Larry Bohning

Larry L.Bohning of Denver passed away on July 22, 2024 from Parkinson’s Disease.

Larry was a loyal, generous, kind, and affable friend, and with many interests. A Denver County Court judge from 1980 until he retired in 2015, this letter well describes Larry’s fine reputation:

The writer was last to be called in a court date: “…I had ample opportunity to observe a most remarkable sight—the most understanding, polite, interested and fair judge, Larry Bohning … treated all cases with intelligence, fairness, and in some cases, with a “twinkle” in his eyes. Such a remarkable man should not go unnoticed. May we have many more like him.” Letter to the Rocky Mountain News July 15, 1980.

Larry was born on August 20, 1942, in Harrold, South Dakota, a railroad town, where his father owned the general store. He helped in the store throughout his youth and became a certified egg tester and cream tester. After graduating from Dakota Wesleyan University in 1965, he received his law degree from the University of South Dakota in 1968. In these early years, he visited New York City and elsewhere. Proud of his South Dakota origins, he relished social gatherings of fellow South Dakota natives who had emigrated to the Denver area. After law school, Larry worked in the South Dakota attorney general’s office and in the South Dakota General Assembly’s Legislative Drafting Office, until in 1970 moving to Denver, where he worked in the Legislative Drafting Service for the Colorado General Assembly for three years until 1973, when he became an Assistant City Attorney for the City and County of Denver. 

In 1980, he was appointed a Denver County Court judge. Until retiring in 2015, he was consistently reelected by large margins; he served a term as Chief Judge of that court. He was the first judge to preside over the Court to Community program, which was established to prevent the homeless and mentally ill from being jailed instead of treated for mental illness. It was a national model and Larry was honored by the Mental Health Association of Denver.

In 1992, he met Marie Fitzpatrick, a neighbor in a high-rise condo building where, in the elevator, Larry first asked her for a date. When Larry introduced Marie to his 95-year-old aunt, he told her they met in the elevator, and she asked whether the elevator was going up or down. It was definitely going up. Marie and Larry remained together ever since that elevator ride and were married in October 2003. 

Larry was a loyal friend who always remembered the birthdays of friends and family with hilariously appropriate cards. He was known for his affability, kindness, loyalty, and exuberant, fun-loving nature. A long-time member of the Rotary Club of Denver, for several years he served as its secretary, so his principal duty was to tell jokes at its regular luncheon meetings. He served on its program committee and enjoyed finding interesting, qualified speakers on a wide variety of subjects

As a local judge, he performed weddings and sometimes helpfully offered the affianced couples an extensive variety of ceremonial options. Perhaps his most remarkable wedding occurred on Halloween of 1997, when he married a man dressed as the Big Bad Wolf to a woman dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. The event was covered in a story and photograph in The Rocky Mountain News.

Always interested in history, Larry found many venues for reading and research. For many years Larry was an active member of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Denver. He developed and delivered a set of lectures on notable Unitarian Universalists from the 18th to early 20th centuries and served on the church archives committee. Larry participated enthusiastically in the Colorado History Group, which among other activities, performed mock trials of local, historical characters, such as Alferd Packer. These productions usually drew large audiences and featured prominent, amateur actors, such as Tom “Dr. Colorado” Noel and legendary legislator and Denver’s city auditor Dennis Gallagher. He was also a member of the Denver Posse of Westerners; and, he was sometimes a late Friday afternoon visitor at the Western History Department in the downtown Denver Public Library.

As his 50th birthday approached, Larry decided to celebrate it by climbing Colorado’s highest peak - Mt. Elbert. Although he had not previously been an active exerciser, he practiced by climbing the stairs in his high rise condo, and with the help of friends, he made it to the top. In the following years, those friends and Larry and Marie scaled several other Colorado Fourteeners and undertook a series of multiple-day hikes in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe. They also hiked in New Zealand and South Dakota. Larry documented all of his hikes and trips with voluminous photographs and sometimes audio recordings. A mountain runner he met on a hike in the Lake District of England called him “Pops,” and thus his hiking buddies frequently referred to him as “Popsarazzi.”

Larry pursued a wide range of intellectual interests, including architecture, fine arts, histories, theatre, and natural sciences. He not only enjoyed attending theatrical productions but took acting lessons at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. He enjoyed chatting about the arrival of humans in the Americas, Dolly the cloned Scottish sheep, the career of gang-busting Denver district attorney Philip Van Cise; he wrote several historical biographies for The Colorado Lawyer. Until disabled by Parkinson’s, he was engaged with a book about Dwight D. Eisenhower’s connections to Colorado—and built a reference collection.

Larry is survived by his wife Marie, nephew Lee Bohning, niece Lori Carr, a great niece and great nephew, and Geraldine Bohning, widow of his brother Don Bohning, a well-known journalist with the Miami Herald.

A celebration of Larry’s life … sharing memories of his loyal and affable “twinklings” in our lives … will be held at First Universalist Church of Denver on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024 at 2:00 PM with a reception immediately after, at the church. Please refer to this website for details. HoranCares.com

In lieu of flowers, please consider in Larry’s memory donations to the Parkinson’s Association of the Rockies, the AdventHealth Hospice Care Porter, or as you prefer.

Parkinson’s Association of the Rockies

1325 S. Colorado Blvd. Ste. 204B, Denver, CO 80222

Rocky Mountain Adventist Healthcare Foundation

950 E Harvard Ave | Suite 230 | Denver, CO 80210