Crow Canyon Archaeological Center has honored Richard and Mary Lyn Ballantine with its 2013 Distinguished Service Award.
“Richard and Mary Lyn Ballantine have been significant supporters of the arts, education and the southwestern Colorado community for more than 30 years,” Crow Canyon CEO and President Deborah Gangloff said at the organization’s annual meeting appreciation dinner Saturday, Oct. 19, at the center.
“Crow Canyon is pleased to count them among our most ardent supporters – intellectually, emotionally and financially. There is no couple anywhere more deserving of this honor.”
The Ballantines have been members of the Crow Canyon Chairman’s Council since the 1980s, and Richard Ballantine was elected to its board of directors in 1989. They established a fund in their name for the center that has played a large part in the center’s financial stability, the organization said in a news release announcing the honor.
The nonprofit Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, four miles west of Cortez, is a research and education organization dedicated to learning, teaching and preserving the history of the ancestral Puebloans of the American Southwest. It celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
The Ballantine family has long supported research into the area’s archaeological history. Richard Ballantine’s parents, Arthur and Morley Ballantine, donated the seed money to found the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College, and, through the years, the family has continued to support its work in substantive ways. Richard and Mary Lyn Ballantine, in collaboration with Mark Winter, donated the Durango Collection of Southwestern Textiles to Center of Southwest Studies.
“Richard and Mary Lyn’s leadership and support during Crow Canyon’s early years played a key role in the eventual success and growth of the center,” the center said in the news release.
In August, Richard Ballantine stepped down as publisher of The Durango Herald president of Ballantine Communications Inc., the parent company of the Cortez Journal, after more than 30 years at the helm. He continues as chairman of the BCI board of directors.
Mary Lyn Ballantine, who has worked as a paralegal and accountant, was a founding board member of the Excel Charter School and has served on the advisory committees of several community organizations.