The dilemma of how to manage, finance and use the Ouray County 4-H Event Center is coming full circle, reflecting conversations that happened more than 25 years ago when the facility was donated to the county.

County leaders have said they need to find a way to ensure the facility is financially self-sufficient, rather than a drain on county resources. Over the past two decades, the county has spent more than $100,000 annually from its general fund to keep it operating.

“We’re not going to continue running it at a loss. We’re going to find a way,” Commissioner Jake Niece said during a Feb. 25 work session.

Previous boards have raised flags about the financial cost of the venue, but this is the first time the county paused its operations to save money and reconsider how it has been managed.

Commissioners are considering changing course, hiring a manager paid with incentives for booking the facility. They’re also talking about raising fees, with a goal of making the facility break even, which would be a first in its history.

They are expected to revisit the future of the 4-H Event Center during their March 10 meeting.

History of the property

Most structures and facilities at the 4-H Event Center and Fairgrounds are products of generous donations of time and money by local residents, with some contributions from governments. The responsibility of maintaining and operating the combined resource, though, has largely fallen on Ouray County for more than two decades.

The town of Ridgway was granted the larger western parcel — containing the grandstands and racetrack — more than 125 years ago, under an agreement that the town would keep the land dedicated to public use. Ouray County began leasing and managing that property in 1972, and continued to renew that lease with modified terms.

The county has owned the adjacent property to the east — which now contains the 4-H Event Center and livestock barn — since 1957. The two parcels, which make up around 23 acres, have been historically used together.

The original livestock barn on the county property was built around 1950 for $900 and rebuilt and enlarged over decades. Still, the groups who used it — primarily the 4-H club and Ouray County Fair — wanted more space, prompting publishing heiress Victoria Hearst to step forward in 2001 and donate what would become the 4-H Event Center.

Hearst, the granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, paid for the project through Praise Him Ministries, the nonprofit and non-denominational ministry she founded in Ridgway that same year, according to the nonprofit’s website. Praise Him Ministries also includes the Ridgway Christian Center and Praise Productions Christian Store.

Arguments over use and revenue generation 

Arguments over how to pay for the 4-H Event Center date back to the county’s agreement with Hearst about the building, reached in 2002.

That agreement gave 4-H organizations preference and permission to use the building for free, but allowed commissioners to decide on other ways it could be used. It also said the county isn’t obligated to pay for operation and maintenance costs it can’t afford.

If the county decided it wanted to sell the building — an option that commissioners have rejected during recent public meetings — it must give Hearst the right of first refusal through Jan. 1, 2027.

After the building was constructed, however, Hearst and the county clashed over those terms in the agreement. Hearst argued she didn’t agree to certain activities at the facility, including weddings and other revenue-generating events.

She sent a letter to all county residents in August 2004, aiming to “set the record straight” about her donation and intended use of the building for 4-H, a program for kids who raise livestock for the county fair and do other hands-on projects. According to the letter she sent to the community, Hearst had originally planned on a smaller exhibit hall exclusively for 4-H use, but later approved a larger multipurpose building with a price cap of $983,000.

“In January of 2001, the LORD told me to give the 4H exhibit hall that they had waited nearly 20 years for,” Hearst wrote.

But Hearst’s final bill was $1.49 million, according to her letter. After construction, Hearst said the county advertised other uses of the building not “discussed or contemplated” before she made her donation.

County commissioners at the time responded to Hearst’s letter with their own pamphlets sent to all county residents, detailing the timeline and history of the facility. That pamphlet acknowledged their gratitude for Hearst’s contribution but called out the problem of finding sustainable, long-term funding to operate the building.

“Ms. Hearst presents the insoluble dilemma that a large and expensive building should be operated without revenue in spite of ongoing operational and maintenance expenses,” the pamphlet read.

Hearst responded to county residents again in another letter in October 2004, saying the information in the pamphlet “contained some misinformation, half truths, and items taken completely out of context.”

The county’s plans to run the 4-H Center and Fairgrounds

In the last 25 years, the county has adopted two plans for the 4-H Center and Fairgrounds, describing goals of generating revenue. Neither plan specified that operations should be entirely self-sustaining.

Around 2000, county leaders said they thought their property had more potential and wanted to upgrade it and increase its use. An advisory committee wrote a plan for the site for the years 2000 to 2004, before the property had the 4-H Event Center. The committee created another plan for the years 2010 to 2020. There hasn’t been a new plan created since, though commissioners discussed the need to refresh a plan for the facility during a work session last week.

