This year’s featured speaker is Peter Shelton, Ouray County Editor for the Watch newspapers and the author of "Climb to Conquer." Shelton will discuss his book’s topics: the 10th Mountain Division, its wartime story and its impact on modern recreation.
Williams has driven the successful campaign to purchase and preserve Ouray’s historic Wright Opera House. She is a founding member of the Ouray County Nordic Council. A longtime member of Ouray’s Community Development Committee, she helped implement the city’s economic development plan.  
Since 2003, she has served as coordinator for the School to Work Alliance Program (SWAP), which helps high school students with special needs prepare for graduation and transition to the workplace. The program’s service area ranges from Ouray to Nucla and Naturita.
For 28 years, she and her husband, Glynn, operated a beloved Main Street establishment, V&S Variety Store.  
Williams’ organizational skills and infectious enthusiasm saved the 124-year-old Wright Opera House from becoming another casualty of the economic downturn.
In 2007, she joined with people who shared her vision and formed the nonprofit Friends of the Wright Opera House, which undertook a three-year fundraising campaign and purchased the Wright.   
“I saw this unique building on Main Street as a perfect opportunity to expand Ouray’s short tourist season and help the local economy,” Williams said. “The Ouray Performing Arts Guild and Weehawken Creative Arts need a suitable venue to showcase both local and international talent.”
Williams is attracted to projects that fill what she perceives as a gap in local offerings to both residents and visitors. She helped found the Nordic Council because she saw the need for “less extreme adventure opportunities” in the area. She observed that not all skiers want to fly down steep slopes in avalanche-prone back country. Twenty-seven years later, the Nordic Council still maintains popular cross-country ski trails in Ironton Park and along the river corridor in Ouray.
Williams’ long list of service activities also includes two years on Ouray City Council and two years as co-president of Women in Support of Education (WISE). She and Glynn volunteered as counselors for Ouray High School students until a full time counselor was hired. She served on Ouray’s Home Rule Charter Commission, which drafted the city’s Home Rule Charter, adopted in 2009.
In addition to those contributions, she and Glynn established Ouray’s own version of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade — the Variety Store Parade. They kept the tradition going throughout the 1980s.   
Each year, ROCC honors those who have made a perceptible difference over time through their services to the community at large or for the benefit of humanity. The Outstanding Citizen award was created to thank individuals who have made sustained contributions to Ouray County’s quality of life.
Shelton will speak following the award presentation. He and his wife, Ellen, have lived and skied in the western San Juan Mountains since 1976. He has written numerous books and articles about skiing and the outdoors. Shelton has been named National Ski Journalists Association Ski Writer of the Year four times.
Admission to the ROCC Spaghetti Dinner is $10 per adult, free for children under 12. The dinner includes spaghetti, a variety of homemade sauces, salad, garlic bread and homemade desserts. Beer and wine may be purchased.