Remembering John Denver 29 years later: how a New Mexico kid became Colorado’s voice

Colorado lost one of its own 29 years ago today. John Denver died on Oct. 12, 1997, when the small plane he was piloting went down off the California coast. He wasn’t born here, and he never pretended to be, but few people have made the rest of the world love Colorado the way he did.

He was born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. in Roswell, New Mexico, and grew up moving from base to base in an Air Force family. Early in his career, he took a new last name from the capital city of the state he loved. In the early 1970s he moved to Aspen and made the Roaring Fork Valley his home. He wrote “Rocky Mountain High” after a camping trip near Aspen, where he watched the Perseid meteor shower light up the sky. The song made the state sound like a place where the sky was bigger and the air was cleaner, and plenty of people moved here because of it. In 2007, lawmakers made it one of Colorado’s two official state songs.

Denver gave back to the mountains that inspired him. In 1976 he co-founded the Windstar Foundation in Old Snowmass to promote environmental education and protecting nature, long before that was popular. Today, visitors to Aspen can walk through the John Denver Sanctuary along the Roaring Fork River. His lyrics are carved into boulders along the path, a fitting memorial for a guy who probably would have preferred a hike to a statue. His ashes were scattered over the Rocky Mountains.

His songs are still everywhere. Ball games, campfires and road trips over Vail Pass all feature them. Even “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” technically a love letter to West Virginia, gets sung loudest at Colorado bars at last call. Fans can still gather in Aspen and Snowmass every fall for the annual John Denver Celebration. Next year’s runs Sept. 29 through Oct. 4, 2027, and will mark 30 years since we lost him. So tonight, put on “Rocky Mountain High,” step outside and look up. He’d want you to.