Wayne Jakino, founder of Charlie’s bar and Gay Rodeo Association

Bill Gallo, Special to the News

Published July 25, 2008 at 6:02 p.m.
Updated July 25, 2008 at 6:02 p.m.

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In 21st-century Denver, a saloonkeeper can become a two-term mayor. Or a saloonkeeper can become a valued adviser to mayors, governors and police chiefs, an influential community leader, a powerful fund-raiser for political candidates and an outspoken champion of fairness and human rights.

While he's at it, he can also put on a Stetson, hitch up his dungarees and ride in the rodeo.

That's a thumbnail sketch of Wayne Jakino, the Capitol Hill bar owner who brought verve to everything from barrel racing to breast cancer research, AIDS awareness to neighborhood improvement. "He was awesome in the community," said John Nelms, a friend and colleague for 25 years. "He worked for everyone, gay and straight, with incredible energy."

Mr. Jakino died Wednesday at his Capitol Hill home, after a 14-month battle with pancreatic cancer, in the company of his sister and his life partner, Dan Bray. He was 66.

Services will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday at Metropolitan Community Church of the Rockies, 980 Clarkson St. On Aug. 3 at 2 p.m., a celebration of Mr. Jakino's life will be held at Charlie's, 900 E. Colfax Ave., the "Lil Ole Bitty Pissant Country Place" that he helped turn into one of the most famous gay bars in America and a focal point for social activism.

Born April 15, 1942, in Durango, Mr. Jakino grew up on his family's ranch there, wrangling cattle and heaving hay bales. After high school, he came to Denver at age 19, studied design and started up an interior design company, Jake Limited. In 1981, he and partner John King opened the first Charlie's at 7900 E. Colfax Ave. Eight years later they moved into the old Emerson Street East space in Capitol Hill and thrived.

Through the years, Mr. Jakino raised more than $2 million for local charities and political campaigns. He was a factor in the elections of then- Denver District Attonry Bill Ritter (now Governor Ritter) and current D.A. Mitch Morrissey.

In the 1990s, Mr. Jakino taught gay sensitivity classes to Denver police officers, then led by Chief Dave Michaud, and when controversial Amendment 2, which proposed rollbacks on gay civil rights, came before the state legislature, he advised then-Mayor Wellington Webb and then-Gov. Roy Romer to stand with the Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender community in opposition to it.

"He had a huge effect on people," said his sister, Virginia Nanna. "Wayne envisioned things. He was a mentor and a teacher. He always gave everything of himself."

In 1981 he helped found the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association, then the international version. When his own days as a horseman were over, he became one of gay rodeo's most popular announcers.

Charlie's — which general manager John Nelms calls "Wayne's baby," has over the years opened branches in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Chicago.

Mr. Jakino met Dan Bray, a transplant from Potomac, Md., in 1999. On Dec. 23, 2003, they performed their own wedding ceremony — just the two of them, a bottle of champagne and a gold ring — in the house they shared on Emerson Street.

"Given all the things Wayne was doing in the community, and the way he made everyone feel, he was there for them," Mr. Bray said, "I wondered at first if he could have anything left — if he could be available emotionally for me. But he always was. As wonderful as he was in public, he was even more wonderful at home."

In addition to Mr. Bray, Mr. Jakino is survived by his sister and their parents, James and Lillian Jakino, all of Durango, and two brothers, Richard, of Montrose, and Michael, of Farmington, N.M. The family will have a private interment-of-ashes ceremony July 26 at Greenmount Cemetery, Durango.

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