| JULY 2002 |
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Home Page features a series of brief articles on recent happenings at Colorado College. This issue includes stories on new alumni trustee Holly Orstein Carter '85, the record-setting gift from the Class of '51, alumni memories of international service, and what CC alumni have put on the bookshelf.Alumni Elect Ornstein Carter
In a very close election, Holly Ornstein Carter '85 won
the position of elected alumni trustee on the Colorado College
board of trustees. "Many people wrote notes on their ballots
about how difficult the decision was," said Diane Brown Benninghoff
'68, senior advancement officer for alumni and parent programs.Ornstein Carter, an award-wining print journalist and film and TV producer, pledged to put her years of fund-raising and community-building experience to work for the college.
She cited her gratitude for two lessons she learned at Colorado College: to pursue her passions and to take risks. She also described her interest in giving back in a sustained and committed way, beyond her earlier work on the capital campaign of the 1980s, the Cornerstone Arts Initiative, and many alumni activities in New York.
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Class of '51 Sets Reunion Giving Record
"It was a good team effort with some very nice folks who I think really enjoyed working together." That's how class president Dave Oatman '51 modestly assessed the reunion committee's efforts for his class's 50th reunion at CC last October, which resulted in a record-setting class gift.The enticing schedule for the committee's planning weekend drew 20 classmates back to campus, where an afternoon planning session turned to the class gift. Ideas were presented, considered and dismissed until the committee enthusiastically chose a named scholarship honoring their class.
To date, the 1951 class gift totals nearly $195,000, the largest 50th reunion gift in the history of Colorado College and well over twice the average 50-year reunion gift. Oatman and fellow organizer Jim Peterson '51 agreed that their classmates' generosity was due mainly to the nature of the gift they created, the Class of 1951 Scholarship.
"Our class started out in 1947 with a lot of veterans and many of them got help because they were operating on a shoestring," recalled Peterson. "Our class remembered that and wanted to offer a helping hand to others because they had a helping hand themselves," he said, explaining the class's desire to fund the scholarship.
Interesting features of this class gift were the number of large gifts - 10 gifts of $5,000 or more - and the fact that 44% of the total came in the form of life income gifts. According to David Haraway, CC's director of planned giving, mature alumni are increasingly interested in life income gifts, which provide income payments and tax advantages for the donor.
For more information on the '51 class reunion or planned giving, call David Haraway at (719) 389-6464 or click here for online information..
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International Alumni Treasure Memories of Children
Georgianne Preskar Rollman '73 and Ethan Huff '96 won $100 gift certificates to the Colorado College online bookstore. Her essay about living in Turkey and his photo from South Africa caught the attention of the contest judges.
The winning photo entry is from Ethan Huff '96, who writes:
As a Peace Corps volunteer, I spent two years living with the
Mapulana people of South Africa. For two months each year, the
11- and 12-year old children go to koma - initiation school.
The boys are circumcised; the girls are not. Both learn cultural
traditions, ancestral heritage, songs, dances and rites of passage.In August, their return to the village marks the biggest holiday of the year. Girls dress in a combination of traditional gear and Western accessories and form a dance circle, surrounded by their mothers, sisters and grandmothers. After a final night in a tent, the girls paraded into the village. They danced all day, showered with money and gifts.
It is a day I will never forget, filled with joy and jubilation and a sense of transition, when a South African girl becomes a South African woman.
"We Liked Each Other Very Much"
By Georgianne Preskar Rollman '73My husband joined the Foreign Service in 1985. I found myself living in Adana, Turkey, with no official duties except to attend an occasional function. Wanting to volunteer at an orphanage, I finally identified one for boys aged six to 18.
It wasn't the Dickensian fortress I had imagined. The facilities were pleasant and clean, though sparsely furnished. There were dormitories, a kitchen, cafeteria, and several shops where the boys learned trades such as woodworking or shoe repair after school. There was a garden with two rose bushes and a lot of dirt. And there were boys, boys, boys, all wanting to touch me, to show me this, to tell me that. They seemed healthy and well cared for, all with the same shaved heads and winning grins. They had never met an American, and their primary interest that first day was whether I knew Arnold Schwartzenegger.
I got to know the little boys very well. I quickly became "Abla" to them, the equivalent of "big sister." We taught each other games, jumped rope, and played soccer. The boys had a favorite activity: dancing. We'd put a boombox in an open window, play tapes I'd brought along, and those boys would dance, shimmying with loose shoulders to Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits. I can see them: Suat, who had a sweet face and kind heart; Mustafa, with sad green eyes and an achingly beautiful smile; little Huseyin, Ali, Adnan, Mohammed, and all the rest, dancing freely.
It was raining the last time I saw them. Each boy solemnly kissed my hand and put it to his forehead, a sign of respect. One gave me a ragged bouquet of roses and said, in English, "When we smell them, we think of you." Then they waved out the window as my taxi drove away. "They like you," the driver said. I thought, "They've been a gift to me."
Those little boys must be grown now. I think of them sometimes, especially as tensions build in the Middle East. My wish is that they also think of me, the first American they ever knew, and remember that we liked each other very much.
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On the Bookshelf
A Time to Speakby Jeanne Manning '46
Juxtaposes personal recollections about 49 scenes from World War II against the historical background of each one, from the Anschluss through D-Day, from the African-American experience to Iwo Jima, and from the Blitzkrieg to the Manhattan Project. ISBN 1-56311-560-3. Published by the Turner Publishing Company, 1999.
Growing Together
by Greg Gale '87 with Kristin DeVoe-Talluto
Passes along the Boston Food Project's accumulated knowledge and successful methods in three areas: identifying meaningful work that inspires dedication, building respect and accountability through shared standards, and maintaining enthusiasm with a collection of interactive learning exercises. ISBN 09703530-1-4. Published by The Food Project, Inc., Lincoln, MA (www.thefoodproject.org), 2000.
The One-Minute Meditator
by David Nichol, M.D. '76 and Bill Birchard '76
Explore how stress enters one's life and how to leave it behind, focusing on the potential of a single but mindful minute. ISBN 0-7382-0378-5. Published by Perseus, 2001.
Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture
by Christopher Dunn '87
Shows how Brazil's counterculture movement of the late 1960s through 1985, called tropicália, dealt with race, identity, cultural clashes, and North-South conflicts in response to a violent and repressive military regime. ISBN 0-8078-4976-6. Published by The University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Alternative Sentencing: Electronically Monitored Correctional Supervision
by Dr. Richard Enos '60, Dr. John E. Holman, and Marnie E. Carroll
Updates an earlier edition to reflect the enormous changes of the last decade in electronically monitored home confinement of corrections-system probationers. ISBN 1-55605-288-X. Published by Wyndham Hall Press, 1999.
The Truth About Sex by High School Senior Girls
by Kristen Anderson '93
Promises to give teen-age girls the information that isn't covered in sex education classes -- or in discussions with their friends. ISBN: 0-9708831-0-2. Self-published 2001, available on Amazon.com or for ordering by bookstores through Hervey's Booklink, Dallas.
Women Who Take Care: Choosing to Live with Wisdom, Grace and Power after Fifty-five! and Men Who Take Care: Walking the Road of Life as Elders
by Lou Dunn Diekemper '50
Evaluates ways in which women and men can make the most of their years after age 55. ISBN: 1-57733-003-X. Blue Dolphin Publishing, 1997.
Also worthy of note: Lynn Sherr's new book on Kathryn Lee Bates, titled America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation's Favorite Song. Sherr did some of her research at Colorado College and credits it as the place where Bates' inspiring journey truly began. ISBN: 1586480855. Harper Collins, 2001.
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