Honoring Glenn Morris, 1936 Olympic champion
and film Tarzan No. 9, and enjoying the beauty of Colorado will be two
of the main attractions of the 2004 Dum Dum. It is set for June 25-26 in
Fort Collins, the home of Colorado State University.
Mike Chapman will host the event. He is author
of the book The Gold and The Glory, which is the biography
of Glenn Morris. He also hosted the 1997 Dum Dum in Newton, Iowa.
Mike offered Fort Collins to be the 2004 host
site due to Glenn Morris’s connection to Tarzan, and because of the geographical
beauty of the setting. Mike currently lives in Newton, Iowa, but was sports
editor of the Fort Collins newspaper in the 1970s.
“Dum-Dum people who have never been to
Fort Collins are in for a real treat,” said Mike. “The Rocky Mountains
flank Fort Collins on its western side and provide a majestic landscape.
It is a beautiful setting.”
Mike’s two daughters live there and he visits
the city frequently. He spent several days in Fort Collins in November
to begin building interest in the Dum Dum. He met with the mayor, the executive
director of the Fort Collins Convention and Visitors Bureau, and was also
the guest speaker at seven different service organizations … all within
a three-day period. He was also interviewed on the largest radio station
in Fort Collins.
“The mayor is going to declare Saturday,
June 26, as Glenn Morris Day in Fort Collins,” said Mike. “He has
pledged to help support the weekend event in any way he can. And so has
the director of the convention and visitors bureau. They are really excited
about this event coming to Fort Collins.”
The Dum Dum will be held at the
Ramada Inn,
which sits just 100 yards off of Interstate 25, the busiest freeway in
the entire state. It connects Fort Collins (a city of 150,000) to Denver
(50 miles south) and Cheyenne, Wyoming (35 miles north).
The basic rate is $59 a night for Dum-Dum
attendees.
You can call 970-484-4660 to make your
reservation.
Mike also met with officials from Colorado State
University, where Morris was a standout athlete in both football and track.
The college officials are also excited about the event coming to Fort Collins.
“Colorado
State University athletic people think this is wonderful,” said Mike.
“They
are going to promote the event on their web site and in press releases.”
The Dum Dum weekend will include showing of Glenn’s
Tarzan film, “Tarzan’s Revenge,” and two other films he appeared
in. “Decathlon Champion” is a ten-minute short produced shortly
after his gold-medal performance in the Berlin Olympics.
“Hold That
Co-Ed” is a campus comedy starring George Murphy, Joan Davis and
John Barrymore. Morris plays a college football star and is seen throughout
the film.
A local running club is hosting a Glenn Morris
5K run on Friday, June 25. It will begin at 6 p.m. at the South College
Fieldhouse ? the very spot where Glenn Morris trained for the Olympics
in 1936. Dum Dum attendees will be able to walk on the indoor track where
Glenn trained and see the brand new “Glenn Morris-CSU Track Hall of Fame”
that has been established in the South College Fieldhouse.
The gold medal that Glenn won in 1936 in Berlin
in the decathlon will be on display during the Dum Dum. Morris Ververs,
a former high school principal in Glenn’s hometown of Simla, Colorado,
is the custodian of the gold medal. He and Jim Larson, who served with
Glenn Morris in the Navy during World War II, will both attend the convention.
Denny Miller, who played Tarzan in 1959 and starred
on the TV hit series “Wagon Train,” will be one of the special guests in
Fort Collins. He has just written his autobiography and it will be available
at the Dum Dum.
A panel discussion is being planned to discuss
the careers of the four Olympic athletes who played Tarzan ? Johnny Weissmuller,
Herman Brix, Buster Crabbe and Glenn Morris. Mike says he is working on
several other major guests.
More details will be forthcoming soon.
Read a Glenn Morris Article Reprint in ERBzine
0643
