NOREEN: Here's to a real hero: Richard Beidleman

One of our community's heroes came back for a brief visit this weekend, a guy newcomers don't know much about.

But if you love Garden of the Gods, if you respect someone who will stand up to city hall, if you can dig someone who has devoted his entire adult life to scientific inquiry - then you would appreciate Richard Beidleman.

If you don't know of him but the name sounds familiar, it's because the city named the Beidleman Nature Center for him. That was quite a sign of respect, considering that Beidleman frequently criticized city hall, especially for encouraging what he thought was too much growth.

In the 1970s, Beidleman led the effort to buy buffer land around Garden of the Gods. That included what is now known as Rock Ledge Ranch.

On Friday, Beidleman recalled that a developer planned a high-density subdivision where the ranch still stands. When asked how much he'd sell the land for, the developer said he'd settle for $300,000.

"We said ‘we'll take it.' That started the drive," said Beidleman, who credited the El Pomar Foundation with ponying up big money to make it happen.

In the 1980s Beidleman was out front again, fighting the city as it sought bids from developers to build a visitors center with a 350-car parking lot, an abomination that would have wrecked the center of the park while attracting even more traffic.

A citizen revolt not only killed the project, but led to a planning effort resulting in removal of all the buildings from the park. Now a visitors center stands just outside the park, where it belongs.

On Friday night, Beidleman was there to speak as part of the 100th anniversary of Garden of the Gods.

In the 1990s, the Nature Conservancy moved to protect Aiken Canyon, an area about 13 miles south of the city known to be a unique overlapping of eco-zones. We know that because Beidleman did the research that persuaded the group to pursue preservation.

Beidleman retired before Colorado Springs voters approved a sales tax increase to pay for open space purchases.

Local author Melissa Walker, who worked at the first Garden of the Gods visitors center and later at the Starsmore Discovery Center, said of Beidleman: "I think of him as a trails coalition all wrapped in one person."

Hero?

"I wouldn't say that's a description that fits me," said Beidleman, who added with a laugh, "I was ridden out of town on a rail, that's more like it."

Now a resident of Pacific Grove, Calif., Beidleman and his wife, biologist Linda Beidleman, still teach field courses in Colorado.

If there is any irony here, it is that Beidleman left his mark by making sure the community's prized gems would remain unmarked.

His lesson for us is that the challenge to protect special places never ends. "When you have these things, it's a constant struggle to preserve them."
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