Boulderite falls to his death

On final night of Hawaii adventure, man slips off cliff

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 7, 2006 at midnight

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As the sun set over a Hawaiian cliff Saturday, a Boulder man bent down to stoke a fire, slipped and fell to his death, ending a life marked by adventure, travel and kindness.

"I lost my soul mate and my life," Lauri Benblatt said of her partner, Tom DeFore, 42. "He loved animals; they knew his spirit and loved him, too."

DeFore was vacationing with friends in an exotic, wild spot, his idea of heaven.

"He was doing what he loved to do, and with people he loved," said his mother, June DeFore, of Rio Rancho, N.M. "He lived such a full, giving, loving life."

Just two hours before he died, DeFore phoned his mother to say he was having "the greatest week of my life."

DeFore leaves behind his parents, siblings and several nieces and nephews.

He had lived in Boulder since the sixth grade, graduated from Fairview High School and the University of Colorado, and had climbed most of Colorado's 14,000-foot-plus peaks.

A documentary filmmaker, he recently returned from the Middle East where he filmed a Pepsi commercial in Arabic.

"Everyone is telling me how kind he was, how generous he was, how caring he was to people," June DeFore said. "All his life, he had friends from all cultures and of all ages."

He was well known in Boulder's large Zimbabwean music scene, where most aficionados pound the marimba. But DeFore preferred the mbira, a hollow gourd with tuned tabs that are plucked with the thumb.

He also was a talented cook, photographer and documentary filmmaker. At CU, he won an award for a documentary on how the university adapted its annual Shakespeare festival to accommodate the deaf.

DeFore also frequently traveled to Zimbabwe, where he raised and gave money to support the education of children and musicians.

Thomas Cummings, of Kailua, Hawaii, was with DeFore on Hawaii's Big Island when the accident happened.

"We'd been hiking, backpacking, bird-watching all week, camping at various beaches," he said. "That was our last night."

They found a spot 30 feet above the lava rocks on the beach, on the extreme north end of the Big Island, with a great view of Haleakala, the enormous volcanic crater on nearby Maui.

Cummings and a friend were playing ukuleles when DeFore circled around the cliff side of the fire and "just disappeared."

He fell 30 feet onto the rocks.

"If it was sand instead, or if the tide was in, we wouldn't be talking," Cummings said.

Paramedics arrived in 40 minutes, but DeFore never regained consciousness and was being kept alive on life-support by the time a helicopter transporting him reached a hospital.

"We had the time of our lives," Cummings said of that week. "The weather was perfect; there were no bugs. The night before, he said, 'I just love this. I just loving being under the stars, hearing the waves. I could do this every night for the rest of my life.'

"And he did."

A memorial for DeFore is scheduled for Monday at the Boulder Theatre on 14th Street off the Pearl Street Mall beginning at 3:30 pm.

scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2897

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