Virginia Culver, who spent 44 years at The Denver Post covering religion and reporting news obituaries, died Sunday in Denver. She was 84.
The irreverent journalist, nicknamed “the Rev” by some colleagues and “God” by others, forged a career out of explaining the intersection of religion and rapidly changing social values. Later, she memorialized the lives of Coloradans who otherwise would never have made headlines.
“This was Virginia’s gift: helping readers understand the world around them and the people whose names they’d never heard,” Denver Post Editor Lee Ann Colacioppo said. “She wasn’t in this business to do big news investigations. She wanted to tell stories, and she did it with unfailing energy for four decades — trailblazing a presence in the newsroom and setting a standard, especially for young women, on how to be tough, generous, and fair.”
Born in 1941 to parents who had lived in a railcar during the Depression-era Dust Bowl, Culver grew up in Eads near the Kansas state line. Her father owned a service station, and her mother worked as both a teacher and caterer. Both nurtured her lifelong love of classical music.
Fascinated by the intrigues of her small town, she reported for her high school newspaper and went on to study journalism at the University of Colorado before starting work at the Lamar Daily News.
In 1967, Culver landed a job at the big-city Denver Post, where she met John Snyder, her editor, whom she married the following year. He died four years later, leaving her widowed in her early 30s. She never remarried and kept the name Virginia Snyder in her private life.
The deaths of her husband and her sister, Margaret, when they were both young, remained deeply personal and were conversation stoppers for Culver. “Too hard, don’t go there,” she would signal. Period. Full stop.
Culver briefly covered women’s clubs before becoming the paper’s religion editor — a role that largely entailed culling wire copy and posting notices about church meetings. At the time, The Post didn’t give women bylines in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But within a decade, she had transformed her role into a hard news beat vital to helping readers understand the evolving role of faith in social change.
She reported on how various faiths responded to abortion rights and feminism in the 1970s. In the 1980s, she wrote about cultists and faith healers, the rise of megachurches, and the downfalls of televangelists mired in money and sex scandals.
Culver broke the news of Pope John Paul II’s 1993 visit to Colorado for World Youth Day, closely covering the event — even flying from Rome with the pontiff.
For decades, she chronicled the emergence of female and openly LGBTQ clergy members in various denominations, as well as debates over embracing civil unions between same-sex couples. She reported on anti-Semitism in Colorado following the 1984 killing of Jewish radio host Alan Berg, and wrote about Islamophobia after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, at times facing criticism for giving Muslims a voice.
Throughout her career, Culver cultivated long-lasting relationships with clergy members, lay leaders, and spiritual followers across Colorado — sources she affectionately called “my people,” even though, as an atheist, she did not share their faith.
After being reassigned from the religion beat in 2002, Culver worked for nine years writing obituaries — turning what she initially considered a professional slight into an act of creativity. Rather than memorializing business magnates and the wealthy, she focused on lives led by strong women, rebels, and makers of art, music, and wonder.
One obituary celebrated the life of a Bureau of Reclamation photographer who transitioned from male to female and built miniature circuses. Another told the story of a Colorado Springs magician who made a living by suspending his wife in midair.
“She didn’t bend, she didn’t kowtow after being put on obituaries, which she considered a slap. She just stepped up and wrote those pieces beautifully,” said Cindy Parmenter, a college classmate and fellow Post reporter, who stayed close to Culver for 65 years.
Both professionally and personally, Culver relished juicy stories about colorful characters. She liked her food bland, but preferred her gossip spicy and her language salty. She rarely minced words, faked smiles, or suffered fools, chauvinists, or mansplainers.
The winner of dozens of journalism awards, Culver was a pioneer. In 1970, she elbowed her way into the all-male Denver Press Club as its first female member. She created biting nicknames for editors and colleagues who annoyed her. For her friends at the paper — and there were many — she kept a stash of chocolates in her desk drawer.
Culver brought fresh fruit every day through two pregnancies for a reporter who sat across from her — one of several generations of women in the newsroom whose work she championed and with whom she stayed close long after they moved on from The Post.
“To have succeeded in the newspaper business, we had to support each other. That’s how you got by. Neither the world nor journalism were open to us. We had to fight our way,” Parmenter said.
Culver also had a playful side, with weak spots for puns, pinwheels, and Cracker Jack prizes. Well into her 60s, she kept a scooter in the downtown Denver newsroom. The massive workspace was like a small town to her. Scooting from desk to desk, she was the authority on its intrigues.
Despite her criticisms of The Post as it evolved in the online era, the paper gave Culver her most prized identity and community. She loved news, the company of people who gather it, and the honor of telling stories about her native state.
An inscription on a newsroom wall read: “’Tis a Privilege to Live in Colorado.” Long after her retirement in 2011, Culver remained deeply grateful to be part of the community.
As Colacioppo told it, “There’s a reason the staff stood and cheered, applauded, and even cried a bit as she left for the last time. We knew we were saying farewell to a giant in our newsroom.”
In her later years, Culver battled respiratory and heart diseases, caused in part by her decades-long smoking habit — the only upside being the hours she spent socializing with Post colleagues on cigarette breaks.
In recent years, she concealed her health challenges from family and friends, pushing away those trying to care for her or help with end-of-life planning.
“Virginia had no plans of going anywhere,” said her nephew, Kyle Culver. “More than anybody I’ve known, she didn’t want to be told what to do,” added Parmenter.
Shifting in and out of consciousness over the last week, the lifelong Democrat surprised friends on Thursday as they discussed politics at her bedside. “(Expletive) Trump,” she blurted out. Those were among her last coherent words before she passed Sunday morning at Intermountain Health Hospice in Wheat Ridge.
Culver might have tried micromanaging this obituary from the afterlife if it weren’t for the fact that she didn’t believe in an afterlife. She winced at the verb “passed on” instead of “died.”
“Once it’s over, it’s over,” she insisted — although she had recently sought other views about what happens after.
“She seemed curious toward the end,” said Bonnie Gilbert, a former Post staffer and dear friend. “I think she knew the situation with her health and was afraid,” Parmenter added. “All of us, especially as we get older, worry about where we’re going from here.”
Virginia Culver was preceded in death by her husband John, sister Margaret, parents Bill and Hilda Culver, and brother Gene Culver.
Along with her nephew Kyle and his daughter Lauren — who were at her side Sunday — she is survived by nieces Kyna and Keri Culver. She is also mourned by a wide circle of friends with whom she spent years traveling, attending theater and concert performances, meeting for dinners each Friday, brunch each Sunday, and discussing everything from authoritarianism to the afterlife.
Her family and friends will gather at the Press Club later this fall to celebrate her life and legacy over dark chocolate and red wine with ice cubes — her favorites.
Susan Greene is a former Denver Post reporter and columnist.
https://www.denverpost.com/2025/09/23/virginia-culver-snyder-denver-post-obituary/