Carol Ann Hixon, Poudre School District, retired

Is there a Fort Collins arts organization on which Carol Ann Hixon hasn’t had an impact? Short answer: no.

Since retiring in 2009 from a career spanning close to four decades as a humanities teacher in the Poudre School District, Hixon has been anything but retiring. Even while teaching she was actively involved as a board member for several arts organizations. The Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra, the Cultural Resources Board for the city of Fort Collins and Arts Alive are just a few of the civic and nonprofit agencies she supported. Currently, she serves on the Art in Public Places board of directors and last year was a member of the Coloradoan’s editorial board.

She and her jewelry designer husband, Gary, produce ArtWear, a weeklong exhibition, fashion show and sale featuring one-of-a-kind wearable art, benefitting the Lincoln Center visual arts program. This particular baby is now 17 years old.

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Hixon works tirelessly on fundraising and arts education committees for the Fort Collins Museum of Art. She and Gary host many events in their southwest Fort Collins yard-cum-gallery to raise funds and awareness of various arts organizations. The Hixons are known throughout the Fort Collins arts community for their graciousness and hospitality, as well as their extensive art collection, much of which is a who’s who of Northern Colorado artists.

“It simply fills my soul to see the art that people have created,” she said of her collection. “The arts are a part of our very being, and it’s important to honor that. They the arts make us different. Art makes me very happy.”

As a humanities educator, Hixon taught her students about the value of the arts and culture on society. During her tenure at PSD, she influenced thousands of students, many of whom still speak glowingly about her. In addition to her work in the classroom, Hixon was a National Endowment for Humanities master teacher and grants panel member, as well as an assistant to the provost at Colorado State University for Humanities and the Arts. Education continues to be a passion, one which she shares with future educators as a student-teacher adviser at CSU. She and Gary founded the Hixon Family Scholarship, which is awarded to students majoring in liberal arts, English, dance or art who demonstrate a strong connection to the community. She also can be found in her granddaughter’s second-grade classroom every Friday.

Hixon and her husband passed their love of the arts to their daughters, Lesli and Cori, and now to their two young granddaughters with whom they attend music and theater performances. The little girls are quick to point out that while their paternal grandparents take them to sporting events, Nana and Poppy take them to “music things.”

As a child growing up in Pueblo, Hixon listened to her own mother singing while she played the piano. Today, that piano sits in her daughter’s home, no doubt providing many musical memories and playing forward a love of the arts to generations yet to come.