Hugh Warren Pitzer Jr., former mayor and marshal of Nederland, Colorado, died on January 3, 2022. He was 88. The Colorado native and his wife Erma lived in Boulder County.
During his law enforcement career in Washington D. C. and Nederland, Hugh was known for his K-9 police work. He was also celebrated for his persistence as a runner in the “Ned-Ned’’ race each year in Nederland. After running for years with his granddaughter Jessica, he “won” the 2009 race in his age class one year after suffering a massive stroke.
Hugh Warren Pitzer Jr. was born September 30, 1933, in a farmhouse in Evergreen, Colorado, the youngest of four children of Hugh Pitzer and Wilma Grace (Young) Pitzer. Hugh enlisted in the Navy in 1951 in San Diego and served on the destroyer USS Ross. While the USS Ross was based at the Philadelphia Navy Yard being converted to support hightech radar, Hugh met Erma Bianchini on a blind date when Erma was a USO volunteer. They were married in 1954 and moved to the Washington D.C. area, where Hugh went to work as an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department. He retired 22 years later as a sergeant.
Shortly after he was on the Metropolitan Police force, he became a K-9 officer and a top trainer of police dogs. His son Mike Pitzer recounts how in the 1960s he was approached to train dogs to find narcotics. “At the time,” he said, “dogs became addicted to narcotics in order to be able to find them, but my father refused to do that and developed a way to train them without resorting to getting the dogs addicted. Once the testing of the new method was completed and successful, my father was then flown out to Los Angeles with his dog Narcle and the dog was handed over to the Los Angeles Police Department to start his very successful career in the war against narcotics.” Training and testing drug sniffing dogs were featured in 1969 on the TV show Dragnet, and Hugh visited the set. Hugh later went on to be an official who judged dog trainers around the country.
In 1978 after he retired; the Pitzers moved to Turkey Rock, Colorado, and later Nederland, where Hugh served as marshal from 1979 to 1984 and then mayor from 1984 to 1986. His law enforcement approach in the mountains was to “smother people with kindness,” his son Mike said.
Hugh suffered a massive stroke in 2008 just before that year’s Ned-Ned race, and Mike ran in his place. But in 2009, at age 72, Hugh Pitzer was back. According to an August 13, 2009 story in the Daily Camera, Hugh Pitzer was the runner who “drew the biggest cheers…finished the 5K race in 45:01, good enough for 66th place overall….No longer able to run, Pitzer was allowed to start walking in the latter part of the course [and because] Pitzer was also the lone 5K runner from the men’s 70-79 age group,” in effect he had a first-place finish for that age group.
Later, the Pitzers moved to Pensacola, Florida, to be near son Kurt, but returned to Colorado in March, 2020 to be near son Phil, family, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Hugh is survived by his wife of 67 years, Erma, and sons Kurt (Melodee) of Florida, Michael (Nancy) of Virginia, and Phil (Jane) of Colorado. He had 11 grandchildren: Hugh IV, Faith, Robbie, Kevin, Joe, Keith, Shannon, Michael, Jessica, Katie, Stevie; eight great-grandchildren and several nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by son Hugh Pitzer (Dawn) in 2012, daughter Stephanie Call (Jerry) in 2014, grandson Stevie in 2016, and great-grandson Wyatt in 2018.
A celebration of life will be held on January 29, 2022 at 11 a.m. at St. Rita’s Catholic Church, 326 Highway 119, Nederland, Colorado. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in his name to your local Humane Society.
