Did You Know the Mayor of Georgetown, Colorado is a Dog?
Never forget how strange Colorado can be, sometimes.
Not unlike the state of Florida, strange behavior seems to be baked into the Colorado DNA. I mean, how else would you describe celebrating the Denver Nuggets' NBA Championship with a mass shooting? I don't care who you are or where you come from: if you think a celebration isn't complete until somebody gets shot, then I am being generous in describing you as strange.
The Centennial State's penchant for odd activities isn't unique to sports celebrations, though. Coloradans also like to leave their strangest marks on our local politics, which is the only explanation I can come up with as to why a dog was named the mayor of Georgetown, Colorado.
Parker the Snow Dog was named honorary mayor of Georgetown back in 2020, but he started making news again in 2023 after the Denver Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat to win the first-ever NBA Championship for the Centennial State. The day after the Nuggets' win, Parker's owner, Dustin Schaefer, put together a congratulations video for the team, featuring highlights of the canine mayor in a Nuggets jersey. This may go down as the most adorable recognition of Denver's success this year.
You may have noticed that Parker is the town's honorary mayor, meaning that the people of Georgetown don't actually have a puppy in charge of approving local legislation, which I'd say is probably the right call. Parker the Snow Dog is far from the first animal mayor in US history, however. In fact, back in 2014, Stubbs the Cat was almost able to use his 1997 mayoral win in Talkeetna, Alaska as a springboard to a successful write-in Senate campaign. Then there's Duke the Dog, who was elected mayor of Cormorant, Michigan in 2014.