Left Hand Laurel: Kathy Trauner

Born in the Bronx and having traveled the world, Kathy Trauner, now a long-time Colorado resident, turned a great idea into reality last year for Niwot residents feeling trapped by Covid.

The owner of Fly Away Home gift and art shop in Cottonwood Square, Trauner inaugurated "Around the World Day," a creative event which will return here May 14. Inspired by the wish to bring international experiences to Niwot residents when travel was restricted, the event invites all businesses on 2nd Avenue and in Cottonwood Square to "dress up" as a country and offer residents snacks, drinks and activities reminiscent of their "adopted countries."

The event, which will run next Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 pm., is sponsored by the Niwot Business Association (NBA) and the Niwot Local Improvement District (LID), and organized by the NBA events group headed by NBA vice-president Deborah Read Fowler. Back by popular demand, the event Trauner envisioned last year will be bigger and even better, with 32 local businesses participating, representing a total of 23 different countries.

"Kathy was the one who came up with the idea last year and helps very much behind the scenes," Fowler said. "She is such a great lady, full of great ideas and a pleasure to work with on events."

"I love Peru," Trauner said, "so our shop will be featuring Peru." So far, the other countries which will be represented by local businesses on May 14 include: Greece, France, Ukraine, Spain, Italy, Brazil, India, England, Denmark, Kenya, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Taiwan, Sweden. Uganda, Poland, Mexico, Bali, Bahrain and the USA.

Trauner went on to explain that at the Emporium on 2nd Avenue, there is a silent auction being held this year in conjunction with the event to raise money for purchase of a Ukrainian sculpture in Niwot and for the Marshall Fire Fund.

In addition to operating her boutique gift shop, Trauner also serves on the Rock & Rails summer concert series organizing committee, securing business sponsorships for the event. Beginning in February or March of each year, she begins contacting businesses in the NBA, which she has done for the past four years. "Without Kathy's enthusiasm and hard work, we would have no seed money to start organizing at the beginning of each season," said Vicki Maurer, one of three co-managers of Rock & Rails. "She works tirelessly to contact every business in the NBA to make sure they have the opportunity to sponsor.

"Kathy is also one of our alcohol depot volunteers," continued Maurer. "She works her keister off slinging those drinks to thirsty patrons."

For her innovation, energy and volunteer efforts in supporting the Niwot community and beyond, Trauner is this month's Left Hand Laurel

Trauner has a fascinating personal story. Born in New York City, she worked in television and video production for 28 years. Beginning in her words as "a plebe," she started her career as a page at NBC. "We wore dark blue blazers and red ties," she explained. "It was like summer camp for 20-somethings." Behind the scenes, at NBC, where Tom Brokaw was the anchor, she learned the business and spent 28 years in video and television production including, after graduating from Cornell University, going on air as a news reporter at local stations in Wilmington, N. Car. and Fort Myers, Fla.

By then, she had met her future husband, Mark Trauner, and although she had just been hired for an on-air television job in Cincinnati, they suddenly decided to move to Boulder in 1991 for "a better lifestyle," where her husband was hired as the golf pro at Boulder Country Club.

A woman who can clearly – when presented with lemons, make lemonade – Trauner went on to describe over lunch a hair-raising journey as a new mother of a three-month-old baby girl whose family had just moved to Colorado.

"When our baby daughter was three months old, my husband developed a brain tumor. That was 25 years ago," she said. "He passed away two years later."

Now happily remarried to local commercial realtor Tim Conarro, and the mother of a grown daughter and stepmother of two, Trauner is clearly an optimistic role model of how to be resilient. After moving to Colorado, she "quickly got taken under the wing of an independent producer" and after her first husband's death, she built a successful video production company.

Having lived in Boulder and Gunbarrel with her family, she later bought a house here and moved to Niwot in 2002. And then, tiring of so much travel for work, she pivoted once again career-wise.

"I became an elementary school teacher from 2012 to 2017 at a private school in South Boulder," she explained. "I taught science to 1st through 5th graders. It was wonderful in many ways but also a really hard job."

Building community is important to Trauner, who said she left her television career (her last job was with Mark Cuban's network) because "I had this professional life and a private life and they never met. There was no crossover."

So now she is happily embedded in local life in Niwot. Opening "Fly Away Home" gift and art shop originally as a pop-up store with a friend in 2018, she went on to make her business permanent in 2019 by renting a shop in Cottonwood Square.

"I'm having so much damn fun," Trauner said with a laugh. Despite the challenges of Covid, she and her business are thriving.

"Niwot is a very supportive community," she said, "Even through Covid, and all the difficulties, the community here is so supportive. And we still keep on growing."