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Upcoming meetings

Normally we meet the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month, but in January the club meeting is moved to the second Wednesday due to the new year's day holiday.

See our Facebook page or Instagram @telluriderotary for updates and photos.

Join us Wednesday, January 8, 5:30-7 p.m. at Mountain Lodge in Mountain Village. We gather from 5:30-6 at the lodge's bar to socialize, then the meeting runs 6 - 7 p.m., appetizers available. On January 8, our guest speakers will be Kelly and Will Dagostino, new owners of the Sawpit Mercantile, talking about how they are revitalizing the historic down valley store. To get to Mountain Lodge, drive and park at the Village Market or take the gondola there, then it's a short walk down the hill to Mountain Lodge. You also can call the lodge at 970-369-5000 to request their shuttle pick you up from the market lot.

On Wednesday, January 15, 12 noon - 1:15 p.m., we meet at Wilkinson Public Library's Program Room. This is brown-bag style, so bring a lunch if you like, and some snacks and drinks will be available. We'll host a special screening of a short documentary film produced by Boulder-area Rotarians about the Colorado River crisis and then do a Q&A via Zoom with one of the filmmakers, Patricia Limerick, a notable historian of the West.

On Wednesday, February 5, we meet at Mountain Lodge again, see above for details. Our guest will be Rotary District 5470 Governor Whittney Smythe-Smith.

Anyone with an interest in Rotary is welcome to drop into club meetings as a guest.Meetings also feature club and member updates. Email telluriderotary@gmail.com to rsvp or for more info.

Updated Club Brochure En Español

Si habla español, por favor lea un PDF del folleto del club, haga clic aquí.

For an English version, click here.

Recent Grants and Service by Telluride Rotary Club

Telluride Rotary Club takes pride in making several grants, giving scholarships to high school seniors, and participating in community service projects. Below are highlights since mid-2024 of our club's actions to make a positive difference:

gave $11,500 in scholarships to Telluride High School seniors to support their college and vocational studies
co-sponsored and participated in the Walk for Hope event for suicide awareness
volunteered to help the Telluride Mountain Club improve the Valley Floor trail to make it more beginner-friendly and suitable for adaptive cyclists
donated $1000 to the Community Drivers’ License program to help Spanish-speaking immigrants get the training and support they need to obtain a driver’s license
continued to fund the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to send a free book to every child in the county age 0 to 5
continued a 23-year tradition of giving a new hardcover Scholastic children’s dictionary and Rotary coloring book to every third-grader in San Miguel County, made possible thanks to the sponsorship of Community Banks of Colorado.

On the international front, thanks to the research of member Dr. Nancy Kerr who leads the international committee, our club:

gave $1000 to a Rotary project in Western Kenya to fight malaria
gave $500 to expand the indigenous midwife program in rural Panama for maternal and child health, which our club also helped a couple of years ago with a larger grant
pledged $2000 to help build a community learning center on the Navajo Nation.

We ended the year with a holiday giving drive to support two emergency relief funds. Through individual donations and the club’s foundation, we raised $3050 for the Good Neighbor Fund and Unidos Fund. Both are funds of last resort to help people in the county who have emergency needs, and the The Unidos Fund is designed specifically for undocumented immigrant workers.

Telluride Rotary Club welcomes donations to its nonprofit foundation to support our service projects, grants, and scholarships. Please make a tax-deductible donation here or through the Donate Now button on the website menu.

Rotary Youth Exchange: Info for Students and Potential Host Families

Update: Although the deadline has passed to apply to go abroad for the 2025-26 school year, we encourage families to read this post because we will need host families for the foreign student in the new school year. Students who are interested in living and studying abroad for the 2026-27 school year will need to apply by November 2025.

Telluride Rotary Club is proud to sponsor Rotary Youth Exchange, sending one or two high school students abroad and hosting a foreign student in Telluride for the school year. If you are a high school student interested in going abroad, go to mountainandplainsrye.com for info and contact our club’s RYE officer Patricia Kiernan kiernanpatricia6@gmail.com.

This year, our club has welcomed Paul from Austria to be the inbound student for the 2024-25 school year. Paul (pictured here, being greeted by Telluride Rotarians at the airport) is attending Telluride High and being hosted by local families.

Last year, our club arranged for two Telluride High students to spend the year studying and living abroad. At our October 2 club meeting, Macy McRoberts (pictured here) and Mesa Barnes gave impressive and engaging presentations on their school year abroad with Rotary Youth Exchange. Macy spent the year in Romania, while Mesa spent her year in Colombia. Both described the experiences of living with host families, attending local schools, becoming nearly fluent in the language, spending time with other exchange students, and learning a great deal about the country and region’s culture. Both girls wore the traditional blazer decorated with a multitude of pins collected during their travel, which is one of the traditions of Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE).

