Former Snowmass mayor leaves behind legacy of service

Most people retire once. 

Marchita “Markey” Butler, however, was not most people. In 2018, four years into her six-year tenure as the first female mayor of Snowmass, she stepped down as CEO of Homecare & Hospice of the Valley, “(and) started her third retirement,” Butler’s husband, Jerry Butler, said.

Homecare & Hospice of the Valley is a nonprofit she’d founded in 2008. 

“Retirement” for Markey meant continuing her extensive service to the community in which she’d already spent a dozen years deeply involved. She finished her last two-year term as mayor and served as the chair for the Pitkin County Board of Public Health during the pandemic. She also continued to serve as a wilderness ranger in the White River National Forest for the Forest Conservancy, as an ambassador for the Aspen Music Festival & School, was elected twice to the Colorado Mountain College Board of Trustees, and much more. 

Last Wednesday, Butler passed away at age 77. She is survived by her husband of 56 years and two daughters — Deanna and Amy Butler — her sister, Rosemary Taylor, several nieces and nephews, and deep roots in the Snowmass and Roaring Fork Valley communities. 

“Her commitment to health care and community was very strong,” Deanna Butler said, “and really her legacy.”

Butler’s legacy was built throughout her life, beginning in the Midwest where she spent many years of service in health care.

Butler was born on Feb. 10, 1948, in Portland, Ind., a small town in the southern part of the state. She met her future husband when he was delivering newspapers to her door.

The two attended Indiana’s Purdue University, where Butler obtained her nursing license and Jerry Butler got a mechanical engineering degree. They married in 1969 and moved to Dearborn, Mich., bringing their two daughters into the world in the early 1970s. In Michigan, Butler began her long tenure in the health care community, working at Dearwood’s Oakwood Hospital in the emergency room and in critical care. She got a degree from Wayne State University in Detroit, as well as another degree in public health administration from the University of Michigan.

During the early years of her professional career, Butler also worked at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, before taking a job as the nursing executive at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., around 1980.

She was then asked by the Sisters of Mercy — a health organization overseeing hospitals in the region that included St. Joseph Mercy Hospital — to pioneer hospice and home care agencies in Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

“Hospice and homecare wasn’t really a thing back then,” Amy Butler said. “This was all brand new.” 

Then Butler made a change. 

“She did her first retirement of three,” Jerry Butler said.

This “retirement,” like the second and third, did not mean she stopped working. In the mid- to- late 1980s, she started her own healthcare consulting company, a home health medication and nursing company, and a company that provided comprehensive home health services to those striving to set up their own home health companies. 

“She basically formed three companies during her first retirement,” Jerry Butler said. 

The two bought a condominium in Snowmass Village in 1988, though they remained primarily based in Michigan. In the mid- to-late 1990s, Butler was hired as CEO of Arbor Hospice, a Michigan company for whom she had previously consulted.

Several years later, Butler “retired” again, and moved to Snowmass full-time, joining her husband, who had spent the summer and winter seasons in town since 1999.

In 2006, she was appointed to Snowmass’ Planning Commission, serving until 2008. That same year, she founded Homecare & Hospice of the Valley, after Valley View Hospital, Aspen Valley Hospital, and the Aspen Medical Foundation approached her. 

“All three of them came to her and said, ‘we need a hospice facility in this valley,'” Jerry Butler said, adding that the other entities provided the seed money to get the organization started. 

Also in 2008, she was elected to Snowmass Town Council. After serving her first four-year term and half of her second, she was elected as the first female mayor of Snowmass in 2014. She led the town for six consecutive years, before reaching her term limit in 2020.

Current Snowmass Mayor Alyssa Shenk was appointed to council when Butler was elected as mayor, serving alongside her for six years, though the two first met as Aspen Skiing Company ambassadors on Snowmass Ski Resort. Shenk recognized — and continues to recognize — Butler’s incredible accomplishment as the first woman to serve as mayor.

“It’s something to really be proud of,” she said. “Whenever I’m sitting at the council table and I look up and I see the whole wall of men, and then her, it always just makes me feel good because … it’s important to be recognized in that realm.”

Serving alongside the former mayor, Shenk said Butler was a “straight shooter,” very knowledgeable, and firm when she needed to be.

“She was a force, for sure,” she said. 

She credited Butler with her ability to bring council to consensus, even when the group didn’t always see eye-to-eye. 

“She welcomed that and was really receptive to everyone’s viewpoints,” Shenk said, “and tried to get us on the same page while understanding that we all had different things that were going to get us to ‘yes.'”

Shenk became Snowmass’ second female mayor in 2024 — a decision she discussed at great lengths with Butler.

“She believed in me and my abilities,” Shenk wrote to The Aspen Times. “And that gave me the confidence to believe in myself as a leader of our community.”

Apart from Butler’s professional side, the former mayor was also a loving mother and exceptional wife, Jerry Butler said. Her two daughters credit her with the success they’ve seen in their own respective career paths. 

“As a mother, she expected great things from her daughters,” Amy Butler said. “And she definitely would push you to meet those expectations — which I’m glad that she did.”

Butler’s memorial service will be held at 1 p.m., June 13, at the Snowmass Chapel. For more information, visit https://www.forevermissed.com/markey-butler/about.

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.