Brian William Claybourn

BRIAN WILLIAM CLAYBOURN Brian was born on Father's Day, June 19, 1953, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to William Claybourn and Mary Lynne "Pete" (Peterson) Claybourn. He grew up in Denver, Colorado, with his younger brother Alan Claybourn, and together as a family they spent much time traveling in the outdoors, hiking and camping, which instilled a lifelong love of wilderness; Brian continued to embrace Mother Nature his entire life. His other great love was music. As a child, he played violin, then guitar and mandolin. He kept improving as the years went by, and he would often show up with his mandolin at a rock or bluegrass club and end up sitting with the band and jamming the night away. He was part of the Class of 1971 of Kennedy High School in Denver, and went to college, originally studying forestry and then changing to geology after his first year. He graduated from CSU in Ft. Collins in 1977. As a teenager, he attended some memorable concerts in Denver including Pink Floyd, Zephyr, and the famous Jethro Tull concert at Red Rocks where hundreds of fans were tear gassed for rushing the gates. He credits his cousin Henry Woods with knowing the scene in Denver and exposing him to these events. However, Brian had a knack for being involved in all kinds of interesting situations, good and bad. He collected old glass telephone insulators, minerals, crystals, old mining equipment, guitars, and music. Back in the 60's and 70's, to get to the insulators, he and Henry would walk the old railroad lines. Brian could easily shimmy up a telephone pole to reach the abandoned glass insulators. The two had many experiences on those outings, some of which could not be disclosed to authorities such as parents for many, many years. After his first year of college, he followed a girlfriend to Europe and hitchhiked around Spain, France, Andorra, and Holland. He returned via NYC and visited his Uncle Bob Claybourne who was serving on a sequestered jury, but finagled a way to see his nephew. Brian had no money left, so he wandered NYC on foot and later hitchhiked all the way back to Colorado. Other summers during college were spent working construction, including helping build his cousins' family cabin at Tin Cup and visiting the State of Washington. After college graduation he took a job with a title company but soon found work in his field of geology. He was most happy working in the field, and fortunately he was able to travel-either for work or study-throughout the mountains of Colorado and to many spots in Latin America, including Honduras, Brazil and Guatemala. One of his most vivid adventures took place during his master's thesis research in Tepic, Nayarit in Mexico where he explored silver mines in an extinct volcanic caldera called Laguna Santa Maria del Oro. He crawled through underground mines with guides from the Huichol Native tribe. He encountered bats, rats, and "vinegrias" extremely fast-moving vinegar-smelling arachnids that resembled scorpions-but he was never bitten. He later participated in the Huichol peyote ceremony which forms part of the Huicholes' religious practice to know God in the form of "Mescalito." Brian said that Mescalito spoke to him in the forms of an owl, a chipmunk and a wolf. That was probably the closest encounter to anything god-like that he ever had. Although he was not religious in the traditional sense, he had distinctly spiritual qualities about him throughout his life. Brian worked in the Bullfrog gold mine in Nevada near Death Valley during this time. His parents came to visit him in Beatty, Nevada and visited Death Valley with him. In 1988, he married Christine Streeter and began an even greater adventure, that of parenthood. His son Max William Claybourn was born in 1989 on his grandfather's 67th birthday, and Brian doted on him. Even after splitting from Christine, Brian remained supportive, active and involved in Max's life. He never let the divorce interfere with being a loving father. Similarly, he adopted two children through Save the Children; both were little boys in Sri Lanka growing up in the midst of a civil war. He later traveled to Venezuela to work for a mining company that was located in the Bolivar gold fields in Tumeremo. It was here that he was bitten by a real scorpion, but also by the love bug. Brian and Lucia met at a Christmas party in which everyone else was dressed elegantly and Brian entered in shorts, sandals and one of his signature broad-brimmed hats. He told another party-goer who was checking out Lucia, "She's my girlfriend, leave her alone." He then proceeded to introduce himself to Lucia and declared himself in love at first sight. Lucia called him Indiana Jones-and he definitely looked the part. He married Lucia Numilde Herrera Claybourn and became a stepfather to Emily Stephany Medina Herrera who was only five at the time. When he brought Lucia and little Emily back to Colorado, well, it confirmed what many of us already thought-that he was a tad crazy . . . but in a very good way! By then, he had learned Spanish. We were delighted when his second son, Sean Thomas Claybourn, was born on Brian's 43rd birthday. Brian and his new family continued to follow opportunities for his work in the mining industry, and they moved to Silver City, New Mexico while he worked at a large, nearby open pit mine mapping ore bodies. Typical of the mining industry, that opportunity didn't last all that long, and they ended up back in the Denver area by the late 1990's and bought a house less than a mile from his brother Al's house. At that time, Brian focused his career more on construction inspection since it was more stable than mining and he could work more in the Denver area. He started that work at Kumar & Associates, where Al spent the last 18 years of his career, and moved on to several other firms in the last 15 years or so. By 2007, Brian and Al's parents, Pete and Bill, moved into an addition to Al's house. During those years, Brian typically showed up at Pete and Bill's apartment at least 2 or 3 times a week just to chew the fat and tell old stories (again), and take Pete and Bill on walks and drives. Pete and Bill appreciated the accommodations at Al's house, but Brian immensely improved their quality of life by being there for them, too. Brian's mother passed away last July 11th and he missed her terribly; however, he was happy to become a grandpa last August 23rd when little Nicholas Asher Robinson was born to Emily and Christopher Robinson. Little Nicholas put a smile on his "abuelo's" face even at the end. Brian passed away on March 23, 2016 surrounded by his loving family, after battling a rare and sometimes fatal disease, amyloidosis, for several months.