In honor of Valentine’s Day, the Colorado Gambler tracked down some of our casino towns’ sweetest couples to share their stories of love.
CTI Sweethearts – Sean and Carol
By Suzanne Paulman
Sean and Carol
One of the sweetest couples you will ever meet is Sean and Carol, who are the front desk ticket sales employees of a shuttle bus service, Casino Transportation Incorporated or CTI, serving Black Hawk and Central City. They work out of the Aurora CTI office located at 13550 E. Mississippi in the Denver metro area.
Sean and Carol have known each other for more than six years. Mutual friends of theirs spent several weeks playing matchmaker and trying to get them to meet at a friend’s house. When they finally met up it was love at first sight and they’ve been together ever since.
“She’s my sweetheart,” Sean declares of Carol after a year and three months of marriage and a blended family, including two children. Thoughts of Sean bring a smile to Carol’s face and she simply says, “He’s the one.”
Sean has been with CTI for more than two years and Carol’s been in the business longer than that. Sean’s flexible work schedule at CTI allows him to attend school at Red Rocks. He says of his schedule, “It’s working perfectly.”
Earlier last week when the temperature was well below zero for several days in a row, Red Rocks was one of the few open schools and Sean dutifully attended his classes. He missed the RTD bus going home and spent about 40 minutes walking home to Lakewood in the sub-zero weather.
Sean laughed about his adventure, saying he was dressed for the weather and the walk didn’t really bother him. This hardy soul has lived in Colorado since 1982 and considers himself as close to a native as he can be without actually having been born here. Sean and Carol call Colorado their home.
Sean and Carol both enjoy working for CTI. Sean originally heard of the job opening at CTI through another family member who works at CTI. When Sean was hired it became a true family affair. Sean and Carol alternate working day shifts, sometimes working as long as 14 hours a day. Carol says on an average day they can help 200-300 people.
Sean loves his job. He has his regular customers and he likes the people a lot who use the shuttle bus service. While the people wait for the bus, they enjoy the fresh hot coffee Sean makes and by far, their favorite newspaper of choice to read while waiting is the Colorado Gambler. No issues are left behind when the riders board the bus for the gaming towns.
CTI operates casino shuttle bus service to Black Hawk and Central City on the hour beginning at 6:30 a.m. and ending at 12:30 a.m. daily from the Aurora office. CTI busses stop at the following casinos: Century and Fortune Valley in Central City, and The Gilpin, Golden Gates, Golden Gulch, Isle Casino Hotel, Lady Luck and Mardi Gras in Black Hawk. Most of the casinos listed offer transportation reimbursement toward a shuttle bus ticket purchase.
Give Sean or Carol a call at 303-341-1066 for more information about the casino shuttle bus service and transportation reimbursement offers. They’ll be more than happy to help you.
A Golden Anniversary: 50 years together, 20 years with the Wild Card
By Linda Jones
Ed & Shirley
These two sweethearts met on a blind date, as many other couples have. Although they grew up not far from each other, there was literally a mountain between them. They didn’t meet in school because Shirley went to New Castle schools and Ed to Rifle schools. But her girlfriend invited Shirley to go on a double date with her boyfriend’s friend, and that was the beginning. The Smiths learned that their parents already knew each other and both Shirley and Ed had been active in 4-H and shown projects in the county fair, but never met each other there. Ed admitted that while his pigs didn’t win a ribbon, Shirley’s steer was Grand Champion of Garfield County.
The two married two years after that fateful blind date, in 1961, so this year is a “golden” one. For most of their married lives they’ve lived on Floyd Hill. They’ve hunted together – deer, elk and bear – and raised four children and now have 11 grandchildren. They started the popular fish farm in Idaho Springs, which their son and daughter-in-law now manage. Ed worked for Gates until 1985, when he rented the Jenkins McKay building on Gregory Street in Black Hawk. Fortunately they continued leasing it until legalized gaming arrived and they started the Wild Card Casino in that location with two partners, Lisa (Schmalz) and Steve Boulter. When they sold that property in 1995, the Wild Card moved to the historic Cracker Factory building on Main Street. The building was reputedly home to the first commercial cracker factory in the country.
Ed is justifiably proud of opening the first casino in Black Hawk in eight hours. He remembers they opened the Wild Card with six temporary licenses at 8 a.m. on Oct. 1, 1991. When they purchased the Black Hawk Station Casino, they again had a link with Steve Boulter, who had been a partner/owner of it. Ed has been gifted with business savvy and he added a grocery store in the back area of the Wild Card, which has proved to be as popular as the casino.
Central City Lovebirds
By Linda Jones
Lisa and Steve
Lisa (Schmalz) and Steve Boulter are the head honchos at Dostal Alley Casino. Lisa is the general manager and Steve says he’s the “head janitor.” Both carry on the Schmalz family tradition of service to the community. Lisa coaches two teams of girls’ basketball while Steve coaches football and Little League baseball and serves on the District 3 Little League Board of Directors and on the Mountain Area Midget Football Association board. They have three sons: Chase 12, Austin, 11, and Blake, 7. All the boys are very involved in the Gilpin School, in academics and sports, and Lisa is also PTO president.
The first Schmalz listing in the Central City directory was in 1958 when Lisa’s grandparents opened a rock shop on Main Street. Her parents, Bruce and Sandy, took over the rock shop in 1972 (when Lisa was a wee girl) and moved the family to Central City. Three of the four children still live in Central and both Bruce and Bruce Jr. – Buddy – have served the town as mayor. Lisa worked in all the family enterprises: T-shirt shop, rock shop and eventually, casino/pizza parlor/micro-brewery.
The two sweethearts were introduced by Lisa’s father and married on Feb. 19, 1994. She was on a break from her Colorado State University studies in Business Administration and Bruce Sr. was working with the group creating and passing Amendment 4 to bring legalized gambling to the town. Steve and his friend Craig Ball came to Central in 1988 to work with that group. Steve and Craig personally gathered 57,000 petition signatures to get Amendment 4 on the ballot in 1990 and Steve is rightfully proud of his gaming license number – 41. As he notes, that’s probably the oldest still-in-use gaming license.
When gaming began on Oct. 1, 1991, Steve and Craig, as well as partners Shirley and Ed Smith, were first in Black Hawk to open a casino, the Wild Card. When Steve and Craig sold out their share of the Wild Card to the Smiths, they opened Black Hawk Station. After 12 years they sold it to a man who later sold it to the Smiths. Small world, isn’t it?
