Beautiful 35-year-old friendship began in a Denver juvenile court

DENVER — Starting at 11 years old, Felicia Atencio went to Gilliam Youth Services Center in Denver for criminal charges. She called the youth detention center her “home away from home” for most of her teenage years. Atencio said she was in and out of detention holding and group homes until she turned 18. 

Decades after feeling many adults were giving up on her, she visits the Prairie Vista Youth Services Center in Brighton every Monday to mentor kids. Prairie Vista is a juvenile detention center that holds youth awaiting court appearances or serving short sentences of no more than 45 days. 

“I was told I was a mistake. I was too far gone. There was no hope,” she said. “It’s the same with a lot of these kids. They don’t have anybody to say positive things to them. They don’t have anyone to say I am proud of you. I didn’t have that until Kent came along.”

Every time she goes to Prairie Vista, she thinks of Kent Spangler. Spangler was working as a guardian ad litem (GALs) in Denver Juvenile Court when he got assigned to Atencio. 

Because of the impact Spangler made on her life, Atencio now mentors kids at the youth detention center. 

Now, they’ve known each other for 35 years. 9NEWS asked them to come together to talk about their friendship and why they want more people to help kids in the criminal justice system. 

“For me, it was several GALs giving up on me prior to you coming into my life and all of them said the same thing. All of them said I was a loss cause,” she said. “To think someone like [Spangler] saw the good in me even when there was no good in me.”

“There was always good in you and just needed to draw it out and your stubbornness has led us here. Right?” Spangler said.

“I remember looking at you crazy. Like did you read my rap sheet? Did you read all the bad things that I did?” Atencio asked Spangler.

Atencio said during her teenage years, she faced at least 20 charges from burglary to trespassing to assault.

“I think what people don’t realize is you were 12, 13. You were still a child and this piece of paper that had all of these things that you had done wasn’t you,” Spangler said. 

“For me, I am just grateful that you took that on. Telling me that you are proud of me and things like that have been the things I always needed in my life,” Atencio said. 

Atencio now pours the same kind of love into kids at Prairie Vista that Spangler poured into her. 

“That is the message I want to get out,” Spangler said. “You don’t have to be talented. You don’t have to be schooled. You just have to show up.”

“This one person changed my world and now its coming full circle. I get to pour into those kids in the same way he poured into me,” Atencio said.