Presenters & Contributors
Enduring Legacies & Forgotten Landmarks:
The Built Environment of the Pikes Peak Region
Can't attend this year’s Symposium? You can still watch via live stream at facebook.com/PikesPeakLibraryDistrict
Reserve your seats for this free event!
Reserve your seats for this free event!
Presenter & Contributor Biographies
(in order of appearance)
Leah Davis Witherow is the curator of history and archivist for the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, where she has worked for the past 20 years. She is a frequent lecturer throughout the state on a variety of Colorado history topics, and is especially interested in women’s history, the Progressive Era, industrialization of the West and material culture studies.
Volker M. Welter received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh. He is an architectural historian who has lived, studied, and worked in Germany, Scotland, and England. He is now a professor at the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of California at Santa Barbara, where he teaches Californian and Western modern architectural history and theory. His publications include Biopolis-Patrick Geddes and the City of Life (2002), Ernst L. Freud, Architect: The Case of the Modern Bourgeois Home (2012), and Walter S. White: Inventions in Mid-Century Architecture (2016).
Kathleen F. Esmiol earned a BS from Florida State University and a MA from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. During the 25 years she taught English, she wrote and produced six plays about local figures who dealt with challenge during historic eras as well as an opera on teenage suicide. Esmiol is the recipient of multiple teaching awards and taught in Blagoveschensk, Russia, for the U.S. State Department’s Teaching Excellence and Achievement program. Esmiol documented and spoke at the posthumous inductions of Fannie Mae Duncan and Elizabeth Wright Ingraham into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. She published Everybody Welcome: A Memoir of Fannie Mae Duncan and the Cotton Club and penned Fannie Mae’s biography, which now appears in African American National Biography.
Elaine Freed is retired from Colorado College where she was associate vice president for development. She is a former executive director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation in Oak Park, Illinois, and former vice president of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona. She has led tours and lectured about modern architecture and historic sites and is the author of Preserving the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (1992); M odern at MidCentury: The Early Fifties Houses of Ingraham and Ingraham (2003); editor of Architecture as Teacher (2007); and Modern at M id-Century: Ruhtenberg Revisited (2017).
Donald Sanborn is a second generation Pikes Peak area native. He has been active in and held leadership roles in many Pikes Peak related organizations including: the AdAmAn Club; Barr Camp Inc.; Pikes Peak Hill Climb; Pikes Peak Marathon; Spencer Penrose Heritage Museum; and the Pikes Peak Highway Advisory Committee. Sanborn has given many presentations on the history of the AdAmAn Club, the history of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, the history of Skiing on Pikes Peak, the Carl family heritage on Pikes Peak, and the history of summit houses on Pikes Peak.
Eric Swab is married with two children and three grandchildren. As a volunteer for the U.S. Forest Service he has researched the Fremont Experimental Forest, the Skelton Mountain Ranch, the Manitou Incline, and the Monument Nursery. He has prepared exhibits for the Old Colorado City Historical Society and the Manitou Springs Heritage Center.
Katherine Scott Sturdevant, professor of history at Pikes Peak Community College, has led U.S. history teaching there for almost three decades. Kathy works frequently with PPLD and the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum on many projects. She has authored two books, numerous articles, and has won local, state, and national awards for teaching excellence. She started with the PPLD Regional History Series books and symposia in 2004 when they began by commemorating the Cripple Creek Strike of 1904. Her great-grandfather was the president of Victor Miners Local No. 32 (Western Federation of Miners) that built the hall of which she speaks.
Steve Ruskin received his PhD from the University of Notre Dame. His specialty is the history of science, and he has published studies of two local 19th-century scientists—the astronomer Frank Loud and the naturalist Charles Aiken. He is also on the board of advisors for the National Space Science and Technology Institute, an organization whose efforts include re-establishing a telescope on the summit of Pikes Peak. Ruskin is a previous Pikes Peak Regional History Symposium presenter, and is a native of Colorado Springs.
