This is the ninth of 12 articles highlighting the CSU Pueblo Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2024 Inductees and today's ninth article features former Pack women's basketball and volleyball player Ruth Shelton (1967-69)

Not to take a backseat to her husband (Rick), who started three seasons at then-Southern Colorado State College, Ruth Shelton was making a name for herself when she returned to Pueblo to finish her college education and lay a foundation for women's sports at the school.

Ruth Shelton (nee McClanahan), who joins classmate Frances Price as 2024 inductees into the Colorado State Pueblo Athletics Hall of Fame, attended then-Colorado State College (now the University of Northern Colorado) for two years and returned home when SCSC started women's sports under the direction of Jessie Banks and Kay Aguilar.

"We were just turning from a junior college to SCSC and didn't have a PE program for women, which forced me to go to Greeley," Ruth Shelton said. "As soon as I found out (SCSC) had physical education for women, I came back here."

With the return, she convinced her to return home to play in a pick-up basketball against two women who said they "would beat us," said fellow Class of 2024 Hall of Fame inductee Francis P. Price from her home in Las Vegas.

Both women attended grade school (Bessemer), junior high (Keating) and high school (Central) together before parting with Price headed to Tennessee State and Ruth Shelton traveling north to Greeley.

With no records about their accomplishments at SCSC, as women's athletics was not organized collegiately in the 1960s, Ruth Shelton and Price headed to education following their college graduation. Ruth Shelton remained in Pueblo with her husband Rick, teaching and coaching, while Price joined her brother (Robert) in Las Vegas.

From there, both developed Hall of Fame careers and were inducted into the Greater Pueblo Sports Hall of Fame. Price was enshrined in 2010, and Ruth Shelton joined her classmate and husband in the GPSHOF in 2012.

Ruth Shelton began teaching at Central in the 1970s.  She coached basketball, tennis, track, and volleyball at the school. With nearly 30 years in the teaching profession, served as the South Central League (1984-86) and was a member of the Athletic Equity Committee Title IX for the Colorado Department of Education (1988).

Selected by The Pueblo Chieftain as one of Pueblo's "Top 10 Female Athletes", Ruth Shelton was named to the Pueblo Softball Hall of Fame in 2009.