Lawrence G. Weiss

WEISS Lawrence G. Weiss, a newspaperman and public affairs advisor, died January 10, 2018, in Boulder, Colorado. He was 97 years old. He was an editorial writer for The Denver Post from 1958 to 1975. Born in Chicago on November 29, 1920, he was the son of Nathan H. and Anna Ettelson Weiss. He graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude in 1942, and he spent an additional year at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow in 1948-1949. In June 1942, he married Rita M. Shapiro in Boston. Before moving to Boulder, Colorado in 1954, he worked as a reporter for The Boston Herald, a writer on The New York Times and a special assistant to the Secretary of Labor in Washington D.C. In Boulder, he taught journalism at the University of Colorado and then moved to the editorial page of The Denver Post. He continued to teach evening honors seminars at the University on "The Press and Society" and "James Joyce and the Modern World" for 18 years. He left The Denver Post in 1975 to become special assistant to the Governor of Colorado. From 1977 until his retirement in 1985, he was director of public affairs for the Colorado and Denver Bar Associations. In Boulder, he was one of the leaders of a faculty group that sought to eliminate discrimination against minorities in CU fraternities and sororities, and he was active in a struggle to limit the religious observance of Christmas in the Boulder Public Schools. He was a liberal Democrat, a tennis player, a mountain climber and a reader of great books. Survivors include his loving wife of 75 years, Rita; a daughter, Carolyn Judith Weiss of Boulder; a son, Jonathan Lawrence Weiss of Interlaken, NY; a sister, Roalyn Issacs of Wilmette, IL, three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.