Las Animas County Communities Remember Several Residents Lost in Early April

Mike Lewis, whose obituary appeared on the regional Legacy.com feed on April 8, is among several Las Animas County residents remembered in the first week of April 2026. His notice was posted alongside those of Michael Richard "Mickey" Griego, who lived in Trinidad, and Wanda M. Martin, part of a cluster of early April memorials carried on the same platform families across this stretch of southern Colorado use to announce services and gather condolences.

The most immediate service is today: Melvin Douglas Dethlefs has a memorial scheduled at VFW Post 3271 in Raton, New Mexico, 21 miles south of Trinidad. That Raton connection runs throughout this stretch of memorials. KRTN Enchanted Air Radio, the Raton-based broadcaster that regularly publishes obituaries for the wider Las Animas County region, carried notices this past month for Walter "Wally" Louis Chaves, who died March 14; Loretta Bernice Colangelo, who died March 26; Leroy Valencia, who died March 30; and Ellen Davis Dameron, who died March 7.

The frequency of notices in a county this size is not surprising. Las Animas County's 14,555 residents carry a median age of 48.4, roughly ten years above Colorado's statewide median of 37.7, and 25.7 percent of residents are 65 or older. That older-than-average profile, spread across a 4,775-square-mile county, the largest in Colorado, means death notices are a consistent and carefully followed part of civic life, from Trinidad's 8,329 residents to small settlements such as Branson, the southernmost town in Colorado.

Those who knew Mike Lewis, Mickey Griego, Melvin Dethlefs, or any of the others lost in recent weeks can leave tributes and photographs through the guestbooks attached to each Legacy.com notice. The Dethlefs memorial at VFW Post 3271 in Raton begins today.