Rick W. Sturdevant, PhD joined the U.S. Air Force History and Museums Program in 1984 and has been Air Force Space Command deputy director of history since 1999. An internationally recognized authority on U.S. military space history, he appears frequently as a lecturer on aerospace history topics and, in addition to writing classified official histories, has published extensively in open literature. He serves on the editorial board of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly and is editor of the International Academy of Astronautics history series. Sturdevant’s professional honors include the Air Force Exemplary Civilian Service Award (1995–1999), the American Astronautical Society (AAS) President’s Recognition Award (2005), and election as an AAS Fellow (2007).
Michael Olsen has a BA in history from St. Olaf College and a MA and PhD from the University of Washington. He is retired as a professor of history from New Mexico Highlands University, where he taught for 30 years. He is the immediate past vice president of the Santa Fe Trail Association. His primary research interest is in the social and cultural history of the Santa Fe Trail and the Smoky Hill Trail. He has published extensively on the story and heritage of both trails.
Matt Mayberry has served as the director of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum (CSPM) since 2002. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in history. He has published scholarly and popular articles on a variety of topics ranging from tuberculosis treatment in the Pikes Peak region to how museums can use eBay to further their missions. In addition to his duties at the CSPM, Mayberry is involved in numerous boards and commissions and volunteers for the American Alliance of Museums to help similar institutions around the country to evaluate their performance relative to established standards of excellence.
Ruth Obee has been an English teacher (U.S. and India), an editor (Washington, D.C.) and a writer and poet who accompanied her husband, a senior career diplomat to posts in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Tanzania, and South Africa—countries in which she lived for more than two decades. Since her return to her western American roots, she has been advocating for open space through her writings. She is the author of three books and at work on two more. Her articles and poetry have appeared in state-wide and national publications. She and her husband, Kent, make their home in Cheyenne Canyon.
Fawn-Amber Montoya received her PhD from the University of Arizona. She is an associate professor of history and coordinator of Chicano studies at Colorado State University-Pueblo. She was the 2013–2014 Bessemer Historical Society/Colorado Fuel and Iron Archives scholar in residence. Montoya served as the co-chair of the Ludlow Centennial Commemoration Commission from 2013–2014. She is the editor of a collection focused on the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company and the Ludlow Massacre entitled Making an American Workforce with The University Press of Colorado. Montoya is involved in the Chicano Movement project through the CSU-Pueblo University Archives and served as the co-chair of the Chicana Caucus for the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies from 2012–2014.
Judy Baca, MSW, ACSW, is an associate professor of social work and Chicano studies at Colorado State University Pueblo. A committed resident of Pueblo with a strong connection to the Salt Creek community, she provides service and support to several committees, organizations and boards. Baca served on the advisory board for the Chicano Movement exhibit at the El Pueblo Museum and has been involved with the Chavez Huerta boards since 2009.
Kellie Cason O'Connor is a fine arts film photographer based in Pueblo. She holds a fine arts degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design where she studied under notable photographers such as Laura McPhee, Nicholas Nixon, Frank Gohlke, Barbara Bosworth, and Abelardo Morell. O’Connor’s images, which are created primarily through the use of a 4x5 view camera and a Mamiya 7 II medium format rangefinder, have appeared in Revista: Harvard Review of Latin America, Lenscratch, Fototazo, Update, and F-Stop.
Dawn DiPrince is the founder and leader of the Museum of Memory project, an initiative of El Pueblo History Museum, a community museum of History Colorado. DiPrince has been recognized for her work as co-chair of the Governor’s Ludlow Centennial Commission and the Pride of Pueblo for her political and policy work for LGBT rights in Pueblo. Her work in public engagement at El Pueblo History Museum has been recognized as a national model for engaged humanities by the National Humanities Alliance. DiPrince was selected in 2014 as a Creative Community Fellow for National Arts Strategies for her program that uses memory writing to create defensible neighborhoods. DiPrince currently serves as director of El Pueblo History Museum and as director of Community Museums for History Colorado, overseeing eight museums across Colorado.
Deborah Baca Duran, the youngest of nine children and the first to be born in a hospital, was raised in Salt Creek and was instrumental with the Salt Creek Memory Project. As a single parent of four who needed a way to support her children, Duran started a daycare business which she has run for 38 years along with investing in rental properties, becoming a successful business woman. She loves children and in addition to raising her own four wonderful children, has contributed to the care of over 500 youngsters from Pueblo.
