Richard A Payne Photos Friends

Richard Payne has been very lucky and has been able to meet many
celebrities in the world of politics people like; Presidents Clinton,
Carter & Obama. US Senators Bob Dole, Steve Symms, James McClure, Ted
Kennedy, Wayne Allard, Ken Salazar and Mark Udall and Representatives
to Congress; Robert Warren "Bob" Schaffer, Hank Brown and Elizabeth
Helen “Betsy” Markey whose office he managed when she was the Larimer
County Democrats chair. He has met all of the Colorado Governors for
the last 20 years and was a friend and supporter of former Denver
Mayor and current governor John Wright Hickenlooper who was born
February 7, 1952 nine month before him. Gale Ann Norton was Colorado
Attorney General & US Secretary of Interior and presented Payne with
two different awards for his work with children. John Toppenberg is
the Director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and he helped Rick with a
program for children entitled Wildlife As Art...John is a wildlife
photographer and foe of Sarah Louise Palin.

Rick loves sports and has become friends with many Colorado teams
athletes like, Richard “Rick” Upchurch of the Denver Broncos who dated
a colleague of Payne’s at Transamerica in downtown Denver…Upchurch is
also about a year older than Payne. In the Broncos’ team came another
friend of Payne’s named Reggie Rivers, who came to Lincoln Junior High
School to visit with children Payne worked with several times. He is a
fan of the Rockies baseball team and one of them built a baseball for
the kids at Lincoln Junior High School!

Rick was an actor and model as a young man and got to meet many
television and movie celebrities like; Fess Parker, Noah Beery Jr.,
Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez, Desi Arnez Jr., Robin Williams, Jack Lemmon,
Dan Blocker, Buck Taylor, Jerry Lewis, Carroll O'Connor, Jimmy
Stewart, Dominick "Dom" DeLuise, Art Linkletter, Jack Elam, Robert
Donner, Troy Duffy, John McIntire, Iron Eyes Cody, John War Eagle,
Chief Yowlache, Chief Dan George, Graham Greene, Rodney Grant, Wes
Studi, Will Sampson and Ted Thin Elk. Many who have been included in
his various books! Rick is blood relatives to people like John Payne,
James Payne and Melvin Metcalf. Robert Redford visited Fort Collins to support
our current Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar who was running for the US Senate then.

Rick is a music lover and has been very lucky to met some of his
heroes in music; Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, Kristoffer "Kris"
Kristofferson, Diana Ross, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles,
Della Reese, John Denver, Marty Balin and Graham William Nash to list
a few.

He loves to laugh and got to meet many of the people who made him
laugh the hardest. Dan Rowan, Dick Martin, Phyllis Diller, Dick
Martin, Dick Van Dyke, George Carlin and Godfrey MacArthur Cambridge

Rick is a writer and people like Walter Cronkite, Neil Simon and Earl
Henry Hamner, Jr. have inspired Rick and even more since he has met
them.

Richard is grateful for have the good fortune to meet this people and
work with them on causes near and dear to both hearts!