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THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
July 11, 2008
by Penny Parker
From a business point of view, it makes cents for a Republican to do a DNC shirt
How does a die-hard Republican end up designing a shirt for the Democratic National Convention?
Business, pure business.
So Rockmount Ranch Wear prez Steve Weil had no political pang of conscience when Congresswoman Diana DeGette ordered more than 300 signature snap-front shirts (at $80 a pop, paid for from her campaign chest) with the DNC logo for the members of the House of Representatives who will visit our fair city Aug. 25-28.
"This is another way to show off Denver and the Rocky Mountain West to her colleagues who are coming in (for the DNC)," said Kristofer Eisenla, DeGette's press secretary. "She was very happy to support a local business, and she wanted to give her colleagues a memento to remember the convention that was held in her Congressional district."
The long-sleeve Weil-designed shirt features a red body and sleeves with white zig-zag mountain tops on the chest and upper arm. The top part of the chest and shoulders are blue, with a golden sun rising over the mountains.
And true to his Republican roots, Weil designed a shirt in honor of the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St.Paul as well.
"The RNC has worn Rockmount shirts and hats at conventions for decades," said Weil, whose late father Jack B. Weil was once the secretary for the Colorado Republican Party. The RNC shirt has a red, white and blue fireworks motif.
You can buy either shirt (without the political party logos) at the Rockmount Ranch Wear store, 1626 Wazee St., or online at orders@rockmount.com
EVANSVILLE COURIER PRESS: 107-year-old Denver Businessman still has memories of Evansville
Midwest Roots: 107-year-old Denver businessman still has memories of Evansville
By Dan Shaw / Courier Press staff writer — 464-7519 or shawd@courierpress.com
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Jack A. Weil, second from left, stands with his son Jack B. Weil, left, grandson Steve Weil and great-grandson Colter Weil as they celebrate Papa Jack's 106th birthday on March 28, 2007. The city of Denver has changed the name of Wazee Street to Jack A. Weil Blvd. for every birthday since he turned 100.
How many cowboys would bridle if they knew the modern Western shirt has its roots in so Midwestern a city as Evansville?
But it has. Or so, at least, has its inventor, Jack A. Weil, who was born in Evansville in 1901. More than a century later, Jack Weil is the honorary chief executive officer of Rockmount Ranch Wear, a clothing manufacturer in downtown Denver famous for selling Western shirts with snap buttons. He introduced that innovation and others not long after he founded the company in 1946.
Barry Gutierrez / Rocky Mountain News Jack A. Weil, owner and CEO of Rockmount Ranch Wear, puts on his hat as he leaves for the day from his desk at the company headquarters in Denver in March 2007. Weil started the company in 1948 and the name has become famous in the western wear industry.
Jack Weil established the look of the modern Western shirt and his products have been sold throughout the world and worn by many celebrities, from Elvis to the stars of the movie "Brokeback Mountain."Though he found his success far away from Evansville, Jack Weil retains a fondness for the city he considers his home.
"We were always arguing with Fort Wayne about who was the second largest city in the state," he said. "I don't know who ever won."
He grew up in houses on Southeast First Street and Sixth Street and attended school on Mulberry Street. Among the prominent landmarks at the time were deJong's department store, the C&EI train station and Cook's Brewery. None exists now.
Jack Weil said his memories reach back as far as World War I, when men were building barges at the Howell Yards along the Ohio River. Among other things, he can clearly recall the antipathy his family felt toward the Germans, a product as much of their history as of patriotism.
Weil's father grew up in the Alsace region of France, which was invaded during the Franco-Prussian War. Rather than being impressed into the enemy army, he fled to the United States.
Here he established himself in the cattle business, first in Mount Vernon, Ind., and then Evansville.
Years later, a stranger came to the family's house to solicit money in support of the German cause in World War I. Jack Weil's mother grabbed a cattle prod and chased him away.
It was a rare disturbance in an otherwise carefree existence.
"Maybe my memory is such that I have put aside the unpleasant things that happened," he said.
