People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- Janie Hansen
- Gunnison Cattlemen's Days Royalty Princess 1976.
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- Janielle (Butler) Westermire
- She was born to Danielle and Harry Butler at St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado. Her father worked in hydrology before becoming Grand Junction’s first African-American city councilman and Mesa County Valley School District 51 board member. Her mother is retired from St. Mary’s Hospital, where she was a supervisor of medical records for many years. Her grandfather was Joseah Butler, a road worker for the WPA, and her grandmother was Eileen Butler, a homemaker. Both were heavily involved in the Handy Chapel, an African-American church in town. As an infant, she lived with her family in the Handy Chapel’s parsonage. Her father was a minister in the Handy Chapel. At the age of two, they moved to the house next door to the chapel and stayed there until Janielle was nine. At that time, they moved to a house on North 15th Street. Janielle spent her childhood outdoors playing with her brother and cousins. The family did not have television in the house. The family went to the park and to the mountains on the weekends. She remembers the town being a place where it was safe to play after dark without parental supervision. As a child the family attended church on Saturdays, first at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in town, where Harry Butler intended to become a minister. Due to differences in scriptural belief, he ended up ministering on Saturdays at the Handy Chapel. She attended school at Emerson, Columbine and Orchard Elementary Schools. She also went to the Intermountain Jr. Academy. She graduated from Grand Junction High School and then went to Mesa State College for a few semesters (now Colorado Mesa University). She then applied for an opening in the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department and received the position. She worked in the jail for twenty-seven years. She describes the jail as a community of its own. She worked in a pod of the jail, where she might be overseeing up to 99 men at any one time. She also became a use-of-force instructor, although she came to learn that her greatest power was communication. She retired in 2019 and works in Mesa County schools as an instructional interventionist. She also volunteers with the Black Citizens & Friends organization.
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- Janine Krista Pleau
- Student at Adams State University.