served 13 years with Reynolds.

District 2 council member Kevin Flynn recalled that Reynolds, first elected in 1975, was council president five times and served as chairwoman of the National League of Cities. With 28 years on the council, she was the city’s longest serving council member — a record that likely will never be broken because of recently adopted term limits.

Flynn and District 6 council member Paul Kashmann recalled that they had each been journalists covering the city earlier in their careers, and each had been drawn in by Reynolds’ dynamism during her early years on the council.

Kashmann became publisher of the Washington Park Profile when Reynolds was in her third term.

“From the get-go, she had this air that she knew her stuff, that she knew what she wanted to do, and what the city needed to do,” he said. “She didn’t leave it to others to make those things happen.”

Kashmann said Reynolds was a leader on social issues, including creating an assault-weapons ban, providing tax support for the disabled and extending rights to cover same-sex partners.

The chambers will get a more prominent marker to Reynolds’ service as part of a general remodel now in planning, including updates to seating, electrical and sound, council President Stacie Gilmore said.

Looking on as the council marked the renaming was Reynolds’ husband Rick, who said the couple moved to Denver from Kansas.

“I drug her out here against her will,” he said.

“She ran for the legislature a couple of times and then she realized she was a city person.”

“She was the light of my life,” Rick Reynolds added. “I had 60 years with her and that was special.

“If this city loved her half as much as she loved it, she’d be happy. And I think they do.”