Announcing the
Class of 2022!

Induction ceremony will be held in
March of 2023

Seventeen amazing women will become the next group inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame. They have made enduring and exemplary contributions to their fields, inspired and elevated the status of women and helped open new frontiers.
The 2022 Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame
Contemporary Inductees:
Libby Bortz
Libby Bortz, community activist and psychiatric social worker observed a large percentage of her patients with mental health concerns were women. She knew she could do something about the issues she saw to help make those patients feel worthwhile and enable them to contribute to society. She worked to provide needed services and facilities including education, housing and criminal justice for everyone,
Vicki Jane Cowart
Vicki Cowart is the former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM), as well as the first female Director of the Colorado Geologic Survey (CGS) and the first woman State Geologist. She has elevated the status of women in a male-dominated field and is founder and national president of the Association of Women Geoscientists.
Susanne E. Jalbert, PhD
Susanne Jalbert, PhD, earned a Master’s Degree in Education and Human Services in 1997 from Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She continued at CSU to earn her PhD, where she designed and implemented the International Business Education and Training program. Basing her activities from Colorado, Dr. Susanne Jalbert is a veteran global activist who has employed economic development as an essential tool in creating a more equitable, safe life for women in more than 50 countries
Lydia Prado, PhD
Dr. Lydia Prado has revolutionized mental health care in Colorado and beyond, placing care in the context of community wellbeing and addressing the connections between mental health, physical health, and most importantly, creating space that enables people to influence the decisions that affect their own lives. An advocate for the most marginalized and underserved members of our community,
Patricia Barela Rivera
As a sixth generation New Mexican, Patricia Barela Rivera works to achieve unity, diversity, and equality through the promotion of public policy changes that benefit women. She attended the University of New Mexico and majored in Business Administration. She worked with the U.S. Forest Service and the Office of Personnel Management in Colorado where she had the opportunity to recruit women and ethnic minorities.
The 2022 Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame
Historical Inductees:
Theodosia Grace Ammons
Theodosia Grace Ammons was a powerful first wave feminist and nationally prominent leader in an emerging academic discipline designed to dignify and empower women. She became the first female dean at that college, advanced teacher education within the Chautauqua movement, and designed and built a structure that stands today as tribute to her success in lessening the domestic burdens of women of the early 20th Century.
Frances Xavier Cabrini (Mother Cabrini)
Mother Cabrini was a champion of immigrants, the poor and the sick. She established 67 social service agencies, schools, hospitals, and orphanages, including several in Colorado. In 1880, she founded the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus The Mother Cabrini Shrine is in the foothills of Golden, Colorado and continues to provide programs such as giving excess food donated to the Jefferson County Action center. 
Ruth Cousins Denny
Ruth Cousins Denny was a Civil Rights Activist, teacher, wife mother and philanthropist. She overcame racism, sexism, and poverty to leave a legacy of a life well lived in service to children, women, and people of color. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Stowe Teachers College, became a teacher, and moved to Denver earning additional credits from Denver University and Colorado University. She taught in the Denver Public School System for 26 years.
Zipporah Parks Hammond
A lifelong Coloradan, Zipporah Parks Hammond was the first Black person to earn a nursing degree from the University of Colorado School of Nursing despite segregation and overt racism, the only Black nursing student in the U.S. Nurse Corps in Colorado during WWII, the first minority director of medical records, a philanthropist, wife and mother, historian of Black History in Denver,
Julie Villiers Lewis McMillan Penrose
An astute community leader, dedicated philanthropist and patron of the arts, Julie Penrose was one of the most influential women in the growth and development of Colorado. She founded several pillar institutions including El Pomar Foundation and Broadmoor Art Academy (now the Colorado Springs fine Arts Center at Colorado College.)
Agnes Ludwig Riddle
Riddle had many roles that made her an important part of Colorado’s history, including CO State House Representative, CO State Senator, as well as the president and co-founder of Glendale’s Grange. She was an ally to farmers; she served as a role model and community organizer. Human rights were always at the core of her heart, and her drive, passion and political bravado were both feared and admired.
Minnie Josephine Reynolds Scalabrino
Minnie Reynolds was an ardent suffragist, one of a handful of professional women journalists. In Denver during the 1890s and used her position as a columnist for the Rocky Mountain News to advance women’s voting rights and political rights. Reynold’s legacy of women’s rights activism lies on with her founding, in 1898, the still vibrant Denver Women’s Press Club – one of the oldest continuously operating organizations of women authors and journalists in the nation. 
Mary G. Slocum
Mary was a champion of post-secondary education for young woman, making it possible for hundreds of young women to attend college, earn their degrees and find their place in the world. She accomplished this at a time when the expectation was to merely support her husband’s life work. Along with 36 other women Mary had recruited, she founded the Women’s Educational Society of Colorado (WES) to provide physical, intellectual, and spiritual aid to young woman. 
Agnes Wright Spring
Throughout her career, Agnes Wright Spring authored twenty-two books and over 500 published articles, most of which related to life in the history of the American West. She married Archer T. Spring and moved to Colorado where she worked as a librarian and research aid at the Denver Public Library. In 1950, Spring was appointed as the interim Colorado State Historian, and later the official State Historian. Spring challenged the boundaries of traditional historical practices, forged a path for other women in the field, and shaped the public's perception of western history for years to come.
 
Olibama Lopez Tushar
Olibama Lopez Tushar was born in Los Rincones, Colorado in the San Luis Valley in 1906 when Colorado was still a territory. Her family moved to Denver. She attended CU-Boulder and became one of the first Hispanic graduates in 1930 with a degree in education and fluency in six languages. Her college thesis was expanded into the book, The People of El Valle, which outlines 300 years of Hispanic culture and traditions in the is the keystone resource for scholars, historians, genealogists, and students throughout the Southwest
Elizabeth Georgiana Barratt Wells
Through Elizabeth’s extraordinary hard work, innovations, determination, leadership and the bringing together of parents, teachers and other like-minded people, she built the Pueblo PTA Chapter and traveled to outlying Colorado towns to speak and help organize new branches of the Mother’s Congress, and the PTA. Her major focus was the welfare of mothers and children and Elizabeth’s hard work and leadership with the Child Welfare Committee was so successful that it became permanent and funded department in the city of Pueblo.
Katherine Stegner Odum
Kathy Stegner Odum was the most influential woman at Amache, Colorado’s only Japanese American “relocation” camp during WWII. She was an extraordinary teacher/senior advisor at Amache High School, counselor to and advocate for all ages, especially young women. She archived the student records and Amache newspapers. She not only mentored her students, but found them colleges, scholarships and homes, and became a lifelong friend to them. She taught and spoke about what she learned from that experience. 
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Colorado Women's Hall of Fame