The Fremont County Commissioners made appointments to the Fremont County Tourism Council and the County Fair Board at Tuesday's regular meeting and took time to honor a long time county employee as well as three high school students who aided in the search for a missing eight year old boy last summer.
The Commissioners appointed Kerry Ann McHugh of the Royal Gorge Route Railroad and Elizabeth Katchmar of the Pizza Madness restaurant in Canon City to fill two vacancies on the Tourism Council. McHugh had come up for reappointment after first being appointed to the council last spring when she filled an unexpired term following a resignation. Katchmar is new to the council and replaces Vicky Casey of Buckskin Joe who served on the council since its inception five years ago when the County's two percent lodging tax was first approved. The Commissioners praised Casey for her contributions to the council, for her leadership as the council's chairperson, and for her support in helping get the lodging tax renewed by voters in November.
The Commissioners also reappointed Marge Boughan, Delores Comstock, Don Gray, Tom Miller, and Tomalee Young to the Fremont County Fair Board. They newly appointed Bertha Marriott to the Fair Board filling a vacancy caused by the death of Dr. Burt Stratton earlier this year. The appointments bring the Fair Board membership back to seventeen.
The Commissioners presented a 30 year employee service certificate to Donna Holloway, a child welfare supervisor at the Fremont County Department of Human Services. Holloway was praised for her passion to preserve families in her work at Human Services.
The Commissioners also presented lifesaving certificates of commendation to three Canon City High School Students; Kramer Heckart, Jon Remillard, and Hudson Baker, all members of the Cadet Squadron of the Fremont County Civil Air Patrol. Squadron Commander Bryce Nelson said the commendations were for the efforts contributed by the three cadets last May in the aerial search for eight year old Evan Thompson who was missing for three days in the rugged mountains along the Shelf Road north of Canon City.
In other business at Tuesday's regular board meeting the Commissioners:
- approved two change orders and an engineer's contract amendment for the County Road 95 bridge replacement project near Coal Creek. Commissioner Larry Lasha said after experiencing several weather and construction delays it appears work is nearing completion on that bridge project in the next couple of weeks;
- heard an update from Christy Lindsey of the Penrose Library on that group's effort to raise $878,000 to build a new library in Penrose. Lindsey said besides some matching grant funds that have been secured, local fundraising efforts have already secured $171,000 towards the new library;
- set a special board meeting for Wednesday, December 20th, at 2:00 p.m. to certify mill levies for all taxing entities in the county;
- and announced that the County's 2nd annual legislative summit with four area state legislators will take place at 2 p.m. this Thursday, December 14th at the County Administration Building.