Jim Burrus

1962 - 2020

The massive oak desk was one of the first things the new managing editor hefted into the newspaper office. It didn't fit with the modern newsroom's streamlined design, but Jim Burrus wedged it into a place where he knew it belonged. He set it in the back of the newsroom, where The Desk, like the man behind it, became an anchor.

The first man to sit behind that desk was Rufus Burrus, who was a personal attorney to President Harry S. Truman and the son of a newspaper editor. The last man to sit behind the desk was Rufus's grandson – a man who understood the importance of an independent press, the power of small stories, and the duty to keep history alive.

From his perch behind the desk, Jim Burrus became a guiding voice of the fledgling Boulder Planet – and an overwhelming part of its soul. If Boulder had a Ben Bradlee during the late 1990s, it was Burrus. Once he sniffed a scoop, he would slam down the phone and summon reporters by their last names or nicknames, almost always talking in capital letters. JARGON! D'ABLO! SCOU!

Jim Burrus lived life in all caps. During his time at the newspaper and long afterwards, he mined connections from a massive mental Rolodex that blanketed the county and multiplied exponentially each year. Through his work in later years as a spokesman for the Boulder County Commissioners, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Boulder County Historic Preservation Advisory Board, he assembled a collection of colleagues, friends and facts he would continually tap to help preserve the people, places, history and stories he was so driven to share.

James Noland Burrus was found dead of natural causes on Jan. 10. He was 57. His best friend found him at his farmhouse near Longmont. At his grandfather's desk.

The Boulder Planet launched in the summer of 1996, when Boulder entrepreneur Doug Greene tapped former Daily Camera business editor Greg Todd to assemble a staff aiming to capture the community by focusing on untold, local stories – highlighting little leaguers instead of the Denver Broncos, digging into real issues behind city council meetings, and featuring obituaries of people whose names had previously never appeared in the newspaper.

Burrus and other refugees from big corporate journalism signed on, with Burrus behind The Desk, sifting through every story. The Planet wasn't envisioned as an "alternative weekly," but as a locally-owned competitor to the Daily Camera, which was then owned by now-defunct Knight-Ridder.

And few things animated Burrus more than besting his former employer. "A great scoop, and there were many with Jim, would be met with this explosive smile and a roaring Burrus "YES!" said reporter (and Daily Camera alum) Jim Moscou. "A gust of wind would hit your sails. He'd muster all the resources and ideas he could to get that story right. Then, we'd find Burrus at his desk in the middle of the night, editing, tweaking and just thinking about how to make the story even better. He just had your back, and you knew it. He made you better."

In the first few issues of the Boulder Planet, Burrus – while juggling managing editor duties – penned stories about the Boulder County Commissioners meetings along with a review of punk rock band The Descendents, and, capitalizing on one of his favorite hobbies, started a column aptly titled, "Burrus on Beer."

From his vantage point at the back of the newsroom, Burrus had a direct line of sight to everyone who entered, and he made time for nearly all of them, alert for the next possible scoop. He would spend a lunch break out on one of the courthouse benches listening to someone spouting a wingnut theory about a government plot involving jet contrails, then schmooze a Boulder County commissioner for story ideas, then return to edit the weekly gardening column.

"Guiding the Planet was like learning to drive the Millennium Falcon with only rudimentary knowledge of its power," Burrus wrote in remembrance a few years ago. "It could turn on a dime and launch you to the speed of light in the blink of an eye. To this day, when I first meet someone in Boulder and mention the Planet, they'll say, 'I loved that paper.' It's hard to express how crazy and wonderful and fantastic that is. It's also sad that, given the state of print journalism today, it could never happen again."

At its peak, the free Planet swelled to 90 pages, earning more journalism awards than any other comparably-sized newspaper in the state, including two "Best of Colorado" awards from the Society of Professional Journalists – an honor usually reserved for the big Denver dailies.

After leaving the Planet, Burrus was named editor of the Aspen Daily News, where he embraced a new crop of characters and reveled in a chance to meet his journalism hero, Hunter S. Thompson. The motto of the Boulder Planet was "Local News, Local Views." The motto of the Aspen Daily News fit him just as well: "If you don't want it printed, don't let it happen." Most recently, he penned stories for another local independent publication, Yellowscene.

In death, Burrus brought together other former "Planeteers" – including Jim Sheeler, who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2006 – to remember his outsized contribution to journalism and the county during his time at the little weekly paper that helped foster a closer community.

Julie Jargon – who Burrus hired just before she graduated college – is a columnist at the Wall Street Journal. "I was hired to cover the school board and city politics, and while introducing me to city council members, Jim brought a plate of homemade cookies for a secretary. He whispered to me, 'Always be nice to the secretaries.' His lessons on journalism – and on life – were often accompanied by 'Burrus-isms,' that made them stick. Whenever a reporter grappled with a source who was trying to curry favor, he'd say, 'If you can't eat their lunch after eating their lunch, don't eat their lunch.'"

Greg D'Avis, a senior copy editor at CNN International, started out in journalism under Jim's watch. "Whenever I think back on the Planet, Burrus is always at the center of the image. He was the soul of that newspaper. He was like a proud parent when it was successful; when there was a flaw, it was a personal wound. For years I had recurring dreams – the gist of them would be that Burrus was restarting the Planet and calling me to come back. And when I'd wake up, I'd be so disappointed."

For Burrus, as for all great newspaper men and women, journalism was a calling that demanded adherents give their all, said reporter Doug Cosper, (another Camera alum) recalling a rare example of a special edition for a weekly newspaper. "When a good story landed on his desk, Jim became the story until he saw that his reporters nailed it before the competition. It was his passion. It was why he got out of bed in the morning. It was, as Jim might say, better than sex. Such a story – I can't recall the subject – arrived after the Planet had already been delivered some days earlier, and the next edition was days away. But Jim knew that baby wanted to be delivered now. He wrote it up and printed it out on a sheet of 8.5x11 paper, ran off several hundred copies, and personally drove to every Planet news box in town to lay them next to the current edition. Only then could he sleep."

Jim often mused that he was protected by something he called the "Burrus Factor," Planet designer Brad Evans recalled. "It was a lot like Murphy's Law, except in reverse. Just when you think there's no chance of something coming through, there's Burrus with the exact lead or connection that you need. The Burrus Factor always had your back when you thought you had no more options."

Each year, dozens of his friends would await an email from him with a single subject line: BONFIRE. It was Jim's way of assembling acquaintances from across the decades to a night of revelry and community at his historic farmhouse that he restored by hand. Though he was born in Missouri, he embraced Boulder County – the people and the land – for the bulk of his life, and he celebrated his adopted home at every opportunity.

"Ahhh. The robins are fighting with my chickens over worms in the leaves," he wrote in one email invitation. "The buds are blooming on my fruit trees. The bees are busy gathering pollen and nectar for the coming summer effort to provide me with fresh honey that will get fermented and consumed as mead. Yes, spring is springing and that means it's time for a BONFIRE!"

The ensuing party always lasted well into the night, with Jim Burrus's voice – and, just as often, his booming laugh, Ha Ha HA! – rising over the crackling flames, sometimes until sunrise.

Contributions in Jim's memory can be sent to ProPublica.org or Newsmatch.org. A celebration of Jim's life is planned in the spring, presided over by his best friend and soul brother, Johnny "Rev" Lowe. Details to be announced, but those who knew him best should expect an email. The subject line: BONFIRE!