He got in little trouble because he knew that punishment would not be long in coming.
"If I stepped out of line, the policemen would say I'll tell your mother," he said. "That set me straight right then and there. She was a disciplinarian."
Jack Weil and his brother made money by delivering copies of the old Evansville Press newspaper. His mother had them give her a part of whatever they earned as a way to supplement the family's income.
"My brother and I were the kings of the carriers," Jack Weil said. "We had a horse and buggy to deliver our papers and the rest were riding bicycles."
Jack Weil managed to make enough money from that job and others to save some on the side. In the 1920s, he took $1,000 he had placed in the bank and moved to Chicago, becoming a salesman. It was the start of a journey that would take him to Pennsylvania, Tennessee — where he met the woman he would marry — and Denver.
Since first leaving Evansville, Jack Weil has rarely come back. Steve Weil, his grandson and the president of Rockmount, said the last return visit was likely made in the 1940s, for the funeral of Jack Weil's father. His parents, brother and brother's wife are all buried in Rose Hill Cemetery.
Despite the long absence, Jack Weil often talks about Evansville.
"He refers to it all the time, whenever people come in here and are from Indiana," Steve Weil said. "He tells lots of people it's remarkable that a guy from Evansville did what he did."
Jack Weil said he chooses to stay away rather than "be disappointed that none of my contemporaries are still around."
In many interviews Jack Weil has been told he possesses an extraordinarily sharp memory for a man who has lived more than a century.
"Who the hell is going to contradict me?" he answers.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
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Rockmount plaid western shirt (shirt No. 690), $78 at MAP in Provincetown, Mass.; Ray-Ban aviators, $129 at Bloomingdale’s.
Rockmount's bandana print Western shirt No. 692
Photo: Dean Isidro for The New York Times
By DAVID COLMAN
Published: July 10, 2008
THE truism that fashion exists as much off the runways as on was deftly illustrated at the men’s wear shows in Paris last month. Michael Macko, the new fashion director of Details, was paying utmost attention to Raf Simons’s collection of avant-garde rompers when his eye strayed to the front row. There he saw the photographer J. D. Ferguson in elegant tropical-weight gray wool pants, cut off crudely above the knee....
Travel
Denver, Colorado more than a conventional choice
Host to the Democratic National Convention, Colorado's capital is a notable partying platform for delegate and non-delegate alike.
By Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 04, 2008Denver
excerpt
Greetings, superdelegates, standard delegates, compromised Floridians, miffed Michiganders, would-be VPs and all-access VIPs. As you and the other Democrats convene here Aug. 25 to formally choose a presidential candidate at last, you will be wined, dined, wooed, spun, schmoozed, queried, denounced and perhaps bamboozled by all manner of unreliable operatives, members of the press and, of course, one another.
Don't trust those people. Trust me.
For instance, if, over a welcome cocktail, one of the locals seems to be inviting you to partake in some Dazbog with Hickenlooper, your drink has not been drugged and this is not a Justice Department sting. Dazbog is a popular local coffee brand. John Hickenlooper is Denver's mayor. And Denver, for the record, is a city of 570,000 at the eastern edge of the Front Range.
It's a mile high, as you may have heard. More to the point, it's the capital of Colorado, one of several Western states that leaned slightly right in 2004. Had they leaned slightly left, John Kerry would be in the White House. If I were a Democratic strategist, I would have put the party here too.
Once you're here, you may encounter either a Dazbog or a Hickenlooper in LoHi or SoCo, which is what some people call the Lower Highlands and South-of-Colfax neighborhoods. Nearby lies LoDo, which stands for Lower Downtown.
A word to those of you who backed presumptive nominee Barack Obama from the beginning: If a couple of burly Clinton people show up to bury the hatchet and offer you a free ride to the convention center on 14th Street, take evasive action. The Colorado Convention Center is a big, beautiful building in the heart of downtown, and Denver's taxpayers spent about $300 million to expand it four years ago -- but that's not where the party is.
