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Local Lore>Hazie Werner Awards

Hazie Werner Award

The Hazie Werner Award for Excellence is presented to a local woman, who has, through, the pursuit of personal goals, achieved a standard of excellence in her field. This award, started in 1989, is named after Hazie Werner, a local legend in the Yampa Valley for her dedication and volunteer work for a multiple of organization. The award is presented each March during the Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation sponsored Snowball event. The past winners are below.

Skeeter Werner Walker -1989
Katy Rudolph Wyatt - 1990
Eleanor Bliss -1991
Carol Baily - 1992
Lucy Bogue - 1993
Criss Fetcher - 1994
Dorothy Wither (posthumously)- 1995
Sureva Towler - 1996
Rita Valentine (posthumously) - 1997
Geneva Taylor - 1998
Carol Schaffer - 1999
Gloria Gossard - 2000
Jayne Hill - 2001
Elaine Gay - 2002
Millie Beall - 2003
Arianthe Stettner - 2004
Wanda Redmond - 2005
Margi Briggs-Casson - 2006

Skeeter Werner Walker -1989

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Katy Rudolph Wyatt - 1990

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Eleanor Bliss -1991

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Carol Baily - 1992

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Lucy Bogue - 1993

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Criss Fetcher - 1994

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Dorothy Wither (posthumously)- 1995

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Sureva Towler - 1996

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Rita Valentine (posthumously) - 1997

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Geneva Taylor - 1998

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Carol Schaffer - 1999

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Gloria Gossard - 2000

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Jayne Hill - 2001

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Jayne Hill has been an advocate for young people in Steamboat Springs and a caretaker of local history for 22 years. Hill spent 17 of the last 22 years at Steamboat Springs High School, where she was the librarian and supervised the advent of the Internet in the media center. So, it is fitting that among the projects she has tackled since retiring in 1996 is the restoration of the Mesa Schoolhouse, an original one-room school on U.S. 40 south of town.

Hill has always opened her heart and home to young adults in Steamboat. She began her work at Steamboat Springs High School as a part-time English teacher after she and husband Ed moved here from Alamosa in 1978.

Following her first year at the high school, Hill's contract was up, but then Principal Charles Mitchell found a way to keep her, creating the position of "dean of girls." Her duties included counseling, coordinating activities and career education. Even after she returned to college in 1980 to pursue a master's degree in educational media, she never quite lost the role of "social director and dispenser of wisdom." She guided many students through frustrations with schoolwork and dispensed unlimited common sense.

Hill's dedication to the students was also evident in the fact that she held the relatively role of student council adviser for 11 years and took great pride in helping the students realize real accomplishments.

Jayne and Ed also opened their home to elite athletes when Ryan Heckman and Tim Tetreault moved to Steamboat as older teens to train with the U.S. Nordic Combined Ski Team. Both athletes went on to become Olympians and gave much credit to the safe home base they had living with the Hills.

In the past few years, Hill has devoted her energy to the Tread of Pioneers Museum, the Centennial Pageant, "Signatures," and the Centennial Commission and Celebration.


Elaine Gay - 2002

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Elaine Gay, the matriarch of a third-generation ranching family in Routt County, is this year's winner of the Hazie Werner Award For Excellence, given to a local woman who has achieved excellence in her field.

"I'm very excited and honored to have been selected to receive this award," Gay said. "To be in the company of such prominent women, who have devoted their lives to making a difference in Routt County, is truly a distinguished honor."

Elaine and her late husband, Bob Gay, founded the Green Creek Ranch 54 years ago in the Pleasant Valley. Their son, Bill, is now in charge of the ranch operations.

Elaine Gay became somewhat of a local public figure in the 1990s when she and her husband spoke out against a plan that originally called for the construction of a large ski resort in the Lake Catamount area.

In 1998 their outspoken opposition to a development that might have brought 10,000 new people to the valley led in part to a 3,296-acre conservation easement surrounding Lake Catamount.

The Gays complemented that by placing a 920-acre conservation easement on their own property.

Today the Green Creek Ranch is one of the few working ranches in Routt County that survives solely on agricultural income.

Millie Beall - 2003

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Arianthe Stettner - 2004

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Wanda Redmond - 2005

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Margi Briggs-Casson - 2006

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