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February 13, 2020
GETTING THRIFTY Environmental benefit, vintage popularity boost interest in thrift stores P14
ARAPAHOE COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
Tom Munds: 1937-2020
‘He loved our community’ For decades, reporter told Englewood’s stories through both words and photographs BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
T
om Munds captured high school football games on camera. He dutifully took notes at virtually every city council meeting in his time. He put a spotlight on community events. He wrote stories other media outlets didn’t care to tell. For several decades, if it happened in Englewood, Munds was there. Munds’ passion for the city and its people was evident to Englewood Mayor Linda Olson, who met the Denver resident a decade ago when she first ran for city council. “He loved our community, even though he didn’t live in it,” Olson said. “He really liked Englewood, liked our kids, cared about our athletics and our schools. I think that’s kind of unusual to have that depth of care for the community even when you don’t live in it.” In his heart, Englewood was home for Munds, who died Feb. 6 after a battle with cancer. He was 82. Munds’ career covering Denver-area communities spanned more than 40 years — most of them spent with his ear to the ground in Englewood — and he loved that city just as much as it came to love him back.
Photos taken decades apart show Tom Munds and his wife, Alva, who died in 2011. Tom Munds died Feb. 6 at 82. “There are communities, people I met, that if I don’t live next door to you, I wouldn’t know your name,” Munds said in his final weeks. “Englewood is like an old-fashioned community where — not everybody, but particularly the older families — they have that neighborly thing. A lot of them know each other’s name.” Randy Penn, a former Englewood mayor who coached sports at Engle-
wood High School for decades, admired Munds’ relentlessly personal touch as a reporter. “He makes a personal effort to get to know all of our kids and find out what their stories and their lives are about — not just the athletics,” Penn, who knew Munds as a friend, said in 2004. Today, memories of Munds are still fresh around the city. Joe Jefferson, another former
mayor and lifelong Englewood resident, remembers as a youth watching Munds in his mother’s Chinese restaurant — Twin Dragon on South Broadway — taking photos and snagging quotes in the crowd at Chinese New Year events. “It made it feel like a smaller town,” said Jefferson, Englewood’s municipal judge. SEE MUNDS, P18
THE BOTTOM LINE PERIODICAL
“Englewood residents and staff should be proud of their city as they have many great amenities that many other agencies dream Christina Underhill, Englewood’s new director of about having.” Parks, Recreation and Library | Page 8 INSIDE
VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 21
EnglewoodHerald.net
ELLIS ARNOLD
VOLUME 99 | ISSUE 51