Englewood — Englewood Mayor Olga Wolosyn died today as friends and colleagues prayed for her.
Wolosyn suffered a series of aneurysms and strokes following one she had last weekend during budget meetings with city staff.
Swedish Medical Center doctors gave a grave prognosis for her survival, friends and city officials said. Wolosyn, 54, had been in a coma at the Englewood hospital’s intensive care unit.
Swedish spokeswoman Julie Lonborg said Wolosyn died this afternoon.
Mayor pro tem Jim Woodward may have been the last person with whom she spoke.
At a budget meeting with city staff last Saturday morning, Wolosyn looked flushed.
“She got up and asked me to take over, that she needed to leave for a minute,” Woodward said.
A short time later, she was was found unconscious on the floor of the women’s restroom.
She had arrived at the meeting with sunglasses, speaking of a penetrating headache behind her eyes.
Woodward will continue to serve as acting mayor until after the November elections. The newly elected City Council will select a mayor from their ranks.
Wolosyn was serving her second and final four-year term on the council, because of Colorado term-limit requirements.
Woodward said she was a friend and mentor to many people.
“I’m working on a long list of everything she was involved in, and I know I’m forgetting things,” he said. “She was a real force on the Cultural Arts Commission. She worked with the schools. She served on the Chamber of Commerce board, the water board, the pension board.”
City politics was not her only passion. She and her husband, Jim Doty, ran a pottery business, Wolosyn-Doty Pottery.
She had no children of her own, but Wolosyn was an enthusiastic volunteer for schools, even helping sew costumes for plays, Woodward said.
She also served on the Englewood Education Foundation and the Englewood Public Schools’ Teenage Drinking Task Force.
As mayor, she helped secure a $1 million grant for schools to teach math through arts programs.
Bart Spedon, chairman of the Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce, secretly hoped that Wolosyn would succeed him as the head of the board, which she had also served on.
“She truly was a huge advocate for Englewood,” Spedon said. “She always wanted what was best for the city and local businesses.
“She had everyone’s best interest at heart.”
The chamber chose her Business Woman of the Year in 2004.
Thursday afternoon a “Gratitude Gathering for Olga” was held at the fountain at CityCenter Park .
Wolosyn’s family is planning a Mass at 10 a.m. today at St. Louis Catholic Church, 3310 South Sherman St., in Englewood.
A native of Pennsylvania, she and her husband moved to the Front Range from Grand Junction in 1992.
She earned a bachelor of arts in sociology from Seton Hill College in Pennsylvania.
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
