Larry Holdren’s career in Denver began with positions at Children’s Hospital Colorado, Centura Health and GBSM, but I think a lot of us associate him most with his time as a partner at Pure Brand. He was an entrepreneur through and through, and he had reinvented himself as one of the leading communications experts on renewable energy and water. He was funny, thoughtful and charismatic, and he would have been hard to miss in any room even if he wasn’t a head taller than everyone else there. Larry passed away from a heart-related issue on the day after Thanksgiving. He was 52.

This holiday week offers a condensed version of “Who Had the Worst Week.” I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. While there are a lot of challenges in the world, there are also many reasons to be thankful. Now, the list:

• Branding matters. It turns out ladybugs are just “vicious” insects that have benefitted from a cute name.
• Her hips may not lie, but apparently her accountant does. Singer Shakira agreed to a plea deal with Spanish prosecutors that included a suspended three-year prison sentence and a $7 million fine to settle charges that she failed to pay millions in taxes.
• Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay says his 2014 arrest for DUI only occurred because of police prejudice against him for being “a rich, white billionaire.” Those poor guys can never catch a break, amiright?
• United Airlines’ Hallmark Channel-inspired movie short about two strangers who cross paths in a busy airport made several Washington Post reviewers “reach for the airsick bag.”
• The transfer portal and now NIL deals have revolutionized collegiate sports, but they are also slowly killing competitive athletics at the military academies.
• Fears about a mystery illness affecting dogs are sweeping through Denver. Researchers think the respiratory illness could be caused by a new type of bacterial infection that may be very good at evading the canine immune system.
• Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The BBC announced it will halt production of its highly popular and highly profitable TV show “Top Gear” after one of its stars was seriously injured in a crash.
•  A judge ruled that rapper A$AP Rocky must stand trial for allegedly firing a gun at a former friend and collaborator outside a Hollywood hotel in 2021.
• If you were waiting for a Hall & Oates reunion tour, bad news. Daryl Hall has filed a lawsuit against John Oates, claiming breach of contract. I don’t know about you, but I can’t go for that, noooo, no can do.
• In his first game back from a three-game suspension for a pattern of dangerous and illegal hits, Denver Broncos safety Kareem Jackson lasted three plays before hitting Minnesota Vikings QB Josh Dobbs in the head with his helmet. The NFL has now suspended Jackson another four games.
• It is chaos in Silicon Valley right now:
  • The CEO of autonomous vehicle start-up Cruise resigned abruptly amid serious safety concerns.
  • Apple, Disney, Comcast/NBCUniversal and Paramount are among the companies that followed IBM’s lead in pausing their ads on Elon Musk’s Twitter (“X”) after antisemitic and other hate speech allegedly appeared adjacent to their ads.
  • Speaking of Musk, he also saw the launch of his SpaceX’s Starship mega rocket explode (a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” in SpaceX-speak) during a test launch.
  • OpenAI’s board quickly and without warning fired CEO Sam Altman, who then announced he was joining Microsoft (Microsoft is an OpenAI investor). An overwhelming majority of OpenAI employees then signed a letter saying they would also leave to join Microsoft unless Altman was reinstated and a new board was seated. This morning, Altman was, in fact, reinstated and the company is in the process of seating a new board.
• Inflation is real – Gov. Jared Polis had to pardon four turkeys this year. They now head to the Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary in Weld County.
• Three hundred rabbits, guinea pigs and rats given to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona to be adopted may have instead been sold as reptile food.

So, who won the week?

• They will be in their 80s, but Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the other members of the Rolling Stones plan to play Empower Field in Denver in June 2024.
• Oldies station KOOL-105 FM topped the list of highest-rated radio stations in Denver.
• A California groom secretly learned Korean so he could surprise his new wife and her family on their wedding day.
• Warren Buffett donated more than $870 million to four charitable foundations in what is becoming a Thanksgiving tradition. He has previously pledged to give away most of his wealth to philanthropy.  
• The Denver Broncos have improbably won four games in a row and will try for win number five against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.

