Ask me who stands among just a handful of our most influential Boulder figures as a citizen, lawmaker, policymaker and environmental warrior, and hands down Ruth Wright’s name rises to the top of that list.

On Friday, Sept. 6, Boulder will be celebrating our fearless champion at Foothills Community Park, where Mayor Aaron Brockett will read aloud a proclamation naming this day to be Ruth Wright Day.

It’s also Ruth’s birthday! She’s 29, just like me.

I encourage readers of the Daily Camera to come join the party, bring a dish, a camp chair, and a story about Ruth and how she shaped your life.

We may have to go well into the night, because she has proven to be a mentor to countless individuals including myself.

I vividly remember first meeting Ruth and her husband Ken at Turley’s when it was on Arapahoe, and I was a features writer for the Camera.

Camera columnist and lifelong adventurer Clay Evans had handed me the guidebook Ruth had authored of Machu Picchu, and said to me, “You have to go meet them, it will be a great story.”

Ruth and Ken, a water engineer, were members of a team researching and studying the pre-historic Inca water and infrastructure under permits from the Instituto Nacional de Cultura de Peru. They served as consultants to the National Geographic Society for the map in their May 2002 issue.

Clay was not only right about the story, but this forged a lifelong friendship with both Ruth and Ken, both of whom are the most fascinating, intelligent and caring people you will ever meet.

I’ve just discovered as well that a film called “Citizen Ruth” will debut this winter to spotlight Ruth’s decades of effective environmental preservation work.

The film is by Pam Hogue, who has known Ruth since volunteering on her first run for state legislator in 1980.

“It has been an insightful and delightful journey working on this project with Ruth. She is quite an inspiration,” Hogue told me.

In the film, Mike Figgs, who served on the Open Space Board of Trustees with Ruth in the early ’80s, says this about Ruth: “Her fingerprints are all over the management and conservation in the state of Colorado. It’s hard to even find a topic where she didn’t have some kind of impact somewhere.”

As a law student at the University of Colorado Boulder, Ruth wrote the 55-foot height amendment for Boulder as a paper for Professor Steve Williams.

She served 14 years in the Colorado State House of Representatives for House District 10 and six years as Minority Leader.

Ruth was one of the key leaders of the ballot initiative to successfully put the citizens’ desire to purchase Greenbelts for Boulder (aka Open Space) on the ballot in 1967 and has been a champion of open space issues ever since.

“Very few legislators and policy makers in the history of Boulder have had the vision to promulgate unique and even untried ideas that benefit the community years into the future,” explains Spense Havlick, who served for more than two decades on Boulder City Council, as deputy mayor and a professor of environmental design at CU Boulder.

Her many notable achievements that make Boulder what it is today as well as awards and accolades are far too many to list here.

But tomorrow’s celebration is about her impact on all of us citizens, explains Gwen Dooley, Boulder City Council member in 1977, and Ruth’s “best buddy.”

Celebrate Ruth Wright Day

Friday, Sept. 6, 2024

Foothills Community Park, 800 Cherry Ave. Boulder

4:30 p.m. — 7:00 p.m.

Potluck, bring a dish and a camp chair, and a story to share!

Julie Marshall is the public relations director for Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. She is a former opinion editor of the Daily Camera.