Forty Years Ago This Week: Not long after Federico Peña announced his candidacy for Denver mayor, Tom Gavin of The Denver Post penned a column saying that while Peña was a decent guy, he would not make it in politics because of the tilde mark in his name, it was just too much for a city that was only 13% Hispanic.

But as the mayoral race proceeded and it was made clear that Peña would, in fact, make it in politics, The Post published another editorial announcing that their computer system was now equipped to created tildes by way of “a jury-rigged set of computer commands to set eight periods at varying levels over the letters.”

The Rocky Mountain News said it had no plans to incorporate tildes into its computer system. The Denver Downtowner, published by Ron Bacigalupo, employed an artist, Bari De Jaynes, to hand draw a tilde each time one was needed.

For The Colorado Statesman weeks were spent working with Intermountain Color and its typesetters to create a whole new “font disk.”

“We told the computer to do something it didn’t know how to do,” Carolyn Byers said.

Meanwhile, as the mayoral race heated up, Channel 9 distributed the results of a poll of 300 Denver residents that gave Peña a sizeable lead over his competitors with 47% of the vote to Dale Tooley’s 34% and the remaining 19% undecided.

Interestingly, Peña’s campaign wasn’t comfortable releasing the results of their own internal polling. Meanwhile, John McGuinness, a Tooley campaign staffer, told reporters, “It’s much closer than anyone predicted.”

“Close. Just close. It’s much closer than a five percentage point spread.”

Thirty Years Ago: Gov. Roy Romer was trying to squash rumors flying around the state Capitol that a gentlemen’s agreement had been reached between the state legislature and the governor’s office to sign a bill with concerning implications over decreased funding for higher education.

State Rep. Tim Foster, R-Grand Junction, told reporters that Romer would sign the bill into law based on an understanding with the state legislature.

“There is no gentlemen’s agreement,” Romer said. “People are lining up on both sides of the issues to talk with me about this.”

University of Colorado President Judith Albino openly criticized Senate Bill 93-136 which had been quickly assembled at the close of the regular legislative session and would allow the General Assembly to set tuition rates, control spending and limit the number of nonresident students.

Former Rep. Michael Duncan, D-Colorado Springs, a freshman representative, asked Romer about a “partisan political scenario” after House Majority Leader Chuck Berry, R-Colorado Springs, and Foster warned Republican freshman legislators against passing a bill proposed by the minority party – even if it did have merit – because it would help more Democrats win election in November.

“I have heard that story,” said Romer, “But it’s a tradition that predates my tenure in the state legislature. It’s unfortunate.”

Despite latent hostilities between the parties, Romer was not unhappy with the year’s work.

“It was a fairly successful session. I asked for seven things and got six done,” Romer said. But the governor was unequivocally unhappy with a campaign reform bill on his desk that would allow a contributor to give unlimited donations to a candidate.

Meanwhile Romer also publicly announced his candidacy for re-election, stating that he was “going to run very hard.”

After making his announcement, Romer thanked El Paso County Chair Sharon Berthrong and, touching on the conservatism in the county, told her to, “conduct yourself in a way that will enrage this community … and you’ll get more recruits for the party.”

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Gazette.