Pam and husband Gary.

Pam Hopkins is the first Pagosa.com Pagosa Country Super Citizen. This award is given for outstanding contributions to the community. Pam is awarded Super Citizen status for her nine years of volunteer work in the community, culminating in being elected to the Upper San Juan Health Service District Board and then serving as the board’s chairperson during a time of great stress and change. Pam insists that the USJHSD of the last two years was a team effort of the other board members, committee members and other concerned citizens but, a team is only as good and effective as its leader and Pam has been a good and effective leader.

Starting with a district in turmoil and financially insolvent, Pam lead the district to a stabilized position and then to a successful election that will result in Pagosa Springs' first hospital. This was a monumental effort with fantastic results. The current and future citizens of Pagosa Country are indebted to Pam for her work above and beyond the call of duty. Pam, Dr. Mary Winter Fisher would be proud of you.

A few words from Jim Knoll MD:

"Pam Hopkins is a real asset to our community. She has been involved for the good of our area in many ways and is not one of those people who sit back and let others do the work for them. Like many of us, after a long career in nursing, she came to Pagosa to retire and enjoy the beauty and spend time with her family. But she quickly became involved when the need was made clear. Obviously her Nursing training and experience has been a major part of this; but mostly it is just her personality and character and her wish to help make things better."

"She, without hesitation, stepped up when she saw the need in our Healthcare District. She ran for office, was elected and then made Chairperson of the Board by her peers. She has since put in countless hours bringing the District out of debt, improving the delivery of healthcare and then moving the organization toward building a hospital in Pagosa. She worked tirelessly in proposing the financing and construction and the politics of this cause and was highly successful. Our entire community will benefit from her work next year when our hospital is complete. She has volunteered and managed the local Healthcare Fair for several years, is involved in a small political group that looks to find, encourage and elect qualified candidates for countywide office and is an active member in the League of Women Voters."

"If Pam believes in a cause, one knows that she will make happen. But mostly she is my friend and a better friend one could not find."

Pam was born into a working class family in Santa Maria, California and raised from age six in Mountain View, CA, the heart of what is now known as "Silicon Valley." During the 1950s, in the summers, she worked in the orchards that covered the Valley to earn spending money. Picking fruit with migrant workers earned her a solid work ethic and a good dose of humility, but not a lot of money.

Pam met her husband, Gary, on a blind date at the age of 16. Upon graduating from Mt. View High School in 1961, they eloped, then spent their honeymoon at a remote cabin on a family cattle ranch in Northern California, where Gary taught her to hunt and fish. Pam and Gary will be celebrating their 45th anniversary this year.

Pam and Dr. Jim Knoll during a relaxing moment at a Health District social.

Pam worked at Lockheed Aerospace and San Jose State University for the first five years of their marriage in order to put Gary through college and earn his teaching credentials. She concurrently enrolled at San Jose State as an English Literature major.

While Gary taught school, Pam devoted the next 15 years (1967-1982) to raising two children, Kristen and Kevin, and developing skills as a homemaker. She took a variety of classes enabling her to complete home remodeling projects, cook a variety of cuisines, cultivate an organic vegetable garden and take an active part in the education and raising of their two children. One month of most summers was spent with Gary and the children traveling throughout the mountains of the West - camping, backpacking, and absorbing the cultural and natural history of the places they visited.

In 1982 Pam decided to fulfill a childhood dream of becoming a Registered Nurse. After completing her degree in 1985 and passing the California licensing exam, she began her career at Valley Medical Center in San Jose as a medical-surgical nurse. Soon after, tiring of the Bay Area "rat race", Pam and Gary then made a decision: leave the Bay Area and move to the mountains they loved, making a dramatic change in lifestyle.

In the summer of 1985, Pam, Gary and son Kevin (Kristen was away at college) moved to a log home situated on a 15-acre inholding in the Tahoe National Forest, about 20 miles west of Donner Pass - a place called Blue Canyon. The home had to be heated with wood and they used a well for their water supply. They had to plow their own road (to the maintained county road) in winter. The nearest town (Truckee or Auburn, take your pick) was 35 miles away. The average seasonal snowfall was 270" - wet and heavy!

Pam soon got a job at Roseville Hospital, 40 miles to the west, as an ortho-surgical nurse. Gary got a job teaching in a small foothill middle school, but soon quit in order to take over financial management of a family Trust and real estate holdings. This allowed
Gary to stay home, work on the home and property, while keeping the wood fires burning and the road plowed in winter.

Pam worked in a freestanding dialysis clinic and in 1987 she applied for, and got, a nursing position with the University of California, Davis Medical Center (UCD) in Sacramento. Pam loved UCD because she was given responsibility and latitude; she grew a lot in nursing during this time. It was an exciting time for her, first organizing and managing a Dialysis Center, then transferring to the Gastroenterology Dept. and becoming specialized as a G.I. Nurse. Pam remained at U.C. Davis for 10 years, working closely with a group of excellent doctors, some of whom she still maintains contact with.

The job at the Medical Center required a 150-mile roundtrip commute, sometimes in the middle of a winter snow storm. By consolidating her workload into long shifts, she was able to cut down to 3 days per week, making the commute feasible. This involved getting up at 4:30 am and arriving back at home around 8 pm. In 10 years, Pam only missed one day of work due to weather problems - a day when the plow vehicle broke down leaving four feet of snow on their road!

Pam with grandsons Ian and Nicholas, Christmas 2003.

The (almost) 13 years spent at Blue Canyon had many rewards for both Pam and Gary. They took long walks into the forest with their two dogs, Echo and Sitka. They learned to mountain bike and cross-country ski (both available right out the door)! Weekends were spent cooking, reading, relaxing and doing shifts as ski patrollers at nearby Eagle Mountain Cross-Country Ski Resort. Lake Tahoe was less than an hour away, and provided many recreational and shopping opportunities. Life was good, sometimes hard, always memorable.

In 1997, knowing that their Blue Canyon lifestyle would be too difficult as they got older, Pam and Gary moved to Pagosa Springs. Choosing Pagosa Springs as a place to retire was the culmination of their travels throughout the rural West, going back to the 1970s. Of all the places they had visited, Pagosa had the right combination of beautiful scenery, weather, recreational opportunities, and small town friendliness. And, of course, plenty of opportunity to do community volunteer work!

Pam lives here with her husband Gary and part of her family: her daughter Kristen, son-in-law Jim (Roth), and grandsons Ian and Nicholas Roth live only a mile away. Son Kevin lives in Sacramento, CA.

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