| LOUIS T. BENEZET AWARD RECIPIENT 2008 |
 Bonnie Timmons '73
Bonnie Timmons outlines details of her life in a document she calls, “A Little Resume, with Unnecessary Details.” Among those “details” illustrated with whimsical drawings: a stint in the Peace Corps, a time dissecting cadavers, and life with her “cowboy poodles.”
It’s not a traditional resume, but then Bonnie hasn’t led a traditional life. Perhaps best-known for her cartoons featured on the popular NBC comedy, “Caroline in the City,” Bonnie grew up in Denver, and when she chose Colorado College, she says “I had no idea what I wanted to do beyond studying everything.”
She took mostly English and science courses, and after graduation, took a job as a medical illustrator at Denver General Hospital and went from there to The University of Toronto Medical School for a degree in medical illustration.
“When I got there, I realized it was medical school,” she says. “You took medical school courses but when you graduated, you didn’t have a medical degree. I didn’t see the point in that.”
She returned to Denver, where she happened upon an advertisement for the Peace Corps. “They were looking for musicians, dancers and artists. Those were the three things that were important to me, especially after the memory work of medical school.” She signed up and headed to Kenya. “It was magnificent, the best thing I ever did” she says.
Bonnie broke her back in a fall from a horse while she was in Kenya, so she returned to Denver to recover at her parents’ home. “I laid in bed for ten months, often drawing,” she says, when she sold some illustrations to Westword, Denver’s alternative newspaper. “I loved the work. When I got back on my feet, I went to the Denver Post with my scanty portfolio. They hired me as an illustrator. That eight-year job was my very lucky break.”
She met her husband, Photojournalist Bill Wunsch, at the Post. When Bill took a job at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the couple moved to Pennsylvania. Today, Bonnie says, “we have a small horse farm in the middle of horse country. Life is sublime.”
 Along with her TV work, Bonnie is known for her witty collaboration on a number of books, including “Eats, Shoots and Leaves,” and a guide to horse ownership, “Hold Your Horses: Nuggets of Truth for People Who Love Horses ... No Matter What,” published in 2003, which contains valuable tips like this: “The trick here is knowing how much your horse weighs. Easy, really: 1. Weigh yourself. 2. Weigh yourself holding the horse. 3. Subtract 1 from 2.”
“I’ve always enjoyed being amazed by where I accidentally end up. Life has been good to me.”
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