Top 5 most-read stories: Jim Crown dies in accident; airport gets incremental green light on FAA submission

We’ve rounded up the top five most-read stories on Aspentimes.com from last week.

1.) Jim Crown, managing partner of Aspen Skiing Co., dies in accident Sunday at Woody Creek race track

Jim Crown died Sunday on a Woody Creek race track, on his 70th birthday.

The chairman and CEO of Henry Crown, and managing partner of Aspen Skiing Co., struck an impact barrier in a single-vehicle accident at the Aspen Motorsports Park in Woody Creek, according to the Pitkin County Coroner’s Office.

“The official cause of death is pending autopsy, although multiple blunt force trauma is evident,” the Coroner’s Office said in a statement. “The manner is accident.”  

The coroner, Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office and Colorado State Patrol declined to provide further details, pending investigation.

—Don Rogers

2.) Friends from White House to Aspen remember Jim Crown and his legacy locally and across the nation

The expressions of sorrow and accolades for Jim Crown came from all over Monday, including the White House.

“When Jim and Paula Crown joined us at the White House last week for a State Dinner, Jim was as he always was — thoughtful, warm, a good man. It was heartbreaking to learn today of his shocking death,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.

“Jim was on the cusp of a new initiative, rallying fellow corporate leaders to commit to hiring people from communities that have been left behind and to be part of the solution to end gun violence,” the president said. “Jim represented America at its best — industrious, big-hearted, and always looking out for each other. He was a good man, a dear friend, and a great American.”

—Audrey Ryan

3.) Jim Crown: Leader of family, interested in the grit, big ambitions, personal friend to presidents

And there’s more, much more. News stories, statements from a president and a former president who plainly were friends, moments of silence in Aspen, tweets. Lots of tweets.

An investigation continues into Jim Crown’s death in a single vehicle accident on his 70th birthday on Sunday at the Aspen Motorsports Park in Woody Creek. Authorities said they will release more information at the conclusion.

“He was driving a race car, and it hit a wall going around a curve,” his father, billionaire financier Lester Crown, told their hometown Chicago Sun-Times.

His father described him as the leader of the family, who looked out for everyone emotionally as well as intellectually.

—Audrey Ryan and Don Rogers

4.) Airport gets incremental green light on massive submission to the FAA

Is hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding enough to persuade local officials to let go of community goals? The Pitkin County commissioners said yes, the airport needs the money.

With more than four hours of presentation, discussion, and public comment between the Tuesday work session and Wednesday meeting, the commissioners finally came to a 4-1 vote in favor of approving the Aviation Demand Forecast for the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport at first reading. Second reading with public hearing is scheduled for the July 12 regular meeting. 

Commissioners were split over an urgency to move the process along to secure desperately-needed funding for airport renovations and feeling a duty to honor the 2020 resolution, which codified community input and compromises on airport goals. 

—Josie Taris

5.) Liz Cheney adds kick to Tuesday’s Afternoon of Conversation at Ideas Fest

Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming GOP congresswoman, inspired an Aspen Ideas’ audience this week in the vein of cinematic emotional high that audiences used to find in pre-pandemic movie theaters showing feelgood blockbusters. 

She implored Americans to be steadfast in their fight to protect democracy and remember, “The single most important issue is that Donald Trump never be near the Oval Office again.” Exactly the sort of rhetoric that stirred Americans across the country and got her voted out of office in her home state, still firmly Trump country.

By the time she wrapped up, the packed Benedict Music Tent made up of a largely liberal audience, as comes to Ideas Fests, gave her a standing ovation, cheering, applauding wildly. As she walked off stage, a music student came onstage and began playing a drum.

—Lynda Edwards