ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — Along the path to the Benedict Music Tent is an inconspicuous sign acknowledging an awfully conspicuous name.
"Garden Court given by Linda and Ken Lay Family" reads the small blue marker just outside the Aspen Music Festival and School's award-winning performance hall nestled among aspen trees, well-manicured lawns and wide-open meadows.
The philanthropic deeds of Lay, who died of a heart attack in Aspen earlier this month, and the spectacular collapse of the company he founded, Enron Corp., have institutions and organizations questioning where their appreciation of good deeds ends and their detachment from genuinely bad ones begins.
Lay's alma mater, the University of Missouri, is debating what to do with its endowed Kenneth L. Lay Chair in Economics, created by his donation of more than $1 million in Enron stock that the university sold before the company collapse. The professorship has not been filled.
Officials running the 40,000-seat stadium for the Houston Astros repaid Enron $2.1 million to sponge the corporation's soiled name from the ballpark. They went so far as to tape over Enron's name on a clock face at the stadium, which eventually was renamed Minute Maid Park.
Less clear is how to handle the fingerprints Lay — who was convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges in his energy company's demise — left in Aspen.
"We're not going to make a comment on this. It's a private board matter and we prefer not to say anything," said Aspen Music Festival and School spokeswoman Janice Szabo. She noted the garden court outside the Benedict Music Tent was dedicated to the Lays in 2000, a year before Enron became a worldwide emblem of corporate malfeasance.
Ask a once-faithful Enron employee about whether the Aspen Music Festival and School ought to keep the Lay name, and the response is straight to the point.
"I'm not too much in favor of it myself. Look at what he's done to us," said Charles Prestwood, 67, who reportedly lost $1.3 million in retirement savings after Enron went bankrupt.
Each month, Prestwood said, he barely pays his bills with the Social Security checks he receives. "He stole all of our money. . . . It is real easy to give someone else's money away."
Prestwood said he began working for Houston Natural Gas in March 1967. In 1985, Houston Natural Gas merged with Omaha, Neb.-based InterNorth to form Enron. In October 2000, Preston retired — just as Enron began its fall.
"The executives outright lied to us. They told us, 'You boys hang on to your stock. It's going to get better,' " said Prestwood from his Houston-area home, adding that he is living off about $800 a month. "If I knew there was something wrong with that company, I would've jumped ship. All of us would have.
"Ken Lay wasn't doing his job. If he would have, I wouldn't be living in poverty today."
While accused of robbing from the poor to give to the rich, Lay's charitable donations cannot be denied.
In 2001, tax records show, the Linda and Ken Lay Family Foundation contributed more than $6.1 million to everything from the American Liver Foundation ($58,000) to the Aspen Historical Society ($2,000).
Tax records show that just before bad times struck in 2001, the Lays contributed to a multitude of local interests including the Aspen Camp School for the Deaf ($1,250), Aspen Chapel ($2,500), The Aspen Institute ($10,000), Aspen Junior Hockey ($500), Aspen Santa Fe Ballet ($1,200), Aspen Theatre in the Park ($5,000) and the Aspen Valley Community Foundation ($9,000).
"I know the Lay story more than most in the Aspen area," said Dr. Phyllis Bronson, a founder of Aspen Clinic for Preventive and Environmental Medicine, which has received money from Lay. "I am very close to the family so of course I would like to see Ken's name redeemed. But now is probably not the time. . ."
Public relations experts hold a different view.
"An organization's reputation takes years to build and it can be destroyed in a heartbeat," said Jeanette Darnauer, owner and founder of Aspen-based Darnauer Group LLC. "I think the music festival should do what's right to maintain their integrity and to protect their reputation. . . .
"Ken Lay was convicted of hurting a lot of people. Any continued association with him is negative for the festival. I don't think they should disgrace their name by continuing to honor him by leaving his name in a place the public can see."