Meet Pam Hinish

If anything, Pam Hinish is busier in retirement than when she was working full time. “I retired in 2004,” she says. “And I’m loving it!”

When she left her job as Acting Director of Child Welfare Services for the State of Colorado, she wanted to become involved in the local community, a resolution she’s managed to fulfill nicely. She and husband Tony Trumbly have volunteered with The Evergreen Rodeo Association and The Rodeo Parade for many years. Pam was integral to the development of the Oktoberfest Fundraiser for The Evergreen Parks and Recreation District, and oversaw the volunteer program. She also coordinated volunteers for The Evergreen Music Festival that takes place at The Buchanan Rec Center ball field every July 4th.

Previously secretary for The Evergreen Garden Club, Pam is now the organization’s director of publicity. The Garden Club is responsible for planting and maintaining those public spaces around the community (including the post office, library, Hiwan Homestead Museum, Bergen Park traffic circle, the Metro Water District building, and the Fire Station and Training Center on Bergen Parkway) that provide scenic arrangements of plants and flowers for passersby throughout the spring and summer months. Pam has a particular fondness for the Fire Station one, a garden specifically designed to showcase fire-wise and xeric (drought-resistant) plants. As she explains, “It allows people to see and appreciate a whole variety of beautiful flowers that do well in our local—and sometimes very dry—climate.”

She is active in promoting the group’s Garden Tour, an event that takes place every other year. Pam’s and Tony’s gardens were featured in the tour in 2014. Pam was also one of a small group of individuals who helped to raise funds for the “Flowers for a Friend” bronze life-size sculpture that is placed on the grounds of the Hiwan Homestead Museum. Created by former Evergreen resident Ken Ball, it serves as a tribute to Bill and Louise Mounsey for their work for the beauty and betterment of the Evergreen community. Louise was a founder of the gardening club back in 1965.

Pam began life in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where her father was in airplane mechanics school after discharge from the army, but the family returned to his home state of Pennsylvania when she was just six weeks old. She attended school there, interrupted by the family’s two-year sabbatical to Lahore, Pakistan, where Pam spent her sophomore and junior years. “It was an incredible experience,” she reports.

After college, Pam moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where her then-husband was stationed. They came to Denver in 1976 when he took a job with the United State Geological Survey. At the same time, Pam became a case worker with Jefferson County Child Protective Services. “I loved the work, especially the investigative aspects of it,” she says, so much so that she returned to school at the University of Denver to earn her Master’s degree in Social Work, becoming an administrator in child welfare before moving into the role as Acting Director of Child Welfare Services, the position she held until retiring in 2004.

In 1987, through the Central Registry for Child Protective Services, Pam met her now-husband, Tony Trumbly who was an attorney with the State Attorney General. They married, and in 1989, moved to Evergreen, where Tony had been raised. Originally they purchased a home on land that adjoined Tony’s father’s property. Now, they live in the house that was his dad’s.

In addition to her community involvements, Pam enjoys yoga, hiking, mountain biking, and gardening in her own yard, as well as with The Evergreen Gardening Club. Lately, she also has gotten into skiing. “I take part in ‘Women’s Wednesdays,’ a program offered at Copper Mountain that provides a full day of skiing lesson each week,” she explains. She is also one of the founding members of a bridge club that has met regularly for the past thirty years. “Originally, there were two tables—eight of us—but now we’re down to just four, and we continue to play.”

Pam and Tony share their property with two dogs, a cat, and two donkeys rescued from The Long Hopes Donkey Shelter. Of the latter, Pam says, “We didn’t realize at the time we adopted them that it’s possible for donkeys to live into their forties or even their fifties. Ours are nowhere near that age, so it looks like we’re going to have to make provisions for them in our wills!”