Vera Estrada has been involved in genealogical and historical research for over 25 years and has compiled numerous books pertaining to non-traditional resources. Her most recent publications are compilations into a database format of the Diligencias Matrimoniales (pre-nuptial investigations), originally compiled by Fray Angelico Chavez and The 1885–1886 New Mexico Pueblos Census (Native people). Presentations include: Using non-traditional records; Las Mujeres, Women of the New World; Native children from the Carlisle School; and Pueblo Smelters y mi Abuelos. Estrada’s current research interests are the identification of all of the men from the Salt Creek community who were employed at the local smelters, and all of the women of the St. Lawrence Day Massacre in New Mexico of 1680.
Sophia Healey is a resident artist and elementary art teacher in her hometown, Pueblo. She holds a BFA with an emphasis in painting from Metropolitan State University of Denver. She is currently pursuing a graduate degree in art education at CSU-Pueblo. Healey has an extensive background in creating public art, including several murals for the Denver, Commerce City, and Pueblo communities. She was a co-creator of two mural pieces at the Urban Nature exhibit showcased at the Denver Botanic Gardens in 2008. The murals portrayed the integration of nature and the city, and were displayed through the summer season at the Gardens.
Jose Ortega holds a BA from CSU-Pueblo. A lifelong Puebloan, Ortega was a part of the discussion that planted the seeds of a partnership between the Smithsonian and Colorado State University-Pueblo that guaranteed internships for students and was one of five students selected for the pilot program. Ortega is the co-director for the Salt Creek Memory and art project and the director of the La Cucaracha oral history project which will be developed into a traveling exhibit. He is the digitization coordinator for the Pueblo City/County Library District and an archivist assistant for Colorado State University-Pueblo.
Dianne Hartshorn began volunteering with the Evergreen Cemetery in 2000 and has extensively researched its history for over 16 years. In 2005, Hartshorn founded the Evergreen Cemetery Benevolent Society which seeks to preserve and restore older sections of the cemetery while maintaining its historical integrity. Hartshorn created the annual Evergreen Cemetery Historic walking tour, bringing to life many of the early pioneers buried at the cemetery. Hartshorn is well-known for her portrayals of various historic characters including Blanche Burton, Juliet Ward Howe, and Queen Palmer.
(in order of appearance)
Leah Davis Witherow is the curator of history and archivist for the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, where she has worked for the past 20 years. She is a frequent lecturer throughout the state on a variety of Colorado history topics, and is especially interested in women’s history, the Progressive Era, industrialization of the West and material culture studies.
Volker M. Welter received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh. He is an architectural historian who has lived, studied, and worked in Germany, Scotland, and England. He is now a professor at the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of California at Santa Barbara, where he teaches Californian and Western modern architectural history and theory. His publications include Biopolis-Patrick Geddes and the City of Life (2002), Ernst L. Freud, Architect: The Case of the Modern Bourgeois Home (2012), and Walter S. White: Inventions in Mid-Century Architecture (2016).
Kathleen F. Esmiol earned a BS from Florida State University and a MA from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. During the 25 years she taught English, she wrote and produced six plays about local figures who dealt with challenge during historic eras as well as an opera on teenage suicide. Esmiol is the recipient of multiple teaching awards and taught in Blagoveschensk, Russia, for the U.S. State Department’s Teaching Excellence and Achievement program. Esmiol documented and spoke at the posthumous inductions of Fannie Mae Duncan and Elizabeth Wright Ingraham into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. She published Everybody Welcome: A Memoir of Fannie Mae Duncan and the Cotton Club and penned Fannie Mae’s biography, which now appears in African American National Biography.
Elaine Freed is retired from Colorado College where she was associate vice president for development. She is a former executive director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation in Oak Park, Illinois, and former vice president of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona. She has led tours and lectured about modern architecture and historic sites and is the author of Preserving the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (1992); M odern at MidCentury: The Early Fifties Houses of Ingraham and Ingraham (2003); editor of Architecture as Teacher (2007); and Modern at M id-Century: Ruhtenberg Revisited (2017).