The delegate floor will be a few miles away at the Pepsi Center, which holds more seats and houses Denver's pro basketball and hockey teams (the Nuggets and the Avalanche, respectively). In fact, this convention could be a bit like those hockey games: Though hip-checking, high-sticking and nose-punching are officially discouraged, legions will be rooting for just that, and ratings may depend on it.
That's why our itinerary includes two final stops, beginning with Rockmount Ranch Wear, outfitters of cowboys (and the politicians, actors and rock stars who admire them) since 1946.
Step through the door at 1626 Wazee St. between 8 a.m. and noon on a weekday and you're likely to be greeted by the chief executive, Jack A. Weil, the man who created snap-button shirts and sawtooth pockets on Western shirts. On March 27 Weil celebrated his 107th birthday.
Yet since Rockmount opened its retail space in 2005, he has sat up front, chatting up browsers and offering candy to their children. Behind his chair hangs a congratulatory note to Weil (a longtime Republican) from President Bush on his 105th birthday.
His advice for the conventioneers:
"I think a guy should be a Democrat until he makes a little money," he told me. "And then, if he wants to save it, he should become a Republican."
Denver Post: Clothier Salute Steals Show
The Denver Post
May 23, 2008Clothier salute steals Curious show
The Curious Theatre Company presented four short plays Wednesday night — each a 15-minute salute to a formidable Denverite.
The fantastic four were political powerhouse Elbra Wedgeworth, 107-year-old Rockmount Ranch Wear CEO Papa Jack Weil, Denver Art Museum CEO Lewis Sharp and Cuba Cuba restaurant owner Kristy Socarras Bigelow.
The standout play was for Papa Jack, who sat in the front row with grandson Steve Weil.
Playwright Steven Cole Hughes created 107 really short plays, racing through Papa Jack's life. It was touching, humble, funny and smart. And Michael Morgan as Weil was a wonder, capturing the legend's gentle ways, humor and posture.
The best lines from Papa Jack in the play: "People say I have an amazing memory for a man my age. And I say, 'Who the heck is going to contradict me?' "
On Wal-Mart's Sam Walton, not much to say, "other than he was a hillbilly (SOB)."
And what about all the pretty girls who come into the store these days to kiss him and pose with him for pictures? "Where were you girls when I was your age?"
Said Steve, "My grandfather is a hard act to replicate, and they did it very sensitively. I was very impressed."
So were we all.
Rocky Mountain News 'Papa Jack's tale steals the show at third annual 'Denver Stories' - 5/23/08
Time Magazine features Rockmount shirt No. 6799-Beer April 21, 2008
PARKER: Weil, 107, to get Curious vetting
By Penny Parker
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Jack A. Weil, left, and Chip Walton, above.
Don't expect to see a 107-year-old actor portraying Rockmount Ranch Wear founder Jack A. Weil in this year's Denver Stories, the third annual fundraiser for Curious Theatre Co.
Curious honcho Chip Walton is pretty sure an actor that age doesn't exist.
Instead, Walton will likely cast a middle-aged actor and let him tell snippets in the long life of America's oldest CEO.
"The challenge with him will be how to tell 107 years of his story in 10 to 15 minutes," Walton said about this year's collection of vignettes that will include life stories of former City Council President Elbra Wedgeworth, Denver Art Museum CEO Lewis Sharp and Cuba Cuba restaurant owner Kristy Socarras Bigelow.
For two years, Denver Stories has celebrated the lives of local characters who have helped shape our city. Bigelow, a first- generation Cuban-American, was chosen because she's not only a Curious supporter, but the play needs to include a restaurateur willing to cater the preshow party.
Wedgeworth was tapped for the play because of her pivotal part in the upcoming Democratic National Convention and her efforts to land the convention here.
"Elbra was a no-brainer," Walton said. "She's been such a big part of Denver politics for so long."
Walton said Sharp's story will give a nod to the man who oversaw the addition of the Hamilton Building to the Denver Art Museum. "The story of the Hamilton wing has been at the forefront of our community for the past couple of years," Walton said.
