Lawrence W. Watts

Lawrence W. Watts September 17, 1949 – May 6, 2018 The rich tapestry of Larry’s life began in Webb City, Missouri on September 17, 1949 born to Martha LaVern and Leroy Watts. Soon he was the big brother to Roxanna Lee Watts and led an idyllic childhood of playing, camping, hunting and enjoying life and one another. Some of Larry’s happiest memories are of a farm they lived on for a couple of years that had a very shallow lake. His father build a sturdy, stable boat for him and that was the start of Larry’s love of boating and water. The Watts family then moved to the Kansas City area where Larry and Roxanna graduated high school. Larry was active in Boy Scouts until he finished up as an Eagle Scout. He participated in wrestling and played some football, but mainly just to stay in shape for wrestling. Along with weight lifting with his church youth pastor. Because of his strength, he was enlisted as one of the male cheerleaders for the Kansas City Chiefs. They were at the games, parades and other media events, but the big thing was they cheered at the 1st Super Bowl in LA where the Chiefs sadly lost to the Green Bay Packers. Larry made Time magazine photo that month of 1967. (Since Larry never threw anything away, the magazine, megaphone and seat cushion are still in his basement!) Some of his best high school memories were spent with his teen age buddies at “The Shack.” Nothing really naughty, but just mischievous enough to make some good stories. Those years were priceless to him even though he was not geographically close to those old friends through the years. Expecting to be drafted, Larry joined the Army and served in the highlands of Vietnam repairing radios. While in Vietnam he was diagnosed with cancer and spent many months in Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC before returning home to his family. The Watts family moved from Kansas City to Detroit and then ended up in Colorado where Larry attended CSU and Fort Lewis working on his Math degree. His love of mathematics lead him to tutor and to compete in the Putnam Mathematics Competition. While living in Durango, he met and married Kimberlee Benton in 1977. They then moved to Sacramento, California for a time and then the company moved them back to the Denver, Colorado area where their daughters, Bethany and Brianna were born and raised. Larry worked as a machine design engineer and earned his Engineering Degree from UC Denver. He specialized in manufacturing mechanization and packaging, contracting in many local industries – some were Gates Rubber, Gates Batteries, Coors, Johns Mansville, Ball Aerospace, and Mesa Laboratories. He was interested in so many areas. He continually had a clip board with 10 or 20 pages of designs of some sort. Work designs, sail boat designs, household inventions or thoughts on how to sterilize water for third world countries. He was happy to be a geeky guy with big ideas and had no problem putting a pocket protector on his Christmas wish list. His uniform for nearly forty years was an Oxford shirt, dress pants, cardigan and a pocket protector. His ability to analyze and invent made him able to fix just about anything. When the grandsons, Beckett and Miles came along, they too, were impressed with his ability to fix stuff. One of his prize possessions was a sweatshirt they gave him that says, “If Papa can’t fix it, nobody can.” He was also very quiet and unassuming. So, many people had no idea of his wicked but yet subtle sense of humor. He often couldn’t get a word in edge wise in a group, but one could tell when he had something of value to add. It was called it his “smirkle” – a combination of a twinkle and a smirk. Those who knew him well would say, “Wait… Larry has something!” And often it was worth waiting for. Larry’s real passion in life was sailing. The quiet feeling of flying across the water invigorated him. He sailed locally and took classes to be certified on several types of water craft. He owned a 15 foot Wayfarer and a small Sunfish. Both of them always needed work, but that seemed to be part of the fun of it. Planning, playing Jimmy Buffet music and dreaming of cruising someplace warm. Larry’s congestive heart failure, stemming from the radiation at Walter Reed all those years ago, had been slowing him down. But, he found time for his newest hobby of gardening. He felt strongly that every suburban house needed a Victory Garden of some sort to eat fresher and be more self reliant. But his real garden passion was his espaliered fruit trees. Two apples and a peach. For years, he lovingly pruned, trained and babied them and they bloomed gloriously this spring in time for him to see them. Larry’s Celebration of Life will be held in the Watts Family home back yard with his fruit trees on Saturday, May 26 at 3 pm. Larry is survived by his mother, Martha LaVern Watts, wife Kim Watts, daughters and sons-in- law, Bethany and James Therrien and Bri and Jason Carter, and grandsons Beckett and Miles Therrien. He is missed.