Western Colorado University Athletics

One of the nation’s most respected legal experts on water rights, who was a three-sport Mountaineer student-athlete, was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2010 Mountaineer Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Banquet Oct. 8, at the Fred Field Western Heritage Center in Gunnison.

“I have known and been a close associate of Dick Bratton since 2004,” wrote the Upper Colorado River Commission Executive Director Don Ostler in a nomination letter. “At a time when many men are only thinking about retirement, this man is charging full steam ahead. He has inspired me with his tremendous sense of professionalism, hard work, fair play and accomplishment.”

Dick graduated from Salida High School in 1950 where he was a three-sport athlete in football, basketball and track and field. He was the student body president and a member of the National Honor Society before enrolling at Western State in the fall of 1950.

Dick traded the basketball court for the wrestling mat when he arrived in Gunnison, and became a two-time RMAC runner-up at 130 pounds for the Mountaineers. He also remained active in football and track and field, and worked in the Monarch quarries during the summers.

Dick was listed twice among “Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges, was student body treasurer in 1952-53 and student body president in 1953-54. In the fall of 1953, Dick married Donna Rae Howard in Gunnison.

After graduating in 1954 with an accounting degree, Dick enrolled in the Colorado Law School where he and Donna doubled as Resident Advisors at CU. He graduated in 1957, and began practicing in 1958 with Ed Dutcher in Gunnison. Thinking “he would spend a couple of years learning the ropes and then move on to wherever he was going,” Dick took over the firm in 1961 when Dutcher was named district judge.

“Dick stayed in Gunnison to practice law to help people, not to make money,” said David L. Masters in a profile of Dick in the Colorado Lawyer publication in 2003. “He insists that successful lawyers practice law because they believe they are doing something worthwhile.”

Dick also became the chief counsel for the Upper Gunnison Water Conservancy District after Dutcher’s appointment, and remained in that role until 2006. He was also later named to the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority, which he chaired as well. Also in 1961, Dick received the Award of Merit from the Young Lawyers Section of the Colorado Bar Association.

In 1963, Dick became a Trustee for the State Colleges in Colorado, which acted as the governing board for Adams State, Mesa State, Metro State, CSU-Pueblo and Western State. He remained active on the board until 1975, assisting in the presidential appointments at Western State, Northern Colorado, Metro State and Mesa State.

Only 31 when he was named to the board, the other members nicknamed Dick the “teenage trustee.” When he departed the board in 1975, he had just wrapped up a term as the group’s president.

In 1975, after Dick had put the groundwork into place years before, the Aspinall-Wilson Conference Center was completed with a dedication by current President Gerald Ford. Wayne Aspinall, a congressman for the Western Slope for several years, was friend of Ford’s despite the different in party affiliation. Ford dedicated the new building, which would become the home of the Western State College Foundation that Dick also helped establish.

Also in 1975, he co-founded the Western State College Water Conference with history professor Duane Vandenbusche.  He also served as president of the Colorado Water Congress in 1976, was named an honorary life member in 2000 and received the Wayne N. Aspinall Leadership Award from the Congress in 2002.

In 1991, Dick formed the Colorado Water Education Foundation, and in the mid-1990s, worked with Dan Tredway to secure the Ruland Property between Tomichi Avenue and Taylor Hall for Western State College.

Dick successfully argued cases before the Colorado Supreme Court involving water rights issues with the Taylor Park Reservoir and River and the Union Park Project. The decisions helped establish water rights for environmental and recreation use.

In 2002, Dick was appointed as the federal representative and chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission by President George W. Bush. The commission governs the Upper Colorado River basin in four states, and coordinates with the Lower Colorado River Commission and those three states. He was instrumental in working on a solution with the commission with the 2007 drought.

Dick received the Gunnison County Stock Growers Distinguished Service Award in 2003, the Karl Ranous Professionalism Award in 2007 and the Colorado Foundation for Water Education President’s Award in 2009.

And last fall, Dick successfully completed a multi-year annexation project entitled the “Gunnison Rising Project”. Included in the project was new property for Western State College and the WSC Foundation, property for new schools and parks, property for a Colorado Division of Wildlife Regional Office and Outdoor and Wildlife Education Center, an open corridor to Tomichi Creek for recreation and additional trails for the Gunnison Trail system.

“One of his most outstanding personal characteristics is his ongoing interest in people,” said Roy Johnson in his nomination letter. “As a natural leader, he brings out the best in people; and from these associations, he seems to adopt each one as a lifelong friend.”