Planes have never landed at Stapleton Airport in Denver. (Class of 2017, #25)

Once in a while the Mindset List creators don’t even bother to pretend they are chronicling “cultural touchstones” or imparting useful information about incoming college students and just throw in some item that is likely based on some personal memory or inside joke. Maybe one of them or one of their friends used to live Denver. Maybe there is some senile professor at Beloit who gives long incoherent soliliques in class on getting lost in the Stapleton Airport when he was a boy. Maybe Tom McBride had a fruitless day looking at 1995 newspapers on microfiche and added this to the list so he wouldn’t feel like his day was a total loss. Maybe Stapleton is the last name of a girl Ron Nief took to the prom and “landed” is a double entendre.

Nothing is certain except that this item has nothing to do with the alleged purposes of the list and reflects the indifference Messrs. Nief & McBride have toward their audience.