Who is Kristy and what does she bring to the Walsenburg community? She says she’s all about building a sense of community and pride in where she lives. “I know who does what here, and how to connect with them.” Think of Kristy as the ultimate networker.
“I moved here first with my family twenty years ago. My parents came from Arizona, and saw a need for more rental services in Walsenburg. I helped my family manage their properties while raising three sons. In 2006 we moved to Denver for a job opportunity, but coming back to the Walsenburg area in 2012 felt just like a homecoming to me. After taking another turn at managing home rentals here in town, I decided to use my business acumen to convert some of our rentals into high-end vacation rentals, a decision that worked out well.”
When Kristy returned from the big city, she soon noticed the lack of healthy natural products for sale here. “Even though there were a number of local people creating some amazing health and wellness products from natural ingredients in this area, there didn’t seem to be a central place to purchase them.” So in the fall of 2016 she bought an old building on 5th St. to sell specialty natural health products and coffee, most produced locally.
She is a founder of Huerfano County United whose goal is to pull people together in the community for a variety of things such as trash clean up, 4th of July picnics, Christmas tree decorating, community markets for local growers, and to facilitate committies to hold our local governments accountable.
She is chair of The Fox Walsenburg, working with the board to hold events and raise funding for different building projects. As many have noticed, they were successful in painting the building and installing the new sign and keeping up on maintenance of the old building. Their next project is getting ADA bathrooms and a new roof.
Among all these things, she has goats, a horse, cows and a husband to tend to.
When asked where she gets so much energy, Kristy says, “My kids took up all of my time when they were young, but after they were raised I found I needed to find new ways to keep busy. One of my favorite things to do with my extra energy is to create places where people can meet and enjoy each other’s company.” She insists that she doesn’t do it all herself. When she meets others with great ideas, she tells them, “You get that enterprise going and I’ll help get people to come to it!”
