| GRESHAM RILEY AWARD RECIPIENT 2008 |
 Diane Brown Benninghoff '68
For more than 20 years, Diane Brown Benninghoff has navigated the administrative offices of Colorado College.
Diane grew up in Greeley, Colorado, where she was involved in theater productions through high school. She enrolled at CC, graduating with a multi-disciplinary major that combined the study of art, music, philosophy and theater. “It was perfect,” she says.
After graduation, she completed work for a Master of Arts degree and a teaching certificate to become a high school drama teacher. She found a job in an unlikely place – a television station.
Diane was hired at KKTV. “I didn’t work in production because “girls” didn’t do that in 1970,” she says. “Instead, I started writing copy and typing logs, I had a daily talk show for 13 years, I directed, was the “weather girl,” and was director of advertising and promotions. But the thing I did there that people still talk about was filling in as ‘Miss Diane’ on Romper Room when the hostess was on maternity leave.”
In 1983, she left her broadcasting career to begin a stint as executive director of the Colorado Opera Festival, a professional opera company in Colorado Springs. She also enrolled in the University of Colorado’s executive program and received her M.B.A.
An offer of a job at CC was a surprise. “I had never thought about working here,” she says. “But I knew that my life had been transformed because of my good fortune to be a CC student, and it quickly made sense to me to come home to do what I could to be a part, in some small way, of making that experience possible for others.”
The volunteers I’ve had the opportunity to work with make Colorado College an even better place. I admire CC graduates for what they have done with their lives, changed the lives of others all over the world and how they have helped their alma mater. I am proud to be part of this family of alumni.
When she isn’t working with CC president Richard Celeste or other division heads at the college, managing the current campaign, or keeping up with alumni issues, she often does a different kind of navigating – on the fast-running rivers of the West.
Diane is a veteran river runner. She and her husband Ted ’68 began kayaking in the early 1970s, when few kayakers were encountered and began rowing their own raft in the late 1980s. It’s a sport she loves, and one she believes taught her valuable lessons to use in her professional life.
“I really believe river running made me a better professional,” she says. “It requires of you a certain level of expertise. It’s a sport of finesse and judgment. You have to learn to read the river, see where you want to go, and commit to it. Then, you have to do it and pay the price if you make a bad decision.” “So far, I would say, one of the best decisions I have ever made was to cast my lot with Colorado College.”
Alumni Awards Main Page |