Section: People
Metro State's success begins with…Thomas Corona
Oct 3, 2007

Associate Professor of Meteorology Thomas Corona draws a parallel between his work as a professor and performing on stage.

Associate Professor of Meteorology Thomas Corona does not consider himself a funny person, but his song parodies might sing a different tune.

For the sixth year in a row, Corona will join Denver media and political types in the Denver Press Club’s annual Gridiron Show on Oct. 14 at the Donald Seawell Ballroom at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. He has written a number of song parodies and performed in a multitude of skits each year and is again forecasting big laughs for this year’s installment, which promises to poke fun at last winter’s snowstorm follies in Denver, President Bush, blogging and the latest marijuana initiative.

Corona, who has been at the College for more than 26 years, is quick to draw the parallel between his stage work and his work at Metro State.

“You have to have a certain amount of ham in you to either get up on stage and perform or get in front of a group of people in a classroom because a lot of it is a performance,” Corona explains. “You’re teaching them. You’re imparting knowledge to them, but you have to make it interesting. You just can’t fade into the blackboard and expect them to pay attention.”

It would seem that Corona found satire much like he found meteorology—by accident. He says he was a typical college freshman searching for a career that sang to his sensibilities and aptitudes. With a firm footing in math and science, he began in engineering but quickly found himself interested in meteorology at Rutgers University–Cook College in New Jersey. Corona says it wasn’t until he was entrenched in his atmospheric science graduate studies at Colorado State University and began teaching that he fully appreciated the field.

“Once you know that you have to teach students and you have to know more than them, you really start to appreciate the field that you’re in,” he says with a chuckle.

Corona says his friendship with Denver Press Club President Bruce Goldberg led to his initial involvement with the annual Gridiron Show. He adds that perhaps his most celebrated song parody—a post 9/11 version of Country Joe McDonald’s iconic “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag”—was born of that first show in 2002.

With lyrics that encourage the American public to go on a spending frenzy, Corona’s “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Buy Rag” pokes fun at the then-impending military conflict in the Middle East with ripe dollars and sense.

Come on all you big-time spenders, support the war and go on a bender,
The NASDAQ’s down and lay-offs are spreadin’,
It’s your patriotic duty to go on spendin’,
Put on a coat, go buy yourself a boat, and a Chevy Suburban.

As a veteran educator, Corona says he’s quite proud of Metro State’s meteorology program and its continued growth through the years. He adds that graduates have gone on to forecast the weather on major market television stations, research comets and become professors at major universities.

“That’s where the satisfaction comes from is seeing how well they’ve succeeded,” says Corona.