The 2000-2004 plan notably included a detailed proposal for creating a nonprofit organization to manage the facility, which never came to fruition. The proposal suggested the entity would be governed by a board similar to the advisory committee that drafted the plan. The rest of the 2000-2004 plan focused on creating an event center, raising revenue and attracting larger regional events mostly adjacent to 4-H, such as ranching, equestrian and fair activities.

The second master plan directing the 4-H Center’s operations from 2010 to 2020 focused on attracting more diverse events to the facility to boost revenue, including weddings, cultural events, concerts and business meetings. It also included plans for using the site for emergency preparedness and evacuations.

Looking forward

County leaders have discussed making the 4-H Center self-sustaining by hiring an incentive-based manager and hiking fees. It’s unclear whether those changes would cover all costs of running the facility.

Commissioners decided last fall to pause hiring a new manager and assistant manager for the facility — the largest costs associated with its operations — to help bridge a general fund budget deficit and re-evaluate operations. They held two work sessions last month to discuss options.

The idea of an incentive-based manager for the facility emerged during a Feb. 10 work session with stakeholders from the organizations who use the 4-H Center. Those include a large group of nonprofits who use it for everything from community theater to chamber music concerts and the annual rodeo and skijoring competition.

During a Feb. 25 work session, commissioners officially directed staff to design a position paid based on bookings brought to the venue, with a yet-to-be-determined ceiling on that manager’s salary. Commissioners also said they want the role to be more closely supervised and want to be able to re-evaluate the position after a certain term to see if the new arrangement is working.

“We’ve had four fairgrounds managers. They’ve been excellent, and nobody’s ever been able to crack this,” Commissioner Lynn Padgett said of the facility’s operating deficit.

Erin Stadelman, who served as the 4-H Event Center and Fairgrounds manager for a decade, said in an interview with the Plaindealer she doesn’t think the venue will ever operate in a way that also covers the cost of paying for a manager.

Stadelman left her position in April 2025 to move with her family to Craig and manage a wild horse rescue. She said county leaders haven’t called her about the job or facility since, though she offered to be a resource. Her replacement quit after less than six months.

Stadelman said she did her job properly by following the fee schedule and having the facility booked out almost every weekend of 2025 before she left.  She said she was directed to make sure the facility was well-used.

Don Batchelder, who served as county commissioner at the time the 4-H Event Center was built as well as when Stadelman managed the facility, told her he wanted “butts in seats and cars in the parking lot.”

In response to some allegations that the 4-H Center fees have not been charged equitably, Stadelman said she allowed certain groups and events to use the venue for free if they provided a community benefit, such as for public meetings or fire department training.

“If it was a community-enriching event or meeting, I didn’t charge for it,” Stadelman said.

She said she used her own discretion because there weren’t specified criteria for these community events.

She doesn’t think the proposal to hire an incentive-based manager will work for several reasons, including concerns she has about driving up costs so much that the facility wouldn’t get used as frequently. She believes increasing fees will price out many users.

“They can try and market it and only sell weekends for profit. The building’s gonna be empty,” Stadelman said. “And I was told cars in the parking lot, butts in the seats. And that’s what I did.”

Batchelder said commissioners knew it would take time to generate revenue from the facility when it was donated, but he didn’t realize how much of a challenge it would be. “I honestly don’t know if it could be done,” he said when asked how the county could make the facility financially sustainable.

“I think you can minimize it, but you never are going to get out of the dilemma — which wasn’t really seen initially — of having a facility like this owned by the county,” he said.

The current board may decide to change course. Last week, Deputy County Attorney Bob Perry presented two ways the county could design an incentive-based manager position for the facility: hiring an independent contractor or hiring an employee compensated based on performance.

Perry said hiring an independent contractor would require a much longer procurement process and potentially be more complicated when considering factors such as insurance and responsibilities for maintenance and repair.

Padgett noted other counties have hired third parties to manage similar facilities and said the county already has a model for doing so at Top of the Pines, a former Girl Scout camp donated to the county and managed by a nonprofit organization that contracts with the county. Padgett said she supported hiring an incentive-based manager, wanting to resume operations as soon as possible.

Ultimately, commissioners told County Manager Antonio Mendez to design an incentive-based facility manager position that would have more supervision, limits on how much that person could get paid and the ability to re-evaluate the position after a certain period of time.

Despite pushback from some local user groups, county leaders also decided they want to raise fees for using the venue and ensure they are applied equitably. The fee schedule was last updated in 2015. They are expected to discuss those fees at a future work session.

Lia Salvatierra is a journalist with Report for America, a service program that helps boost underserved areas with more reporting resources.

Related previous articles: County pauses most 4-H Center events