Donald Sanborn is a second generation Pikes Peak area native. He has been active in and held leadership roles in many Pikes Peak related organizations including: the AdAmAn Club; Barr Camp Inc.; Pikes Peak Hill Climb; Pikes Peak Marathon; Spencer Penrose Heritage Museum; and the Pikes Peak Highway Advisory Committee. Sanborn has given many presentations on the history of the AdAmAn Club, the history of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, the history of Skiing on Pikes Peak, the Carl family heritage on Pikes Peak, and the history of summit houses on Pikes Peak.
Eric Swab is married with two children and three grandchildren. As a volunteer for the U.S. Forest Service he has researched the Fremont Experimental Forest, the Skelton Mountain Ranch, the Manitou Incline, and the Monument Nursery. He has prepared exhibits for the Old Colorado City Historical Society and the Manitou Springs Heritage Center.
Katherine Scott Sturdevant, professor of history at Pikes Peak Community College, has led U.S. history teaching there for almost three decades. Kathy works frequently with PPLD and the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum on many projects. She has authored two books, numerous articles, and has won local, state, and national awards for teaching excellence. She started with the PPLD Regional History Series books and symposia in 2004 when they began by commemorating the Cripple Creek Strike of 1904. Her great-grandfather was the president of Victor Miners Local No. 32 (Western Federation of Miners) that built the hall of which she speaks.
Steve Ruskin received his PhD from the University of Notre Dame. His specialty is the history of science, and he has published studies of two local 19th-century scientists—the astronomer Frank Loud and the naturalist Charles Aiken. He is also on the board of advisors for the National Space Science and Technology Institute, an organization whose efforts include re-establishing a telescope on the summit of Pikes Peak. Ruskin is a previous Pikes Peak Regional History Symposium presenter, and is a native of Colorado Springs.
Rick W. Sturdevant, PhD joined the U.S. Air Force History and Museums Program in 1984 and has been Air Force Space Command deputy director of history since 1999. An internationally recognized authority on U.S. military space history, he appears frequently as a lecturer on aerospace history topics and, in addition to writing classified official histories, has published extensively in open literature. He serves on the editorial board of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly and is editor of the International Academy of Astronautics history series. Sturdevant’s professional honors include the Air Force Exemplary Civilian Service Award (1995–1999), the American Astronautical Society (AAS) President’s Recognition Award (2005), and election as an AAS Fellow (2007).
Michael Olsen has a BA in history from St. Olaf College and a MA and PhD from the University of Washington. He is retired as a professor of history from New Mexico Highlands University, where he taught for 30 years. He is the immediate past vice president of the Santa Fe Trail Association. His primary research interest is in the social and cultural history of the Santa Fe Trail and the Smoky Hill Trail. He has published extensively on the story and heritage of both trails.
Matt Mayberry has served as the director of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum (CSPM) since 2002. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in history. He has published scholarly and popular articles on a variety of topics ranging from tuberculosis treatment in the Pikes Peak region to how museums can use eBay to further their missions. In addition to his duties at the CSPM, Mayberry is involved in numerous boards and commissions and volunteers for the American Alliance of Museums to help similar institutions around the country to evaluate their performance relative to established standards of excellence.
Ruth Obee has been an English teacher (U.S. and India), an editor (Washington, D.C.) and a writer and poet who accompanied her husband, a senior career diplomat to posts in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Tanzania, and South Africa—countries in which she lived for more than two decades. Since her return to her western American roots, she has been advocating for open space through her writings. She is the author of three books and at work on two more. Her articles and poetry have appeared in state-wide and national publications. She and her husband, Kent, make their home in Cheyenne Canyon.
Fawn-Amber Montoya received her PhD from the University of Arizona. She is an associate professor of history and coordinator of Chicano studies at Colorado State University-Pueblo. She was the 2013–2014 Bessemer Historical Society/Colorado Fuel and Iron Archives scholar in residence. Montoya served as the co-chair of the Ludlow Centennial Commemoration Commission from 2013–2014. She is the editor of a collection focused on the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company and the Ludlow Massacre entitled Making an American Workforce with The University Press of Colorado. Montoya is involved in the Chicano Movement project through the CSU-Pueblo University Archives and served as the co-chair of the Chicana Caucus for the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies from 2012–2014.
