DENVEr — There's a woman at the Denver Elections Division that members refer to as an institution. Reverend Josephine Falls earned that title by putting in the time as an election judge for 35 years.
"When you see the Rev that means it’s election time," said Alton Dillard, the Public Information Officer for the Denver Elections Division.
Always in a beret, sometimes a sparkly one, like the silver sequined one she wore on Wednesday, Falls is hard to miss.
“I just feel like this is a duty that I should show up," said Falls about her job as an election judge.
It's a duty, even though she turned 90 in April.
“The Lord just keeps waking me up and giving me strength," she said.
Reverend Falls was a Denver Police Department Chaplain for 25 years, and she's the mother of 10 children.
When she moved to Colorado from Mississippi, she had a 10th-grade education because that's as much as her segregated high school offered.
In Denver, she learned she could go back to school even though that was unheard of in Mississippi where she grew up.
“I thought uh uh, no, because I’m not supposed to be going to school," she said. "I have children. I’m married."
But she got her high school diploma through Emily Griffith and fell in love with education. That's what prompted her to vote in her first election in 1952.
"It makes you feel a part," she said about voting.
Her position as an election judge several weeks out of every year gives her pride, and she wants others to share that pride too.
"I said please you've got to take this," she laughed, describing the time a voter did not want a sticker. "I was insistent on him taking this. I say, wear it proudly, wear it proudly."
She gives voters two stickers, one for the day they hand in their ballot, and a second to wear on election day.
Maybe it will serve as a reminder for someone else to vote.
“Please, please cast your vote because it’s necessary," she said. "One day you’re going to need it. Please. Please. Go to school, get your education, but vote.”
And if you don't, don't complain to The Rev.
“If you don’t vote, don’t talk to me and say nothin' negative," she said. "Because you didn’t vote. You can’t tell me nothing."