Tickets start at $100 per person; VIP box seats are $2,500. More info: curioustheatre.org or the box office, 303-623-0524.
EAVESDROPPING on a woman at Paul Garcia's salon talking to someone in Hawaii: "I don't need any macadamia nuts. I may as well tape them to my butt."
Penny Parker's column appears Tuesday through Saturday. Listen to her on the Caplis and Silverman radio show between 4 and 5 p.m. Fridays on KHOW-AM (630). Call her at 303-954-5224 or e-mail parkerp@RockyMoun tainNews.com.
The Denver Post
March 18, 2008
Curious about 4 significant Denverites? See "Stories"
Curious Theatre is gearing up to present its third installment of "Denver Stories," a night of four original 10-minute plays celebrating the lives of celebrated Denverites.
On May 21, Curious will give you its take on political powerhouse Elbra Wedgeworth; Denver Art Museum CEO Lewis Sharp; Cuba Cuba restaurant owner Kristy Socarras Bigelow; and soon-to-be-107-year- old CEO of Rockmount Ranch Wear Jack A. Weil.
How are they gonna squeeze 107 years of living into 10 minutes? That's their problem.
Past honorees include Judi Wolf, Bob Garner, Patty Calhoun, Mel & Janie Master, Ellen Hart and Holly Kylberg.You don't say.
Former Denver deejay Jo Myers knows a lot about death and dying. Last year she wrote "Good to Go," a book that addressed what to do when a loved one buys the big one.
Tonight at 7 she gathers interested parties to the Heartlight Center at 11150 E. Dartmouth Ave. (on the Horan & McConaty campus) to discuss what NOT to say to a person in mourning.
"People want to say something comforting," Myers explains, "but they just don't know what to say, so they end up saying something ridiculous."
Faux pas in the funeral home include: "I know how you feel," "You know you don't have any family now," "This music is a downer," "You'll be fine," "Mind if I take a picture?"
And here's my advice: "Don't hit on the widow."
Pass the water.
I am not exactly green. My carbon footprint puts Sasquatch to shame.
But there is one cause I can champion. Stop drinking bottled water. It's probably the most wasteful thing we do.
Today through Saturday marks the Tap Project. You pay $1 for tap water in some Denver restaurants, and they donate it to UNICEF to get clean water to people. It might put a cork in these dismal stats: One billion people have no access to clean drinking water. A child dies every 15 seconds of a water-borne disease.
You can donate $1 for your glass of tap water this week at hundreds of Colorado restaurants. Check it out at tapproject.com. Here's a roster of a few restaurants on board: 1515, Agave, Carmine's, Dazzle, Frasca, Hapa, Jax, Lola, Mel's, Osteria Marco, Zolo, West End Tavern, Greenbriar and Dish.
Sez who: "The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it." Ernest HemingwayMorning Edition, April 27, 2007 · The man believed to be the country's oldest chief executive officer of a company is 106.
Jack Weil goes to work every day at Rockmount Ranch Wear, the western clothing apparel company he founded in 1946. Customers flock to the store's headquarters in Denver for more than just rodeo wear. They want to spend time with the man called "Papa Jack."
From member station KUNC in Greeley, Colo., Nancy Greenleese reports.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
aBy Penny Parker,
PARKER: Annual tip of the hat to a true son of St. Pat
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Cathy Kruzic / Special to the RockyMayor John Hickenlooper, with Jack A. Weil, reads a proclamation
Long-gone Denver DA Dale Tooley had a long-standing tradition of meeting at McCormick's with Judges Jim Carrigan and John Kane and (now Auditor) Dennis Gallagher to hoist a few and sing Irish tunes on St. Patrick's Day.
In his last year on Earth, Tooley served as grand marshal of the St. Patrick's Day parade on March 17, 1985, and died on April 1 - "on purpose because it was April Fools' Day," said his son, Keith, who with his brother, Patrick, attended for the first time the annual sign-changing of Wazee Street to Tooley Street in front of McCormick's in LoDo on Wednesday.
