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KENNETH LAY'S ASPEN

Loyal Lay Associates Attend Private Aspen Service

By David Frey, 7-10-06

Everyone knows Aspen has changed. The days of silver miners, Quiet Years ranchers, counter-culture tune-in-turn-on-drop-outers are, respectively, over. So too, almost, are the days of celebrities seeking solitude. Glitter Gulch has gone to gazillionaires.

If we didn?t already know it was coming, the death of former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay in Old Snowmass sent us a reminder. Aspen has become a place for corporate tycoons to seek refuge. Aspen was a refuge for Lay, especially during the legal battles that followed him to his death.

It is also an escape for many of his Houston colleagues. As they filtered into the Aspen Chapel on Sunday for Lay?s private memorial service, Shelby Hodge, the society columnist for the Houston Chronicle, ticked off CEO after CEO. Many of Houston?s elite, she said, also have homes in Aspen.

?It?s the crowd I totally expected to see,? Hodge told me for a story I wrote for the Aspen Daily News, glimpsing mourners as they entered. ?Friends that didn?t desert them and people who have maintained a loyal friendship with the family.?

Under looming clouds and periodic showers, attendees entered and left the chapel behind a screen of security guards? umbrellas. Lay?s family members entered in an entourage of three SUVs led by a Pitkin County deputy.

Among those in attendance were Lay?s co-defendant, Jeffrey Skilling, and Skilling?s attorney Daniel Petrocelli.

?It was very moving,? said Fred Malek, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Thayer Capital Partners and a former advisor to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and the first President Bush. ?It brought back the philanthropic man that he was.?

Organ music could be heard coming from the chapel, where tables were set with white tablecloths for a reception of wine and appetizers. After the service, many attendees mingled outside, despite periodic showers, largely hidden from reporters by a row of aspen trees.

Asked about the message of the service, one man said, ?Ken?s with Jesus,? as he stepped into a Hummer with Texas license plates. ?If I have a service like that, I?ll be a blessed man.?

Another memorial service is scheduled on Wednesday at the First United Methodist Church in Houston.