Rotary Youth Exchange enhances peace and international understanding by hosting high school students abroad to experience different cultures. To make this life-changing program work, we need host families! Host families host an exchange student for approximately three months. While it’s helpful to be a household with a high school student, families with younger kids, or empty-nester couples or single households also are welcome to apply to host. For more info see mountainandplainsrye.com and contact our club’s Rotary Youth Exchange officer Patricia Kiernan kiernanpatricia6@gmail.com.

New Leadership for New Rotary Year

The Telluride Daily Planet ran a story about our club's leadership headlined, "Women Lead Telluride Rotary as Club Enters Its 80th Year." Read the full story here. Sarah Lavender Smith, who served as club president in 2021-22, was elected president again.

An excerpt from the news article gives background on the club's mission and the club president's priorities:

"Telluride Rotary is a nonreligious, nonpolitical service organization that is part of Rotary International, a global network with about 1.2 million members that focuses on seven areas of concern: peace and conflict resolution, disease prevention, clean water and sanitation projects, maternal and child health, education and literacy, community development, and the environment. Locally, Telluride Rotary is perhaps best known for sponsoring a youth exchange that sends one or two high students to live and study abroad and hosts an international student who lives with local families and attends Telluride High School.

"Over the past five years, Lavender Smith noted, the club diversified the age and geographic representation of its members. “Representation matters, and one of my key goals is to attract and welcome Latino members into our club and do more to support and collaborate with organizations that serve the region’s immigrant and Spanish-speaking community,” she said."

Pictured above (L-R): Kaitlyn James, Sarah Lavender Smith, Ariana Sites, Lee Shea Betten. Photo by Michael Mowery

Congratulations Telluride Rotary Scholarship Recipients

Congratulations Class of 2024!

Telluride Rotary is pleased to announce college scholarships awarded to seniors from Telluride High. These scholarships are made possible through the generosity of donors to Telluride Rotary, and thanks to a dedicated Scholarship Committee led by Karen Lavender that reviewed more than 30 applications to determine these recipients. The committee took many factors into account, including financial need, community service, academic achievement, and a direction toward doing good in their community and beyond after graduation. Our club raised $11,500 to be awarded this year. The funds will go directly to each student’s college to offset tuition.

All five of these students have exceptional qualifications and compelling life experiences.

Our club’s largest scholarship, for $5000, was awarded to Cheska Hrupcin (pictured at left), who will attend Boston University in the fall to study Entomology, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology.

Our two scholarships for $2500 each went to Aizy Alvarez Lescano and Selma Tutt-Pyk. Both are first-generation college-bound students. Aizy will attend Colorado Mesa University to study Nursing. Selma will attend Colorado College to study Psychology.

An anonymous Rotarian started a scholarship this year called the Rotary Endeavor Scholarship for $1000, to support a student in a vocational or trade study, who shows a strong desire to accomplish their training to completion. As with the college scholarships above, this one is need-based. The inaugural Rotary Endeavor Scholarship goes to Kerry Hauze. Kerry has a passion for mechanics and will attend CMU Tech (a branch of Colorado Mesa University) where he will earn an Associate’s Degree in Diesel Technology so he can become a high performance mechanic.

Finally, Telluride Rotary’s annual John Micetic Athletic Award recognizes an outstanding athlete with a $500 scholarship. This year’s Micetic Athletic Award goes to Brady Holbrook, a multi-sport athlete with a passion for hockey, who will study at the University of Virginia’s undergraduate business school. See this Instagram post for photos of all our scholarship recipients.

Additionally, we presented a very special high school student with the Telluride Rotary Service Above Self Award, which recognizes a Telluride High School senior for outstanding community service and concern for others. Congratulations to this year's recipient, Avery Ireland! Avery (pictured below), who will attend Northern Arizona University, is a go-getter involved in many clubs and projects at the high school. A plaque hangs in Telluride High’s front office with the names of our Service Above Self recipients. She also receives a $250 cash prize from our club.

Could you make a difference in a high school student’s life by making a tax-deductible donation to the Telluride Rotary Foundation for scholarships? In addition to giving through our Donate Now button, you may mail a check made out to Telluride Rotary Foundation with "scholarships" in the memo line and mail to PO Box 1265, Telluride, CO 81435. Or you may donate through Venmo @T-ride_Rotary_Foundation and indicate “scholarships” with the payment.

"Mountain High Service"