"He'd love it," Keith said of his dad during the ceremony where Mayor John Hickenlooper and Rockmount Ranch Wear founder Jack A. Weil unveiled the Tooley Street sign that will stay up for a week.
The Tooley boys - all lawyers, including Brian who was missing from the ceremony - hold a party on St. Patrick's Day where guests are required to make their first drink a Guinness - in honor of their dad.
This year's sign-changing ceremony was particularly poignant because Jack B. Weil, son of Jack A. and father of Steve Weil, was not there. He died in January from esophageal cancer. Mayor Hick, sporting a shamrock bowtie, dedicated a part of his proclamation to Jack B.
"This year we also honor our beloved friend, who was most Irish of heart and soul, if not heritage, Jack B. Weil. May the day of March 12, 2008, also be known forever as Jack B. Weil Day so that we may always remember his kindness, creativity and dedication to family, which are most definitely recognized as virtues of the Irish.
THE SEEN: Some of Irish descent, and some wannabes, at the Tooley Street sign-changing ceremony were Colorado Restaurant Association big cheese Pete Meersman, City Councilman Charlie Brown, Volunteers of America honcho Jim White, former Denver's 7 consumer champ and Rocky contributor Bill Clarke, Westword editor Patty Calhoun, Luxe salon owner Laurie Helmich, St. Patrick's Day Parade Grand Marshal Pat McCullough and assorted green-jacketed leprechauns.
EAVESDROPPING on two men at the sign-changing: "It's good to see you somewhere other than a funeral."
Penny Parker's column appears Tuesday through Saturday. Listen to her on the Caplis and Silverman radio show between 4 and 5 p.m. Fridays on KHOW-AM (630). Call her at 303-954-5224 or e-mail parkerp@RockyMoun tainNews.com.
Jack Weil Industry Tribute, Tack 'N Togs trade magazine, March 2008 Clcik here for the PDF download
By Penny Parker,
Thursday, January 24, 2008
JACK B:
Steve Weil, Rockmount Ranch Wear's third generation, called me last year to tell me his dad, Jack B. Weil, had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. He wanted to share the news with me since I'm a cancer survivor, but, more important, he wanted to keep the news out of the paper to respect his dad's privacy. I happily obliged.
But I didn't know just how sick Jack B. was. The news of his death Tuesday made me realize how quickly the cancer caught this gentle man. My deepest condolences go out to his son, Steve, and his 106-year-old father, Jack A. Weil, founder of the western wear company.
The annual sign-changing at the corner of 17th and Wazee won't be the same without Jack B., who typically arrived with his dad and son in tow for the invite-only St. Patrick's Day celebration lunch at McCormick's following the ceremony. He will be missed.
Jan. 28, 2008
WESTERN COLORS: CITIZEN OF THE WEST DINNER
Best Dressed: Mayor John Hickenlooper wearing Rockmount's Denver Shirt.
Colorado state Sen. Peter Groff (left), Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and guest of honor Hank Brown, 2008 Citizen of the West award winner. Hank Brown is president of the University of Colorado and former US Senator.
Western wear innovator Jack B. dies
Second-generation Denver businessman helped bring Rockmount Ranch Wear's signature shirts to Hollywood.By Amy Haimerl
January 23 2008: 3:00 PM ESTIf there is a heart to the city of Denver, it is the Weil family. Two years ago, Mayor John Hickenlooper even named a street named after the patriarch, Jack A. Weil, who at 106 still heads to work every morning at Rockmount Ranch Wear, the company he founded in 1946.
But on Tues., Jan. 22, Denver and the Weils lost a favorite son and veteran Rockmount executive: Jack B. Weil, son of Jack A., passed away at age 79 from esophageal cancer.
Weil joined his father's company in the 1954, after graduating from Tulane University and serving in the Army. Once back in Denver, he never left the family business, which is credited with creating the snap-front Western shirt and popularizing the look.
