Ray Aguilera was sitting next to an elementary school student from Pueblo's Bessemer neighborhood at a Colorado Rockies baseball game when he gave him a few dollars to grab a hot dog from the concession stand.
It was his annual trip to Denver, when he chartered buses and brought dozens of students to a game as a reward for learning vocabulary, oftentimes exposing them to the delight of Coors Field and the state’s capital city for the first time: the smell of freshly cut grass, the aroma of stadium food and the tradition of the seventh inning stretch.
Friends say he relished the smiles on those children’s faces more than the game itself.