• Volkswagen refused to provide GPS coordinates for a vehicle that had been carjacked with a toddler inside unless the frantic family paid $150 for a subscription to its Car-Net service.
• An Iowa teen who killed his high school Spanish teacher over a bad grade was sentenced to life in prison.
• Apparently Mattel used some of the hundreds of millions of dollars it made on the recent “Barbie” movie on lawyers. The toy company is in court trying to get out of a $49 million pledge it made to the UCLA children’s hospital.
• Las Vegas promised to make this weekend’s F1 race the glitziest in the world. Nine minutes into the first practice session, a loose drain cover on the track damaged a Ferrari, forced the cancellation of the session, and had the world chuckling. Take that, Monaco!
• Speaking of Ferrari … colorful details are the enemy of crisis communications, a fact that actor Adam Driver hasn’t learned. At a press event, he was asked what he thought about the “harsh, drastic and, I must say, cheesy” crash scenes in the new movie he made about legendary car maker Enzo Ferrari. If he ignores the question or responds vaguely, no one outside of that room knows about it. Instead, he answered colorfully: “I don’t know. Fuck you? Next question.” And it became an international story.
• At least a half dozen analyses and reports that advocates and elected officials had planned to use to guide legislative policy are delayed due to the ongoing impact of a data breach at the Colorado Department of Higher Education.
• Texas A&M fired its head football coach Jimbo Fisher and will now pay him the balance of his guaranteed contract – $76 million … let me repeat that, $76 MILLION – to not coach at the school. His firing means that Power 5 conference schools now owe a collective $146 million to coaches who no longer work for them.
• IBM is the latest advertiser to flee Twitter (“X”) after Elon Musk promoted an antisemitic post this week.
• You think you hate the end of Daylight Savings Time and the shorter days that coincide with it? Starting this week, the town of Utqiagvik, Alaska won’t see the sun again for two months.
• Fox Sports and Amazon NFL broadcast reporter Charissa Thompson admitted she used to make up fake sideline reports when she was a sideline reporter.

So, who won the week?

• I’m proud to say that my firm GFM|CenterTable was named #3 on the annual Outside magazine list of the Top 50 Best Places to Work. Joining us on the list were Turner (#5), TDA_Boulder (#7), Fortnight Collective (#8), Cactus (#45), Karsh Hagan (#46) and Backbone (#50).
• Anne Trujillo signed off as an anchor at Denver7 this week after a 40-year career with the station.
• Denver Gazette reporter Jessica Gibbs has joined the  Denver Business Journal as its transportation and government reporter.
• The Colorado Department of Natural Resources has named Colorado Public Radio journalist Michael Elizabeth Sakas as Colorado River communications specialist.
• After ongoing employee strife and walkouts, Walgreens said it will close on Thanksgiving to give all of its employees the day off.
• Thousands of fans at the CU Buffaloes’ men’s basketball game sang “Happy Birthday” to superfan Peggy Coppom, who is turning 99.
• Finally, a plug for a great site that covers the media industry in Colorado: Corey Hutchins’ “Inside the News in Colorado.” You can sign up to receive his weekly emails for free, which makes its value-to-cost ratio literally infinity.

• DISH Network‘s stock has been a death spiral, and the company announced that it is laying off 500 Denver-area employees.
• Hill + Knowlton Strategies has rebranded to … its original name Hill & Knowlton. Hardly seems worth the cost of the new letterhead. In a quote that belongs in the PR Hall of Fame, the company’s CEO said the new old name “really embraces … the spirit of today and the aspiration and vision we have for the future.”
• Speaking of PR Hall of Fame quotes, WeWork announced that it “took strategic action to significantly strengthen (its) balance sheet and further streamline (its) real estate footprint.” That sounds great, until you read a paragraph later to understand that it did that by filing for bankruptcy.
• With two months still to go, Denver County Court has handled more eviction case filings than in any other year since at least 2008.
• An Australian police officer allegedly pointed his pistol at a colleague to stop him from sharing spoilers to the plot of “Top Gun: Maverick.”
• If you see a 9News reporter today, give them a hug. Tegna reported Q3 earnings that were down 11% year over year.
• If you see a Denver7 anchor, give them a hug. Parent company Scripps has developed “Scrippscast,” a new technology that creates news programming that does not require conventional anchors.
• A $6 million, 18-carat-gold toilet was stolen from Winston Churchill’s childhood home. I checked – former President Donald Trump has an alibi (he was in court).
• There is nothing worse than a judge deciding to make an example of you. That’s what happened to disbarred Denver attorney Steve Bachar, who received a prison sentence 50% longer than prosecutors requested. The Denver Post reported that “the judge said he wanted to push back against the criminal justice system’s tendency to be more lenient on wealthy, well-connected and well-educated defendants.”
• The Justice Department is investigating politicians, military officers and government contractors for utilizing the services of a high-end brothel network operating in Massachusetts and Washington D.C. Has anyone seen former Mayor Hancock?