"I always said snaps were safer for a rider on a horse," Jack A. told Cowboys & Indians magazine in June 2006. "If a buttonhole got caught on a bull's horn, a rider could get dragged. Not so with a snap shirt, which could come right off."
Practicality aside, Hollywood fell for the look and came calling on the company often --Ronald Reagan, James Garner, Elvis, Clark Gable have all worn Rockmount. Jack B. was responsible for the snap-downs John Travolta wore in his 1980 movie Urban Cowboy. And, of course, the now-famous shirts worn in Brokeback Mountain by Jack Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger (who also passed away on Jan. 22) were from Rockmount.
Six decades after Jack A. finally convinced New York City snap manufacturers to sell to him - they didn't share his vision and were hesitant to be suppliers - Rockmount Ranch Wear's home in downtown Denver is still a must-stop for every celebrity coming through town: The Killers, Vince Gill, David Bowie, John Fogerty and Dwight Yoakam have all made the pilgrimage.
The five-story building, erected in 1908, is packed floor to ceiling, clothes, bolo ties, belts and heaps of memorabilia, from a giant blow-up of Bruce Springsteen on the cover of Esquire in Rockmount attire to photos of celebs showing off their Western duds.
In addition to his duties as vice president of Rockmount, Jack B. was an avid collector of modern art and an artist in his own right. Last month he had a solo show of his abstract paintings, Reflections on a Life Lived, at the Berkeley Park Art Gallery in north Denver.
"My father was a contrarian and a very eclectic personality," Jack B.'s son, Steve, told the Rocky Mountain News yesterday. "In the 1990s he was secretary of the Colorado Republican Party, but his art was influenced by people like Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock and (Joan) Miro. There was nothing straight and narrow about him."
Rockmount will continue to be led by Jack A., CEO, and Steve, President in the family business.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Jack Weil the Younger dies at 79
By Bill Gallo , Special to the Rocky
Weil exhibited 20 of his paintings just last month.
Jack B. Weil was a businessman with a gift for art - and an artist with a head for business.
An accomplished abstract impressionist painter who also designed the Western shirts for John Travolta in the film Urban Cowboy, Mr. Weil spent over 50 years as a major force at Rockmount Ranch Wear.
The Denver company was founded by his iconic father, Jack A. Weil, "Papa Jack," who survives him at age 106.
Jack Weil the Younger died Tuesday at his Capitol Hill home after an 8-month battle with esophageal cancer. He was 79.
Services will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at the First Universalist Church, 4101 E. Hampden Ave.
"My father was a contrarian and a very eclectic personality," said his son, Rockmount President Steve Weil. "In the 1990s he was secretary of the Colorado Republican Party, but his art was influenced by people like Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock and (Joan) Miro. There was nothing straight and narrow about him."
Mr. Weil was born Nov. 13, 1928, in Denver's Mercy Hospital and lived here all his life, save for a stint as an Army second lieutenant in Virginia and his studies at Tulane University in New Orleans, from which he graduated in 1952.
Twice married and divorced, he had been single since the 1980s. In the 1960s, a family rabbi characterized him as a Unitarian; he promptly joined the First Universalist Church.
Jack B. joined Rockmount in 1954 and worked with his father for half a century, often hurdling generational disputes. He is credited with expanding the company's reach to the Eastern states.
Rockmount shirts have been worn by Bob Dylan, President Reagan, Elvis Presley and Robert Redford, among others. They were also worn by the two leading men of the popular movie Brokeback Mountain. By coincidence, Brokeback star Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday.
Mr. Weil's most recent exhibition was a 20-canvas show last month at the Berkeley Gallery. In the 1960s, the Denver Art Museum hung one of his forward-looking collages.
A lifelong supporter of public higher education, he recently served as chairman of the Foundation for Community College of Denver. Because of his illness, he retired from Rockmount five months ago.
"He lived for his buying trips to New York," his son said. "He would buy piece goods - fabric - but he would also visit
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