CFGV TICtalk recorded live in the Black Box Theatre at the Gunnison Arts Center on July 31, 2023:

Colorado-born Ronda Connaway’s time in the Gunnison Valley – to which she came in 1994 – has been marked by public service and community activism. She was a founder, and board member, of Habitat for Humanity, served on many Health & Human Service Department committees and task forces, was a founder of the Gunnison Congregational Church, helped start the hot meals program at Gunnison High School, and most recently retired from the Gunnison Valley Health System Board of Trustees. On that Board, she served for 12 years, including several years as Chairperson, and during that time led the Board in the design and building of the new Senior Care Center. She’s served as a STEP advisor for the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley and was a key researcher in the recently-published Basic Needs Resource Guide for the Gunnison Valley. All of this activism here has drawn from her work elsewhere: From 1974-94 she was Professor and Dean of the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky in Lexington; she was Professor of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis; she’s been a Child Welfare Worker for the Division of Children’s Social Services in St. Louis and before that a Social Caseworker for Lutheran Children’s Services there. Ronda holds a BA in Sociology from Anderson University (Indiana), an MA with honors in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis, where she also received her Doctor of Social Work degree in 1964.