Pamela Heller

Pamela M. Heller of Parachute, a long-time resident of Mesa, Eagle and Garfield counties who was active in the region's arts and in community service, died Monday at St. Mary's hospital in Grand Junction. She was 89 years old. The cause was lung cancer, her husband, Kenneth R. Heller said.

Her main interest was art. She attended the Vesper George School of Art and other schools in Boston MA. She later brought her skills to various volunteer efforts, working with children in early education groups. At one point she drafted maps for Eagle County.
For several years she maintained a small studio in her home in Parachute and before her death was making drawings of the Piceance Basin that illustrated the underlying geology of the region.

As a young woman, she turned her eye for art to fashion, and in the early 1950's worked as the fashion coordinator for The Diamond Department Store in Charleston, West Virginia. The store sponsored a short television program, hosted by Ms. Heller, to show off its clothing line. That brief stint led her to television work in Palm Beach, Florida and, shortly thereafter, to New York, where, in 1956 she became a co-host of the nationally televised CBS Morning Show with the Western personality, Will Rodgers Jr. Later she held several jobs in marketing and communications. She was also a founding member of the All Saints Episcopal Church of Parachute-Battlement Mesa and a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary.

She is survived by her husband, Kenneth R. Heller of Parachute, seven adult children - Michael Norman of Montclair, New Jersey, Kenneth W. Heller of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Paula Faith Heller of Lakewood, Colorado, Charles Heller of Mesa Arizona, Christopher Heller of Denver, Olivia Lowe of Loveland, Colorado, and Matthew Heller of Eagle, Colorado. She leaves eight grandchildren and three great grand-children.