So, who won the week?

• After nine years, Dana Smith is leaving her role as Chief Communications Officer at the Colorado Department of Education.
• The Denver Zoo has become the Nick Cannon of elephant sperm.
• The University of Colorado women’s basketball team opened their season by defeating the #1 ranked LSU Tigers.
• Tracy Chapman won song of the year at the Country Music Awards for “Fast Car,” a song that topped the country charts more than three decades after she first released it thanks to a cover by country singer Luke Combs. Chapman is the first Black songwriter to win that award.
• The New York Times surpassed 10 million subscribers. The company has a goal of 15 million by the end of 2027.
• The SAG–AFTRA actors’ union and Hollywood studios have ended their 118-day strike. How happy are the actors? Kevin Bacon celebrated by doing the “Footloose” dance.
• The National Women’s Soccer League negotiated a new four-year, $240 million TV deal that includes ESPN. That is 40 times the value of its previous deal on an annual basis.

• Novitas Communications and Aiello PR have settled their lawsuit just weeks before it was scheduled to go to trial. Novitas sued alleging that Aiello PR had reneged on their 2020 agreement to shut down and sell its clients to Novitas for $180,000. Aiello has agreed to pay Novitas $140,000 to settle the matter. 
• Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency company FTX, was convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy and now faces up to 110 years in jail.
• Magazine publisher Condé Nast will cut 5% of its workforce due to “digital advertising pressures, a decline in social media traffic and shifting audience behaviors.”
• Spirit Airlines is leaving DIA. Over the past three years, its marketshare at the airport has dropped from 2.1% to 0.8%, reflecting tough competition with other low-cost carriers Frontier and Southwest.
• Andrew Garson, a senior PR executive at Catalyst Public Relations and MWW in New York City, pled guilty to defrauding his employers of more than $3 million. He created false invoices and used his corporate credit cards for personal expenses.
• Former Denver TV sportscaster Todd Romero filed a lawsuit alleging that Altitude Sports discriminated against him because because of race, age and his decision to seek treatment for a prescription-drug addiction.
• HBO/Max CEO and Chairman Casey Bloys apologized to TV critics for attacking them anonymously for bad reviews via a burner Twitter account. His apology read in part, “I have progressed over the past couple of years to using DMs.” I guess that’s growth.
• The vacancy rate among downtown Denver office space has now topped 30% for the first time since the early 1990s.
• A U.S. District Court judge dismissed former Green Bay Packers QB Brett Favre’s defamation lawsuit against former Denver Broncos Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe. Sharpe had criticized Favre after the State of Mississippi sued Favre alleging he misappropriated funds intended to help welfare families.
• Meanwhile, former Denver Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels was fired this week by the Las Vegas Raiders. He made history by being the first NFL head coach fired by two teams before he completed his second season with either.
• The social media platform Twitter (“X”) says its value is now $19 billion, less than half of the $44 billion Elon Musk paid for it a year ago. Users and advertisers have left the platform in droves since he took over.
• Street fights and looting are one thing, but teens in New Zealand have completely crossed the line. The latest trend is to cruise the streets overnight in cars and on bicycles with powerful speakers belting out. … Celine Dion.
• A man swimming in a scenic Northern California lake was attacked by a group of otters. “They wanted to kill me,” he said. “If we wanted to kill you, you’d be dead,” the otters should have responded.
• The Milwaukee Bucks invited rapper Flavor Flav to the sing the national anthem at one of its games this week, and it went exactly how you thought it would.
• FIFA is poised to award soccer’s 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia despite its atrocious human rights record and stifling heat.

So, who won the week?

• Denver Mayor Mike Johnston‘s administration continues to fill open roles. DIA Acting Director of Communications Jose Salas was named Deputy Director of Communications, and 9News producer Erin Powell accepted a position as deputy director of digital media.
• Independent (and occasionally renegade) journalist Shay Castle has been named editor of the Boulder Weekly.
• Sports talk radio host Darren “D-Mac” McKee, who was let go from 104.3 The Fan in September, landed this week at Altitude Sports Radio 92.5.