Steamboat Rotary Club President Debbie Aragon Wins District 5440 Award

“‘It was very humbling — I mean, very humbling — and very surprising,’ Aragon said of receiving the award.”

Debbie Aragon didn’t set out to win a district-wide trophy. She just wanted to fix a problem. The Rotary Club of Steamboat Springs, now in its 52nd year, had stagnating membership numbers. So she asked for help. The board said yes. The members showed up. And suddenly, the club wasn’t just surviving; it was expanding.

That’s how Aragon ended up as the “large club” President of the Year at the 2026 Rotary District 5440 conference in Fort Collins, held June 5-7.

District 5440 is massive. It covers 2,500 Rotarians across 53 clubs in Wyoming, Northern Colorado, Nebraska, and one club from Idaho. Winning an award there isn’t just a local pat on the back. It’s recognition from a machine that spans state lines. But Aragon insists the credit belongs to the collective effort, not her leadership alone.

“Everybody else jumped on board, so the new members coming in weren’t all my doing,” she said.

The club’s membership count tells the story. Under Aragon’s presidency, the club grew from 86 members to 102 as of June 1. That’s an 18.6% increase. Sixteen new faces. In a town where keeping community institutions alive is often a struggle, that kind of growth is notable.

But membership is just the entry fee. The real work is what the club does with it.

LobsterFest is the big one. Last year, it pulled in close to $250,000 for Reaching Everyone Preventing Suicide (REPS). That’s not pocket change. That’s a significant chunk of local healthcare and mental health infrastructure funding, raised by locals, for locals.

Then there’s the flower barrel program. Dan Austin, the club’s public relations chair, says they sold close to 250 barrels and baskets. The money didn’t go to a central Rotary fund. It went right back into the community as grants and support for local 501(c)3 organizations.

“It was an honor to be recognized for membership gains,” Aragon said. “I feel like as president I could have done a whole lot more as far as more fundraising events, but it was an honor to be recognized for membership gains.”

She’s modest. The club does more than just fundraise. They run the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards. They manage youth exchanges. They send members on service trips. They hand out scholarships. It’s a full-service community engine, and it’s been running for over half a century.

Todd Carr knows how the engine works. He’s the president of the Ski Town USA Rotary Club, the other Steamboat-based club that was honored at the same conference. Carr took home the “small club” President of the Year award.

His club meets at 7 a.m. every Tuesday. It’s been around for more than 50 years. And like Aragon’s club, it’s seeing growth. Carr says membership has climbed steadily since the end of the pandemic.

For Carr, joining wasn’t about prestige. It was about continuity. He grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, where his parents were deeply involved in festivals and fundraisers. He saw groups there that specifically supported youth, the elderly, and veterans.

“Rotary is the closest thing I could find to that,” Carr said.

It’s a simple motivation. It’s not about building a brand. It’s about filling a gap. The gap between needing help and getting it.

The question is whether this growth is sustainable. Aragon and Carr are both seeing increases, but maintaining that momentum requires more than just a good year. It requires the same kind of collective effort that got them here.

“We sold close to 250 flower barrels and baskets with all of those proceeds going right back into the community in the form of grants and support,” Austin said.

That’s the cycle. You give, you grow, you give again. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t make headlines in the national press. But for folks in Steamboat Springs, it’s the kind of stability that keeps the town running.

As Aragon put it, the recognition was surprising. But the work? The work is just getting started.