When Kelly Ann Smith entered the world nearly six weeks premature on Aug. 13, 1971, her parents heard plenty about what their youngest daughter might never do. 

Born with cerebral palsy, Kelly faced a lifetime of medical challenges, and she became fully quadriplegic in her 20s. But over the next 54 years, she would help open doors for countless others with disabilities — becoming the first student with disabilities integrated into Summit School District, inspiring decades of advocacy and fundraising and changing the way her community understood inclusion. 

Longtime friends and colleagues remember her quick wit, colorful sneakers and uncanny ability to make people feel welcome with her contagiously wide smile. Her family built their lives around her, deeming her the glue holding them together. And all say her wide-reaching impact for people with disabilities will endure for generations. 

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Smith died Tuesday, June 30, at 54. 

In the five decades between her final days and those early warnings about her quality of life, Kelly transformed the community she called home. 

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“There was a lot thrown her way, but she continued to fight,” said Dena Krenik, Kelly’s older sister. “Kelly’s spirit and her strength and her joy surrounded by people was just unmatched.”

A family built around ‘unwavering devotion’

Kelly’s story is intertwined with her family’s. 

Her parents, Mike and Margaret Smith, own Dillon Ridge Liquors, which their son, also named Mike, now operates. The couple previously owned a different liquor store and formerly ran Blue Valley Ski Rentals. 

When doctors suggested placing Kelly in an institution, they refused. 

“They said, ‘No, this is our job to take care of her,'” said Krenik. “They wanted to give her as much opportunity as they possibly could to have a seemingly normal physical life.” 

Instead, Kelly became the center of family life. 

“She couldn’t play putt-putt,” Mike said with a laugh, recalling a family outing that required him to lift Kelly over a fence in her wheelchair. “But by God, she had to be there.”

Kelly attended all of her older brother’s sporting events, rode in a Corvette alongside her father in Fourth of July parades and teased her mother about her golf swing from the cart. Margaret helped curate outfits nearly every night, saying Kelly had strong opinions on her style.

“My mom always had her in sneakers,” Krenik said, recalling sparkles and a rainbow of options. “Her sneaker game was top notch.”

Like any siblings, Krenik said, they argued, played together and shared inside jokes. Krenik remembers braiding her sister’s thick brown hair as children and sometimes accidentally pulling too hard.

“She’d get so mad, just like any sister would,” Krenik said. 

With her sharp sense of humor, Kelly was fond of nicknames. Notably, she never called her father “Dad.” To Kelly, he was always “B.O.” After a childhood wrestling match ended with Kelly blurting out, “S.O., N.O., B.O.,” for some reason, “it just stuck,” Mike said. When he’d insist she call him “daddy,” Kelly would growl it at him, “and then she’d just grin,” he said. 

Krenik said she used to refer to her parents and sister as “the three musketeers” because the trio traveled nearly everywhere together. She characterized her parents’ relationship to Kelly as one built around “unwavering devotion.”

“I’ve often thought this last week what our family would’ve been like if she was able-bodied,” Krenik said. “I don’t know what it would’ve been like because she provided us the glue of the family.”

Opening doors

For her first five years of school, Kelly attended specialized schools for children with disabilities in the Denver area, riding a bus for more than an hour each day after a family member drove her to the nearest pickup location in Silver Plume.

Everything changed after a former Summit School District superintendent, a friend of the Smiths, requested to accompany them to one of Kelly’s individualized education program meetings. 

“This doesn’t make any sense that we do not have a program for special needs in Summit County,” Mike Sr. recalled the superintendent saying. 

The following year, the district created one. Kelly, shortly followed by her friend Matt Blanchard, a boy with Down syndrome, became the first student with disabilities included in the public school system, paving the way for hundreds of other children.

In high school, a teacher named Josh Schwartz first taught Kelly to use a computer, operated by a head sensor attached to her wheelchair. Later, she won first place in an adaptive computer skills competition, beating out a reigning champ. She saved her certificate and a picture of her with a devious grin from that day in one of her meticulously kept scrapbooks. 

“You get Kelly in there, and she has her head switch, and you’ve never seen anybody with determination like that,” Mike Sr. recalled. “She didn’t just beat him, she smoked him.”

Krenik remembers Kelly’s black-and-white prom dress. Kelly attended with her friend Matt Blanchard, and Krenik joked she had two dates that night. 

“In such a small community, these kids and Kelly in a wheelchair showed people what it was like to be different and to care about one another,” she said.

That influence continued well into Kelly’s adulthood. After graduating high school, she worked at the Holiday Inn in Frisco using her adaptive computer to manage the hotel’s mailing list. Later, after interior renovations made Kelly say she wanted to “retire,” according to Margaret, Kelly accepted a job working for the Timberline Adult Day Program. Margaret was on the board of directors and played an instrumental role in founding the center. 

Candace Selk Barnes, who Margaret hired to head Timberline before it officially opened in early 2003, said Kelly insisted on joining the organization only as Barnes’ assistant director. 

Like others close to Kelly, Barnes highlighted her huge, expressive smile. 

“If you weren’t tuned into her, you missed so much of her humor,” Barnes said. “She could smirk, she could smile, she would get trembly lips if she was sad or feeling sensitive. But she could roll those eyes like nobody’s business.” 

Kelly’s jobs helped inspire what eventually became the Kelly Smith Employment Center, operated by Ability Connection Colorado. Judy Ham, the nonprofit’s president and CEO who Kelly nicknamed “Hamburger,” said Kelly continues to influence other people with disabilities through the center that helps others find employment. Nearly everyone interviewed about Kelly mentioned she never missed a day of school nor work in her entire life. 

“She helped other folks with disabilities and cerebral palsy to look beyond what people told them they could do,” Ham said. “She really paved the way.” 

For 42 years, Kelly’s parents also organized Wine in the Pines, an annual fundraiser for Cerebral Palsy of Denver. Mike Sr. estimates the event, hosted at Keystone Resort, has raised close to $4 million over its lifetime. 

“But the joy for us was knowing Kelly,” Ham said. “She was our hero.” 

Kelly’s legacy

Asked what he hopes people remember about his daughter, Mike Smith Sr. doesn’t hesitate. 

“I would like her legacy in Summit County to be associated with people with special needs,” he said. “How many adults in this community are in wheelchairs, and Kelly opened the door for them, for so many people, and that’s her legacy.” 

Mike and Margaret said hundreds of community members loved Kelly, regardless of how closely they knew her. 

“She’s a child of the community,” Margaret said. 

Krenik visited her sister just days before her passing. She asked Kelly, “You know I love you, right?” to which Kelly replied, “Yep. I love you, too.” 

Mike and Margaret were by Kelly’s side right until the end. Margaret said they could tell that Kelly felt it coming. The couple said they feel lost without their Kelly. 

“It’s not like we haven’t known this was going to come someday, but you’re never ready for it,” Mike said. 

To Ham, Kelly’s story serves as a testament to the radical power of a single person. 

“She brought awareness and acceptance into her community with her disability,” Ham said. “It shows the power of the human being and what she contributed to her community.”

A funeral mass for Kelly will be held Tuesday, July 14, at Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church in Silverthorne with a public viewing beginning at 10 a.m. Following the services, all family, friends and community members are invited to a celebration of life reception at the Keystone Conference Center. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations instead be made to Ability Connection Colorado or the Timberline Adult Day program.