We are SO excited to announce this year's recipient of the 2017 Award for Excellence in Healthcare Service.

Wade Walker, RPh, City Market pharmacist 

Most people know Wade as the kind-hearted and helpful pharmacist. He exemplifies a professional role model. He collaborates with the patient's health care team and community organizations to improve patient care. He is always helping patients ensure the best path for them by informing them of resources available or trying creative ways through their insurance to make it work for the patient. His energy is always positive. You know he is very busy but he never makes you feel like you are bothering him. He is always willing to help or answer questions about medications in a way that people understand.

"After high school in Copan, Oklahoma I wanted to go to medical school but decided to become a pharmacist after my second year of college when my older sister Julie graduated from pharmacy school. I got married to Niki Alexander on August 6th, 1994 and graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1995 with my pharmacy degree.  We moved to St. Louis where I worked for Walgreens and Niki attended St. Louis College of Pharmacy.  Our first son Cole was born in 1999 and Niki graduated with her Doctor of Pharmacy Degree in 2000.  We moved to Colorado shortly thereafter.  Since Niki and I were both from small towns in Oklahoma, we were very excited to move away from St. Louis to Grand County and once again experience small town life!  

Being a pharmacist in Grand County has been a very special experience!  When you're a pharmacist in a large city, you are often regarded as nothing more than a pill counting and dispensing machine.  The real knowledge that you have is never appreciated and personal relationships with patients and other health care professionals tend to not develop.  To the contrary, my experience as a pharmacist in Grand County has been nothing short of rewarding.  Yes- the pace is often extremely busy and the workload is very overwhelming at times, but I never let myself get so busy that I ignore the patients.  The customer is the real reason that I am there, and I love and pride myself on my ability to make each and every customer feel welcome and appreciated.  Addressing patients by their first name and getting out from behind the counter to help them face to face in any way necessary has always been my strongest characteristic. You know that you are respected part of the medical community when you’re caught on a slope at Mary Jane by a familiar face, asked to evaluate this or that "ouchie", and given empty pill bottles to refill on my next day at work! That really happened, and not just once!!

I have been SO blessed to live in God's country here in Grand County, to have an amazing wife of 23 years in Niki and 4 beautiful children from 7 months to 18 years of age!  God's will and faith in Him placed my wife and I here some 16 years ago and the blessings have compounded ever since.  I wouldn't trade the world for the relationships that I've developed with both patients and health care professionals here in Grand County.  Special thanks to the Grand County Rural Health Network and other health care professionals who nominated me for this amazing award.  It is a great honor just to be considered for this award, and to actually win it is overwhelming, exciting and humbling.  Thank you so much!" - Wade Walker, RPh

Grand County's new website!

Explore health resources in Grand County. Being healthy encompasses many things, and we hope we’ve covered it all.

Program helps rural Coloradans move past health barriers

There is nowhere Mark Davis would rather live than the mountains of Colorado.

Now 60 years old, Davis is a carpenter who specialized in remodeling houses in the Front Range and, later, in Grand County. For nearly 10 years, he lived near Grand Lake in an apartment with his dog, Patches.  But in his 50s, he began noticing that he had less control over his muscles and his speech. Davis was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a disorder of the nervous system. “The tremors were getting worse,” he said. “Your whole body gets tired.”

Over time, his deteriorating muscle control made it nearly impossible to ride his bicycle or drive around, let alone do his work. “I can’t drive at all now,” he said.

Having lost his primary source of income, Davis didn’t have insurance to support his medical care, and without it, just one of the medications he needed to manage his Parkinson’s cost hundreds of dollars a month. For a person living alone and without insurance, the situation wasn’t easy.

For the full story, please click here.