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Light a Candle
Terence John (Terry) Herron Terry Herron passed on November 23, 2022, at his home in Denver, Colorado, just two weeks shy of his 66th birthday. Terry was born in Philadelphia, PA, on December 10, 1956, and one month later moved with his family to Palmyra, NJ, where he attended grade and high school. He spent many summers at his Uncle Pete and Aunt Peggy’s farm in South Jersey and acquired his love of the ocean (and seafood!) on his family’s summer visits to Long Beach Island. Early on Terry’s family and friends recognized his gifts of humor, imagination and creativity. A born showman, Terry organized his first gig at the age of eight as he and younger sister Colleen entertained family, friends and neighbors with songs from Mary Poppins. When he was 13, he appeared as one of the cousins in the play I Remember Mama at the historic Old Academy Players Theater in Philadelphia, the experience that sparked his life-long love of acting and theater. He’d been bitten by the theater bug and eagerly performed in school and local theater plays. In 1974 he enrolled in the Theater Department at the University of Arizona. Terry was always proud to be a ‘Jersey Boy’ but he immediately fell in love with the West where he remained for the rest of his life. It was at U of A that he found and developed his singing voice and entered the musical theater phase of his career. During and after college he performed in many musicals such as Gigi, Godspell, 1776, and Pippin. It was through his theater connections in Tucson that he met Wayne and Dorothy Mackin who were producing classic melodrama at the Imperial Hotel in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Starting in 1982 and for the next five years he spent his winters in Arizona, continuing to act and to work as a chef, and his summers grappling with the intense schedule of the Imperial Hotel melodrama season. His years in Cripple Creek were some of the most satisfying and influential of his life where he continued to develop his acting skills and made friends that stayed with him quite literally until the day he died. He eventually found his way to Denver and for 21 years served as food and beverage manager at Colorado State Bank and Trust (now Bank of Oklahoma) until he retired due to health in 2018. He immediately connected with the local theatre community and appeared in and directed plays at local dinner theaters and at the historic Gaslight Theater in Old North Denver, the Theater at the Byers-Evans House, and in Northglenn, Louisville and many other local theaters. For several years he enjoyed performing with the Murder Mystery Players at Dave & Buster’s and private parties. Terry acquired his love of cooking from his mother, Marion; from his father, Edward, he gained an appreciation of the movies of the ‘30’s and 40’s, the Little Rascals and the Marx Brothers. As he got older his movie interests grew and included musicals, film noir and what some consider B movies – horror, slasher, monster, vampire films -- and their directors and actors. For Terry, the more bizarre the better. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of films, from the Three Stooges and Monty Python to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Spielberg’s West Side Story. In August, 2001 he met Mark Angelos, the man he would eventually marry and spend the last 21 years of his life with. In many ways their differences fueled their deep devotion to one another. They enjoyed entertaining and travelling throughout the U.S. and into Canada and Our last visit to Huston Lake Park, August 29 Mexico. In 2013 they purchased ‘the Lake House’ and it quickly became impossible to think of Terry without remembering his walks around Huston Lake, and his days at his beloved home where he would sit in the sun for hours reading, greeting neighbors and watching Colorado sunsets. As a tribute to the pets Terry loved, cats Walter and Judy, dogs Bizz and Monty and foster dog Hercules, donations may be made in Terry’s memory to The Denver Dumb Friends League, www.ddfl.org. Terry was preceded in death by his parents and his sister Colleen. In addition to his husband Mark, Terry is survived by sisters Maureen Herron, Eileen Herron and Kathleen Herron, brother and sister-in-law Dennis and Meg Herron, nephews Tim (Tessa Romita) Herron and Pete Herron and nieces Clare (Isao Andrews) Herron and Emily (Chris) Cipollone. Terry also has numerous brother- and sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews Terry’s life will be celebrated by family and close friends in a private ceremony.
