“Girls cannot be what they cannot see” is the tagline for the , chosen because it reflects the spirit behind this nonprofit organization dedicated to celebrating those who have paved the way and those who are on their way.
Founded by Juanita Chacon, a , and Meshach Rhoades, , the foundation hosts an annual luncheon where tribute is paid to four Unsung Heroines, four Trailblazers and at least four scholarship recipients.
“We celebrate the accomplishments of our Unsung Heroines and Trailblazers so the next generation of Latina leaders can work from the strength of our community and see our vision for the future,” Chacon told the 300-plus who gathered this year at the Brown Palace Hotel.
The 2015 Unsung Heroines are:
Olga Garcia, community affairs outreach manager for Denver Health. One of six siblings who grew up in poverty, Garcia holds a master’s degree in applied communications from the University of Denver and has held executive positions with MillerCoors, Wells Fargo and the Museo de las Americas.
Julie Gonzales spent the first 10 years of her life on the San Carlos Apache reservation in southeastern Arizona, where her father, a northern New Mexico Latino, managed a reservation ranch and her mother taught school. Later, the family moved to a border town in south Texas, where her passion for immigrant rights was formed. She went on to attend Yale, where she helped create the university’s policy of granting free tuition to students whose families make less than $60,000 a year. Today she is the firm manager and a paralegal at the Meyer Law Office in Denver.
Olivia Mendoza’s parents moved from Chihuahua, Mexico, to Wyoming to build a better life for their family of six. They relocated to Brighton when Olivia was 13, and she started the process of gaining U.S. citizenship. She received a full-ride scholarship to Drake University, where she earned a degree in business, and returned to Colorado to receive a master’s degree in public administration. She also became one of the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation’s Livingston Fellows and a 2015 German Marshall Memorial Fellow. She works as the director of strategic partnerships for the University of Denver’s Latino Leadership Institute.
Patsy Roybal was the second-youngest of 10 children raised by a single mother in a Peñasco, N.M., home that had neither electricity nor running water. The family moved to Vail, where her mother was eventually promoted from hotel maid to head cook at the Holiday Inn. Patsy was the valedictorian of her Battle Mountain High School graduating class and received a full-ride scholarship to the University of Colorado Boulder. Today she is director of training and leadership development in the Denver Public Schools’ Office of Family and Community Engagement.
The 2015 Trailblazers are Barbara Brohl, the first Latina to head the Colorado Department of Revenue; Michelle Lucero, the first Latina to be chief administrative officer and general counsel for Children’s Hospital Colorado; Anita Padilla-Fitzgerald, chief executive officer of the nation’s largest privately owned residential mortgage company; and Stephanie Villafuerte, the first Latina to be executive director of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center and the first Latina to serve as chief of staff for a Colorado governor.
Scholarships were awarded to Susana de la Torre, a senior elementary education major at the University of Northern Colorado; Alma Hinojosa, a freshman English major at CU Boulder; Sharon Martinez, a sophomore majoring in political science at Metropolitan State University of Denver; Eveline Vega, a freshman majoring in biological science at Colorado State University; and Jasmine Murillo-Roldan, a senior at Adams City High who plans to major in civil engineering or ethnic studies at CSU.
Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314, jdavidson@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joannedavidson
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