Wayne Trujillo

June marks a milestone for Alvertis Simmons and his legacy, the Simmons Foundation for Youth and Change. The foundation’s flagship event is the annual Life Skills and Basketball Camp that celebrates its 20th anniversary with an event addition that hits close to his heart. While the basketball competition between minority youth and law enforcement remains the event’s primary spectator sport, a special day honoring his departed daughter, Tilyn Walker, will also take place.

It’s a distance from Denver’s Five Points to Paris and Pisa. It’s an even further stretch to imagine a boy stumbling on his future forte by traveling the distance from his haunts in the hood to Europe’s great art meccas. As a youth, John Toms had scarcely a clue, let alone an inspiration, to predict that trek across a couple of continents and an ocean would ultimately lead him back to Denver and his present position as an artist with widespread recognition and acclaim.

It’s been 14 years since Denver Urban Spectrum covered Dr. Farrah Gray.