March 8, 1939 – November 7, 2024

Jo Semotan died at home November 7th, at age 85, surrounded by family on her ranch, just miles from her grandparents’ first homestead. Jo, sometimes known as Josephine or Jo Anne, was the daughter of Quentin and Evelyn Semotan. She grew up helping to raise the family’s prized Herefords and champion Quarter Horses. She rode her horse to Routt County country schoolhouses (Long Gulch and Moonhill) and graduated from Steamboat Springs High School, in 1957.

A lover of ranch life, Jo embraced 4-H, roping and barrel racing. She was crowned Winter Carnival Queen, Miss Ride and Tie, and Fair Queen. But, horses weren’t everything, she got some skiing in with the Winter Sports Club, too. When the commute from the ranch made getting to training too difficult, she spent some winters living with the Werner and Stehley families in town.

Helping with the horseback riding program at Perry Mansfield led Jo to develop a passion for dance and theater. Her friendship with founders, Portia and Charlotte, led her to think differently about how women could work and live. After a crash in the U.S. Ski Team trials, she turned to dance full-time. Jo studied under famous modern dancers, Harriet Anne Gray and Martha Graham at Stephens College, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Colorado-Boulder. Between Colorado and California she built a dance career, performing in plays and musicals and becoming known for her choreography.

The call of the Yampa Valley drew Jo home. She taught riding and PE at the Lowell Whiteman School (now Steamboat Mountain School) and that started a life as an educator. After teaching at universities on the Front Range, she moved home to Steamboat again in the ’60s and settled into a family life with a husband David Schipper and two daughters, Trenia and Kristina Jo (KJ).

With Steamboat growing, Jo jumped into teaching skiing at the newly-developing Mt. Werner. In a cowboy hat decorated with a beaded headband, Jo embraced the bumps and mastered ballet on skis. Her girls grew up on the mountain, where Trenia joked her mother sometimes relied on the lift operators to keep track of them.

Jo wanted to help build Steamboat as a premier ski destination, so she joined the resort’s marketing department, always trying to maintain its connection to Steamboat’s western culture. She traveled the country, skiing on a ramp that could be set up in airports nationwide to draw buzz. She hosted resort visitors, filling their itineraries with skiing and nightlife including live music and sleigh rides. Many a visitor returned to ski Steamboat with Jo.

And then, one day in 1972, the resort needed a photo taken.

It was a cold day with 18 inches of fresh snow and the plan was to capture horseback riders with skis in front of a classic western barn and Mt. Werner’s towering peak. Jo charmed Jerry Moore to lend his barn and her friend and fellow skier Rusty Chandler to ride. But Jo couldn’t find an available cowgirl to ride a high-strung horse through thigh-deep snow, so she herself mounted up. The photographer warned they had only one shot.

They got it, and it became the resort’s go-to promotional shot, encapsulating both halves of our town’s soul. The photo made a Steamboat icon of Jo, who spent the rest of her life signing resort-provided posters. Once, decades later, she was stunned to see the poster on display at a hotel in Australia.

Jo’s career, meanwhile, circled back to dance and movement. She continued to choreograph and helped start the Steamboat Dance concerts in the early ’70s. When she got a chance to teach again at the University of Denver, she completed a master’s degree in sports science. She coached athletes, and also taught yoga and meditation in addiction treatment centers. She married again and had a third daughter, Amanda. For a southern adventure, they headed to North Carolina, where Jo continued to teach at the local college and learned to train and drive harness racing horses.

The Yampa Valley curse eventually led Jo home again, where she settled back on the ranch and returned to teaching skiing. She gained two grandchildren, Tucker and Kensington, whom she delighted in teaching to ski and show cows. She continued to dance and ride horses with her friends. Her daughter, Trenia came back to the ranch with her family and settled next door to her. She finally retired from skiing at 78 and was happy to receive her 30-year ski instruction pin.

Jo didn’t always have an easy life, but she always found her center: On a horse, on a dance floor, on skis. She made friends in a heartbeat. Like her mother, she joined and was active with Ladies Recreation Club’s (LRC), and kept busy capturing history and managing her family’s Quarter Horse archives. She helped write a book on Yampa Valley Quarter horse history and innovated a range ride in honor of her father, Quentin for 4H. She served on the Cemetery Board for many years, and volunteered at the Moonhill Schoolhouse Community Center as her father had. Because she said, if you live here, that’s what you do. The Hayden Museum and the Pioneer Picnics got some of her attention, too. Jo liked to joke she knew more people at the cemetery and in the museums than she did anywhere else. She would probably say her greatest achievement, aside from her daughters, was preserving what was left of her family’s original V (Vee Slash) Ranch with the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust. She wanted to preserve a way of life she knew was quickly changing.

Jo loved her family, her friends and neighbors, her beloved view of Pilot Knob, her garden and pastures, her horses, cows and dogs. She leaves behind her daughters, Trenia, Kristina Jo and Amanda, her sons-in-law Russel Sanford, Craig Morris and Daniel Marolda, her grandchildren Tucker Sanford and Kensington Morris, innumerable beloved friends and enough stories to fill many firelit nights. She had a rare, open and giving heart. We will forever miss our Cowgirl Angel.

A Celebration of Life will take place at the Semotan Ranch, June 21st, 2025.
In lieu of flowers, contributions will be welcomed in her name to the Moonhill Schoolhouse Community Center 23455 CR 56, Steamboat 80487 or https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/3XGL3KLARATK8)