'Bronco horn' divides neighbors

Julie Poppen, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 6, 2007 at midnight

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It is true that Jeri and Larry Priest, both 69, have a peculiar and very loud way of celebrating the Broncos when they score.

They bust out a contraption Larry made 30 years ago featuring six car horns and a flashing orange light powered by a car battery and position it in their front yard. Larry, a retired iron worker who served in the Marines, tinkered with it so that a person sitting inside the house watching the game can trigger it.

The horn points across the street toward a gated community next to the working class neighborhood in unincorporated Adams County where the Priests live.

A 38-year-old attorney who lives on the other side of the fence with his pregnant wife said he has complained about the horn since he moved in four years ago.

He asks any reasonable person — Broncos fan or not — to stand in his shoes.

The 38-year-old man requested that his name not be used for fear or retaliation. The Rocky Mountain News agreed to the request.

"What if six car horns were pointed at your house 50 feet (away)?" he said Monday. "Everyone thinks it's fun. My wife is 14 weeks pregnant. They've had that thing pointed at my house the past four years I've lived there."

The Priests admit they blow the horns six times for a touch down, once for the extra point and three times for a field goal. But never after 9 p.m. (The attorney disputes that).

The Priests say they've never had any complaints from other neighbors in the 12 years they've lived in the neighborhood on West 63rd Avenue or in their former neighborhood.

They say it's all in good fun.

Jeri Priest is a diehard fan who has devoted a bedroom to a Broncos shrine. Laminated team photos cover one wall. She's got a Wheaties box from the Super Bowl, Broncos pasta made before the team logo changed and, of course, John Elway's autograph.

The row over the horn came to a head during the Oct. 21 game vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers, when the Broncos scored 31 points and the attorney filed a disorderly conduct complaint against Jeri Priest.

She's due in court Nov. 26.

The attorney insists he'd drop the complaint if the Priests would simply aim the horns into a vacant field abutting their back yard.

Larry Priest, who uses an oxygen tank due to a lung ailment, said he lost his cool and challenged the man to a fight because he felt the two had worked out an agreement then the man continued to complain.

Now, the Priests won't budge.

"He's trying to intimidate us," Jeri Priest said. "We're almost 70 years old ... But he picked the wrong old people to pick on. "

The Priests say they'll only move the horns if a judge asks them too.

Both parties have purchased digital sound level meters and are conducting experiments.

For now, the Priests have agreed not to blow the horn until the case is heard in court. That doesn't mean, however, that other neighborhood allies won't.

And Jeri Priest isn't exactly being quiet. On Monday, she put up signs in her yard reading, "Honk If You Like the Broncos."

A few passing vehicles complied.

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