Former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm died Thursday after suffering a pulmonary embolism.

He was 86.

Lamm was surrounded by friends and family when he passed.

His wife, Dottie, said in a statement they were grateful for his life well lived and in service to his beloved Colorado.

Details on a memorial service are forthcoming.

Lamm will be remembered throughout history for the three terms he served as governor from 1975 to 1987, some unorthodox viewpoints, and for generally being just a nice guy in person.

He didn’t shy away from controversy, as the mainstream media felt obliged to over report in his obituaries. 

Many Coloradans are still miffed Lamm led the effort to turn away the Winter Olympics in 1976, our country’s bicentennial. 

Lamm opposed the Olympics coming to Colorado again in 2018 citing environmental concerns. 

The left still hasn’t forgiven him, apparently, for his attempted takeover of the Sierra Club’s national board in 2004 on a population platform that argued in favor of immigration control.

From the Denver Gazette: 

Carl Pope, then the executive director of the Sierra Club, said Lamm’s supporters were “in bed with racists.”

But the Denver Post really crossed the line in their treatment of Lamm’s obituary by painting him as a racist. 

Lamm later became a hardline critic of immigration and was an advisor to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which the Southern Poverty Law Center considers to be a hate group due to its ties to white supremacists.

But we will forever remember Lamm for his most famous statement made in 1984 about the human condition:

“We’ve got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life.”

And so he did.

Rest in peace, Governor Lamm.