For years, people flying into Denver International Airport were greeted by the smiling face of Mayor Michael Hancock and the sound of his voice in the packed trains heading from concourses to the terminal. But there's a new mayor in town. It only took Mike Johnston a month to record his own greeting for the trains' captive audiences; the audio file started running onboard last Friday.
Jordan Fuja, Johnston's spokesperson, said he wrote this little poem himself:
Welcome to Denver.
I'm Mayor Mike Johnston.
There is so much our vibrant city has to offer.
Hiking.
Biking.
Catching a show at Red Rocks.
Museums.
Theaters.
And you can wash it all down
with America's best beer.
There's another sentence in there welcoming people. Here's a video of him recording it:
While the DIA media team did not say if there's a requirement for a sitting mayor to lay down voice tracks, they said he was "very excited to record his first train call."
On the operational side, Johnston's team recently released transition documents related to all kinds of things, including the airport. While the DIA document states the airport is in good financial health, it notes that its slow-moving construction projects are still an issue. The document says construction on the Great Hall will probably drag on for five more years. Moreover, construction is expensive, and there are a lot of projects to address growth and customer needs that still must be completed.
Also, we fact checked Johnston's assertion that Denver has "America's best beer." Subjective as it may be, Denver only won three gold medals in the Great American Beer Fest's 99 categories last year. And GABF will be back next month, so there will probably be people touching down on the tarmac who think otherwise.
Want some more random DIA content? Check out these stories on the guy who selects the music in the concourses, the people who try to race across Concourse B in under 19 seconds, the people who try to keep birds from getting smacked by planes and a lovely portrait of the airport's shoeshiners.