Judy Baca, MSW, ACSW, is an associate professor of social work and Chicano studies at Colorado State University Pueblo. A committed resident of Pueblo with a strong connection to the Salt Creek community, she provides service and support to several committees, organizations and boards. Baca served on the advisory board for the Chicano Movement exhibit at the El Pueblo Museum and has been involved with the Chavez Huerta boards since 2009.
Kellie Cason O'Connor is a fine arts film photographer based in Pueblo. She holds a fine arts degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design where she studied under notable photographers such as Laura McPhee, Nicholas Nixon, Frank Gohlke, Barbara Bosworth, and Abelardo Morell. O’Connor’s images, which are created primarily through the use of a 4x5 view camera and a Mamiya 7 II medium format rangefinder, have appeared in Revista: Harvard Review of Latin America, Lenscratch, Fototazo, Update, and F-Stop.
Dawn DiPrince is the founder and leader of the Museum of Memory project, an initiative of El Pueblo History Museum, a community museum of History Colorado. DiPrince has been recognized for her work as co-chair of the Governor’s Ludlow Centennial Commission and the Pride of Pueblo for her political and policy work for LGBT rights in Pueblo. Her work in public engagement at El Pueblo History Museum has been recognized as a national model for engaged humanities by the National Humanities Alliance. DiPrince was selected in 2014 as a Creative Community Fellow for National Arts Strategies for her program that uses memory writing to create defensible neighborhoods. DiPrince currently serves as director of El Pueblo History Museum and as director of Community Museums for History Colorado, overseeing eight museums across Colorado.
Deborah Baca Duran, the youngest of nine children and the first to be born in a hospital, was raised in Salt Creek and was instrumental with the Salt Creek Memory Project. As a single parent of four who needed a way to support her children, Duran started a daycare business which she has run for 38 years along with investing in rental properties, becoming a successful business woman. She loves children and in addition to raising her own four wonderful children, has contributed to the care of over 500 youngsters from Pueblo.
Vera Estrada has been involved in genealogical and historical research for over 25 years and has compiled numerous books pertaining to non-traditional resources. Her most recent publications are compilations into a database format of the Diligencias Matrimoniales (pre-nuptial investigations), originally compiled by Fray Angelico Chavez and The 1885–1886 New Mexico Pueblos Census (Native people). Presentations include: Using non-traditional records; Las Mujeres, Women of the New World; Native children from the Carlisle School; and Pueblo Smelters y mi Abuelos. Estrada’s current research interests are the identification of all of the men from the Salt Creek community who were employed at the local smelters, and all of the women of the St. Lawrence Day Massacre in New Mexico of 1680.
Sophia Healey is a resident artist and elementary art teacher in her hometown, Pueblo. She holds a BFA with an emphasis in painting from Metropolitan State University of Denver. She is currently pursuing a graduate degree in art education at CSU-Pueblo. Healey has an extensive background in creating public art, including several murals for the Denver, Commerce City, and Pueblo communities. She was a co-creator of two mural pieces at the Urban Nature exhibit showcased at the Denver Botanic Gardens in 2008. The murals portrayed the integration of nature and the city, and were displayed through the summer season at the Gardens.
Jose Ortega holds a BA from CSU-Pueblo. A lifelong Puebloan, Ortega was a part of the discussion that planted the seeds of a partnership between the Smithsonian and Colorado State University-Pueblo that guaranteed internships for students and was one of five students selected for the pilot program. Ortega is the co-director for the Salt Creek Memory and art project and the director of the La Cucaracha oral history project which will be developed into a traveling exhibit. He is the digitization coordinator for the Pueblo City/County Library District and an archivist assistant for Colorado State University-Pueblo.
Dianne Hartshorn began volunteering with the Evergreen Cemetery in 2000 and has extensively researched its history for over 16 years. In 2005, Hartshorn founded the Evergreen Cemetery Benevolent Society which seeks to preserve and restore older sections of the cemetery while maintaining its historical integrity. Hartshorn created the annual Evergreen Cemetery Historic walking tour, bringing to life many of the early pioneers buried at the cemetery. Hartshorn is well-known for her portrayals of various historic characters including Blanche Burton, Juliet Ward Howe, and Queen Palmer.
