By Jan MacKell
From Victor to Cripple Creek to Florissant, it seems everyone knows Mark and Lori. Say their names separately and folks might look puzzled. But if you say, “You know, Mark and Lori from Broncos,” most people are likely to reply with a knowing “Ah…” Indeed, after so many years in the Cripple Creek District, these two are amongst the best known couples around. They even have the same birthday, and come complete with the kismet that makes a good pair.
For more than a dozen years, Mark and Lori have been a familiar sight at Bronco Billy’s. He works as a key manager; she is a slot tech. Together, they are just two of the familiar and friendly faces at the casino. In the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, the couple recently enlightened the Colorado Gambler as to how they keep their love alive.
Where are you originally from?
Lori: I was born in Iowa and we moved to Colorado Springs when I was in third grade. I took a side trip to California, but I had to return home. I’ll never leave again, if it’s within my means.
Mark: Puckerbrush, Ohio. You can’t find it on a map, but that’s the area I grew up in. I fell asleep in the back of a turnip truck. It was coming down Wolf Creek Pass on a sharp curve, and I fell off. I’ve been in Colorado now for 32 years.
How long have you been together and how did you meet?
Lori: We’ve been together 13 years and 2 months. We worked for neighboring casinos. Mark worked for the Silver Spur and I worked at Old Chicago [neither casino is in business any longer]. Mark would come over and gamble after he got off work. We knew each other for at least a year, and we’d sit and talk during wintertime when it was slow. So we got to know each other as friends.
Who asked who out first?
Mark: I asked Lori out for dinner. It took her about four months to say yes.
Lori: I was painting my house and I really needed to finish that first. Plus he made me very nervous because I didn’t think I was ready. So it got to be four months later and I decided it would be nice to do something with him and I was done painting. He said we needed to wait because he was getting laid off and needed to get his unemployment first. And I thought, “Boy can I pick ‘em!” I finally asked him if I could just make him dinner and we could watch videos.
Mark: She came to my house and made me dinner. It just started off as a casual friendly-type relationship that developed into romance as time went by.
Where all have you lived together in the Cripple Creek District?
Mark: We’ve always lived in Victor. I was living there when we met and she was living in Florissant. I bought my first house there thinking I was going to be a bachelor the rest of my life, and then when she moved in we realized the house was too small. We always had our eye on the nicest house in Victor Heights, so when it came up for sale we bought it and we’ve been there ever since.
Lori: We bought the house contingent on me telling Mark that I wanted to die there. What I meant was, I’m not moving again. I love our home, it’s history. My mother always says I was born 100 years too late because I love historical things.
Did you ever discuss having to work together and how you would handle it?
Mark: Oh yeah. When Lori got hired about five months after me, we decided immediately that we would keep our relationship at work completely separate from our relationship at home. We would stay professional and job-oriented.
Lori: We had a long talk about the fact that the job I would have would make Mark my supervisor periodically. He asked me, “What happens if you get in trouble?” I said, “I hope I never do, but you’ll have to treat me like you would anyone else.”
So now that time has passed, how do you manage to work together?
Mark: After all this time we’ve stuck to our original agreement. I think we work very well together. Just keeping a professional attitude at work does very well. Being a manager, I can’t let Lori know everything that’s going on, and even at home I can’t share certain information with her. And she understands that that’s the way it has to be.
Lori: Half the time Mark is my direct supervisor, and we’ve always come to work acting very professional. We don’t bring personal things to work. We respect the fact that we sometimes disagree on things, but even at home we don’t ever fight.
Do you ever have a conflict about work?
Mark: Oh yeah, of course we have conflicts. Sometimes she thinks I’m too easy going and I should be more stern, where I feel I can handle the situation with the old-fashioned belief that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.
Lori: We don’t have personal conflicts about work. We may not agree on a policy or how a situation was handled, but for the most part we agree on most things.
Where do you see yourselves in another 10 years?
Mark: Another 10 years. Hmmmm. I see me retired, perhaps running a small business of my own choosing, something I enjoy. And Lori having two jobs.
Lori: I see myself exactly where I am right now. I love Bronco Billy’s. I’ve had a lot of jobs over the years but this is by far the best. I’m good at customer service and they allow me to be me, they let us have fun there, and they take incredible care of us as employees. People are supposed to have 10-year dreams, but I’m very content with my life the way it is. I don’t want to see anything change. I can honestly say that I have never woken up since I went to work for Bronco’s and said, “I don’t want to go to work.” I love my job.
If the two of you could be any animal, what would it be and why?
Lori: That’s easy. We would be wolves. They are loyal, very gentle, they’re intelligent, very loving and family oriented.
Mark: We’d have a carefree lifestyle, living a natural life to its fullest. Wolves are a dominant species on the planet earth. They’re majestic and they’re noble.
