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Reblogged from: Wesconnect News. (Go to the original post…)

Esquire interviews Colorado governor John Hickenlooper ’74 who last summer dealt with a devastating state drought and the tragic shooting of 70 people in a movie theater.

“The knock on the hotel-room door is gentle but deliberate. The night before, just hours ago, was a respite, a friend’s birthday party. But now the knock. It’s after 2:30 A.M., July 20. The door opens. ‘Governor?’ a voice says softly. ‘You’d better turn on the television.’

“He watches the footage, sees the movie theater, the police tape, the weeping victims. And once he’s come up with a reasoned plan for the morning, he sits alone on a bed in a hotel room.

“John Hickenlooper can be forgiven for wondering how much hotter Colorado’s summer can get.

“A month ago, he hovered close to the most destructive fire in Colorado history, blades swirling overhead amid funnels of smoke rising off a hillside like devilish geysers. This was during a worst-in-decades drought that literally dried up nearly $100 million in agricultural and tourism revenue. … When a community, a city, a state breaks—when a forest fire vaporizes 346 homes in one day, when a deranged, heavily armed young man destroys seventy lives in minutes—it is the governor’s job to stand resiliently, to remind people that things will get better.”

Read the full story…

Image: Hickenlooper for Colorado.

Friendly URL: wesconnect.wesleyan.edu/news-20121210-john-hickenlooper

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