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Announcing the Telluride Rotary Hikeathon during June

Register or donate now, hike in June!

Our club is so excited to launch a new community event to promote health and camaraderie while also raising much-needed funds for Telluride Rotary and, potentially, for other nonprofits. It's a hikeathon! Participants will hike and log miles during four weeks in June. They'll solicit donations or per-mile pledges from family & friends. They can form a team with family or friends for fun. If the team represents a nonprofit, then half their team's money raised will go back to the nonprofit.

Learn about it here, and sign up or donate to support it!

https://go.dojiggy.io/telluriderotaryhikeathon2025

Hikers can hike anywhere; you need not be in the Telluride region to participate.

Prizes, donated by local businesses, will be awarded to certain categories for individuals and teams. We'll have a kickoff event Sunday, June 1, and a closing celebration with prize giveaways on Sunday, June 29.

Many thanks to our sponsors Alpine Bank and Jagged Edge Mountain Gear.

Upcoming meetings

Normally we meet the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month. A Zoom connection usually is available for remote attendees; email telluriderotary@gmail.com to get the Zoom link.

We meet Wednesday, June 4, 5:30 p.m. social gathering, 6 - 7 p.m. meeting, at Mountain Lodge in Mountain Village. Take the gondola or drive to the Village Market, and then walk a short ways down the hill to the lodge. Our guest speaker will be retired sheriff Bill Masters.

Then we have a celebratory meeting on Wednesday, June 18, 5:30 p.m. at the private home of the club president, to mark the end of the Rotary year and the transition to new leadership. Email telluriderotary@gmail.com for address and details if you'd like to attend as a guest.

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

Congratulations Telluride Rotary Scholarship Recipients

Congratulations Class of 2025!

Our club is proud to have given $15,000 total to nine Telluride and Norwood high school seniors for their college tuition, plus two prizes for Rotary’s motto of “Service Above Self” recognizing volunteerism.

First is the $1000 Rotary Endeavor Scholarship for a student pursuing a vocational/technical program or community college. This scholarship is funded by the generosity of longtime Rotarian Roger Wickham and his wife Sandy. This year’s Endeavor Scholarship goes to THS senior Daniel Gutierrez (first photo), who will attend Colorado Mesa University’s Hospitality Management Program.

Our top academic scholarship for $5000 goes to THS senior Bjorn Cristol who is going to UC Boulder to study Chemical Engineering.

We awarded two $2500 scholarships. The first goes to Norwood High School senior Mikah Wareham, who plans to attend West Texas A&M University and pursue a career in agriculture business.

The other $2500 scholarship goes to THS senior Quinn Paczosa, who will attend the University of Vermont to pursue a degree in pre-med or biology.

We awarded three $1000 scholarships to THS seniors Keelie Wayland and Jude Klimasewiski, and to NHS senior Grace Harris; and a $500 scholarship to THS senior Savannah Baize.

Our Miscetic Athletic Scholarship recognizing athletic achievement and dedication goes to Norwood High senior Cadence Shaw.

Finally, our annual Service Above Self award goes to Savannah Baize and Caleb Slosberg (second photo), two exceptional seniors who demonstrated dedication to volunteering and extracurricular activities that helped others. They will have their names engraved on a plaque that hangs in the THS office, and each receives a $250 award.

Many thanks to our donors who make these annual scholarships possible and to the club’s scholarship committee: Lauren Bloemsma (chair), Jim Austin, Marilyn Branch, Sarah Holbrooke, Pete Johnson, and Sarah Lavender Smith.

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 $15,000 in May of 2025 in scholarships to Telluride and Norwood high school seniors to support their college and vocational studies, and also gave $250 prizes with the Service Above Self award to two THS seniors
co-sponsored and participated in the Walk for Hope event for suicide awareness
co-sponsored and participated in the community cleanup "Trash Bash"
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.
Made grants to the Telluride AIDS Benefit to co-sponsor the Student Fashion Show and to Telluride Mountain Club to support a presentation on "Mental Health in the Mountains."

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
gave $2000 to help build a community learning center with a focus on STEAM education on the Navajo Nation.

We ended the 2024 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.

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We meet In Person & Online

Wednesdays at 6:00 p.m.

Mountain Lodge

457 Mountain Village Blvd
Mountain Village, CO 81435
United States of America

We meet 1st Wednesday of the month 6 p.m. at Mountain Lodge in Mountain Village and 3rd Wednesday of the month 6 p.m. in town at a private office. Check the club's FB page/Instagram @telluriderotary for details/updates.

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