Several politicos passed away this year, including some giants in Colorado’s political world. 

Patricia Schroeder, Colorado’s first woman representative to the U.S. House and a presidential candidate in 1988, died on March 13. She was 82.

The story goes that her husband, Jim, asked a man if his wife would run for Congress, and the response to Jim was, “What about yours?” 

That led to her first congressional campaign in 1972, a campaign she won by 8,000 votes in a year when Richard Nixon secured his second term in a landslide. She served 24 years in the House, where she sponsored the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. 

Schroeder was known for her sharp wit, once saying, “I have a brain and a uterus, and they both work.”

Hugh Fowler, Republican state senator from Arapahoe County, died on Oct. 25. He was 97. Fowler served 12 years in the state Senate and one term on the CU Board of Regents. His first bill in the Senate sought to create a partnership with New Mexico to purchase the narrow gauge Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad between Antonito, Colorado and Chama, New Mexico. Fowler was a Navy veteran of World War II.

Jim Snook, the last Republican to represent the San Luis Valley in the state House, died on Jan. 31. He was 83. He served in the 2001-2002 sessions. He was best known for agriculture and water legislation, including a bill on state management of black bears and another that dealt with continued augmentation for the San Luis Valley confined aquifer.

Bill Webster, a former state representative from Weld County and father of former lawmaker and Weld County Commissioner Perry Buck, died on Jan. 10. He was 90. He was known as an innovator in livestock feeding operations, and served in the state House from 1999 through 2002. 

Jim Dyer, a former state senator and representative from Durango, died on April 29. He was 85. Dyer served 12 years in the House and just over two years in the state Senate, stepping down to take a position on the Public Utilities Commission. He served with distinction in the U.S. Navy and the Marines in Vietnam, earning seven medals for valor, according to an obituary in the Durango Herald. Former state Rep. Mark Larson of Poncha Springs, who succeeded Dyer in House District 59, told the Herald that Dyer was much loved. “The people that didn’t love Jim were so partisan they couldn’t see daylight,” he said.

Alice Borodkin Brodsky, a former state representative from Denver, died in April. He was 89. She represented House District 10, which included Denver and part of Arapahoe County, for eight years. She was the prime sponsor on early legislation on human trafficking. Borodkin’s memoir, Caught Between the Bettys, referred to cooking icon Betty Crocker and feminist leader Betty Friedan, according to an obituary in the Intermountain Jewish News.

Rich Jones, a former director of policy and research for the Bell Policy Center, died Jan. 2, age 69. Joey Bunch, former Colorado Politics deputy managing editor, said, “Republicans and Democrats should agree that he was a man of tremendous caring and service beyond his self-interest, and we need people like Rich today more than ever. He will be missed by everyone who knew him, right or left, and that includes me more, for sure.” 

First Lady Rosalyn Carter died on Nov. 19 at age 96. She was an advocate for women’s rights and mental health services, and, with her husband, carried out decades of humanitarian service after their time in the White House was over.

James Watt, the former Secretary of the Interior in the Reagan administration, who later founded the Lakewood-based conservative law firm Mountain States Legal Foundation, died on May 27 at age 85.

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court died on Dec. 1 at age 93.

Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State, died on Nov. 29 at age 100. He opened up relations with China, helped to end the war in Vietnam, aided Israel during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and pursued the policy known as detente with the former Soviet Union. As a result of the outsized role he played on the global stage, he was both admired and vilified.   

Dianne Feinstein, who served in the U.S. Senate for 31 years, longer than any woman, died on Sept. 29 at age 90.