Duane G. "Shorty" Lankford

As a Wall-Street Investment Banker, a global Adventure Travel Guide, a college athlete, a chef, and a longtime Rocky Mountain National Park Volunteer Ranger, Duane G. “Shorty” Lankford lived a life overflowing with adventures and accomplishments across more than eight decades on five continents. The eldest son of two young college students, Duane was born near the Colorado State University campus in Fort Collins, Colorado in 1932. In 1927, his father, William Oliver Lankford, was a celebrated Colorado state-champion athlete who went on to work as both a professional baseball player and a college football and basketball coach at CSU Alamosa. He married another CSU student Irish-American girl, Mary Martha Lago, from the Colorado mining district of Cripple Creek, Colorado. The couple soon moved to the CSU Greeley campus to complete Mary’s education degree. With two boys to raise, Duane and his younger brother Larry, the family finally settled in Longmont. Following his father’s untimely death, Duane’s mother Mary Martha moved with her two young sons to the outskirts of Lowry Airforce Base in Denver, where she worked as a WWII era Jeep driver for visiting military VIPs. After the war ended, she worked for the next four decades as a public school teacher in Jefferson County, Colorado — finally, passing away at the age of 102 under her son Duane’s care in Estes Park in 2009. As teenagers Duane and his younger brother Larry both attended Denver’s East High School. Duane graduated as a senior in 1950. Both boys were award winning-athletes and distinguished scholars, and even worked side by side as professional cowboys during summers for the Geneva Glen Camp in Indian Hills high above Denver. With help from a scholarship at the University of Denver, Duane put himself through school by working nights as a cook at Denver’s Stapleton Airport, and summers up at Central City’s famous Teller House Hotel restaurant — where he was rigorously trained to prepare classical French cuisine by a celebrated European master chef. In 1955, Duane married his East High School sweetheart Eleanor “Polly” Scott in her family’s home in Denver. Their growing family soon included his eldest son Scott, born in 1957; his second son Kurt, born in 1959; and their youngest child Becky, born in 1963. Working for Bache and Company in downtown Denver, Duane soon built a nationwide reputation as an investment banker in the Municipal Bond industry — eventually earning senior positions in Beverly Hills, on Wall Street, and in San Francisco prior to founding his own firm here in Colorado, Duane G. Lankford and Company. Throughout his long career, he financed municipal and regional water infrastructure projects in dozens of large and small towns across the Intermountain West, including foundational infrastructure projects in both Aspen and Breckenridge. Having mastered mountaineering and cross-country skiing, Duane co-founded an early adventure-travel company named The Wilderness Institute in 1972, both leading and participating in dozens of treks and expeditions from the Himalayas to Africa, from Europe to Alaska, and from Mexico to South America for the next twenty years. After his first marriage ended, Duane met and married Jariyaporn “Kartoon” Lankford in 1991. Following their honeymoon in her native Thailand — and a trek to Mount Everest in Nepal! — the couple soon settled down in their forever-home in Estes Park, proudly serving together as Volunteer Rangers in Rocky Mountain National Park for decades. Hiking and skiing well into his 80s — often with an oxygen tank strapped to his belt! — Duane passed away peacefully from emphysema with his family by his side at the age of 93 inside the same Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins where he was born in 1932 . He is survived by his wife Jariyaporn Lankford, his eldest son Scott Lankford, his daughter Becky Wayland, and his Thai step-son Kittisak Philachai. No memorial service date has been announced. On his last full day on earth, he surprised us all by singing a few favorite songs (on key, and by heart!) for family members gathered at his bedside. The very last song he sang for us that day — an old cowboy ballad about a renegade stallion named “Skyball Paint”, harking back to his own teenage years as a Wrangler at Geneva Glen Camp — captures Shorty’s own adventurous and rebellious spirit perfectly: Skyball Paint was a devil’s saint And his eyes were fiery red. Good men have tried that horse to ride And all of them are dead. Well I won’t brag, but I rode that nag ‘Till his blood began to boil. When I hit the ground I ate three pounds Of good old Texas soil. Singin’ yipee ti-yo, whoopie ti-yo Ride ‘em high and down you go. Sons of the Western soil. The next morning, listening to Luciano Pavarotti hit the high note in the final notes of his favorite opera aria, “Recondita armonia” from Puccini’s “Tosca,” Duane drew his own final breath in peace.

Duane G. "Shorty" Lankford

August 5, 2025