Friends and colleagues remembered Suzanne Fountain in interviews as “incredibly warm” and “absolutely lovely.”
The 59-year-old financial counselor in the health care industry was well-known across Boulder not only because she enrolled hundreds of clients in Medicare, but also by fans of the local theater who had watched her perform.
Fountain was one of 10 people who were fatally shot Monday at a King Soopers in Boulder.
“She was simply a very genuine person with tons of integrity,” said Hilarie Kavanagh, owner of Medicare Licensed Agents in Boulder where Fountain had been an agent since 2018.
“She was always bright and incredibly warm,” Kavanagh said. “You could just see it in her eyes.”
Fountain’s work as a Medicare agent was critical to hundreds of seniors enrolling in the system for the first time, Kavanagh said, and helping them navigate the loopholes and pitfalls.
“She was very well known for her work,” she said.
On her own website, JustMyMedicare.com, Fountain explained her work helping people find supplemental insurance coverage: “I work with all the major insurance carriers so that I may provide the very best plan fit for you. There is never a fee for my services.”
Fountain spent 15 years as a financial counselor at Boulder Community Health, where colleagues recalled her compassion for the patients.
“We used (interoffice) moves as excuses to go out together to eat and just enjoy talking and laughing,” former supervisor Jess Sands told The Post in an email. “She was so good with patients. To this day, I have kept many emails from patients thanking her for her kindness and thoroughness. She cared and it truly showed.”
Colleague Nancy Coppom echoed similar sentiments.
“She was compassionate, caring, genuine and vibrant,” Coppom wrote in an email to The Post. “I specifically remember how Suzanne truly listened and patients felt heard when working with her.”
But it was Fountain’s time volunteering for and supporting eTown Hall, a musical and theatrical nonprofit in town, where she seemed to have left as indelible a mark.
“She was a very well-known actress in town,” said Brian Miller, who had worked with Fountain in a show several years ago. “She was absolutely lovely, a natural, someone you simply didn’t forget.”
In reviewing her work in the Pulitzer-Prize-winning play “Wit” at the Nomad Theater in 2002 for the Boulder Daily Camera, critic Mark Collins glowed about Fountain’s portrayal of a nurse.
She “brings a simple, but crucial compassion to the play,” Collins wrote, adding, “this production deserves to play to full houses.”
The star of the play, actress Billie McBride, said she only worked with Fountain that one time and “we never saw each other again.” But the impression was lasting.
“It was two months emblazoned on my heart,” she told The Denver Post. “She was a kind, caring young woman who I lost track of; a wonderful actress and a major reason that show was a success.”
Fountain is survived by a son.
