{"id":30086,"date":"2023-12-21T19:37:14","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T02:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-hospital-district-board-dedicates-ems-building-to-fred-dewitt\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:11:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:11:05","slug":"montezuma-county-hospital-district-board-dedicates-ems-building-to-fred-dewitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-hospital-district-board-dedicates-ems-building-to-fred-dewitt\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma County Hospital District Board dedicates EMS building to Fred DeWitt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=d6223464-d686-5b2c-855f-a7abb3c2bf1a&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1573\" alt=\"The new EMS building was dedicated to Fred DeWitt (center) on Wednesday. His family attended to celebrate with him. (Jaycee Hart\/Courtesy Photo)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">The new EMS building was dedicated to Fred DeWitt (center) on Wednesday. His family attended to celebrate with him. (Jaycee Hart\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, friends and family gathered at Southwest Memorial Hospital to dedicate the new EMS building to longtime board member Fred M. DeWitt.<\/p>\n<p>DeWitt served on the Montezuma County Hospital District Board as treasurer for 22 years, according to Southwest Memorial Hospital marketing specialist Jaycee Hart.<\/p>\n<p>During his time serving on the MCHD board, DeWitt served as a voice and advocate for health and emergency care.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDeWitt fought, at times, almost single-handedly, for the EMS building,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n<p>At the dedication, friends and his \u201camazing family\u201d attended and spoke about the honor being bestowed upon DeWitt.<\/p>\n<p><!-- gallery:6ad668cf-cf5a-4b5c-aedf-cb2d8a21f2a9 --><\/p>\n<p>Brad Wayt, a longtime friend and former member of the MCHD board, read a letter in the ceremony that said, \u201cThis community can only be grateful for the careful, conservative and watchful eye Fred kept on the dollars allocated to MCHD.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DeWitt\u2019s son-in-law Joe Kelly said, \u201cHe was most passionate about the EMS Building. Fred was passionate about doing good for the hospital and community as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wayt also mentioned that during the time he served on the board with DeWitt, they were able to pass a more than $40 million bond issue, deal with construction issues, SHS issues and \u201chundreds of other problems and encounters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy respect and admiration for this man skyrocketed,\u201d Wayt said. \u201cFred you really are a GOAT \u2013 greatest of all time. There couldn\u2019t be a more fitting honor for a more deserving man than they are bestowing you today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hart said the ceremony was made possible with the support of the MCHD Board, the Southwest Memorial Hospital Foundation, Southwest Health System staff and many friends and family of DeWitt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have no idea how much this means to me,\u201d DeWitt said at the ceremony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>as a board member for 22 years <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,21,28,60,29,538],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-community","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-southwest-memorial-hospital"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80962,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30086\/revisions\/80962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30086"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}