Rocky Mountain Brown Club

P.O. Box 6963

Denver CO  80206

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Tracing the Roots of the Rocky Mountain Brown Club

By Andrea K. Banks ’88

First Rocky Mountain Brown Club Logo

Created in 1982

Dedications:

In memory of Joseph (Joe) McGarry ’44 and parent (P) ’83:  For his commitment to spreading the word about Brown in Colorado, we pay tribute to Joe McGarry, honorary lifetime club trustee.  We thank Mrs. Gwen McGarry, University of Texas ’50, for sharing such wonderful stories about her late husband and his love for Brown.

To Jean Barr ’42, for giving Pembroke a voice in Colorado starting in the 1950s.

To the club leaders in the 1960s, including Ben Aisenberg ’52, Eugene (Gene) Kay ’59, and Richard (Dick) Mauro ’67 and P’91, for helping foster alumni activity in Colorado.  We especially thank Kay for his decades of steadfast service and leadership of our alumni club.

To trustee emerita Shirley Burr Darling ’44:  The club expresses deep gratitude for the dedication and panache she has brought to our local alumni community.

To the first leadership team of the Rocky Mountain Brown Club, formed in 1979:  Jack Lutz ’65, Hugh Bingham ’67, Paul Linton ’68, and Kay, for their vision and enthusiasm.  We especially thank Bingham, the first club newsletter editor, and all the former newsletter editors for making it easier to trace the club’s genealogy. 

A note of thanks also goes to all those interviewed for this article, for their contributions to the club’s ongoing livelihood:   Gwen McGarry, Barr, Darling, Aisenberg, Kay, Mauro, Bingham, Lutz, Linton, Pat Carlson Collett ’58, Kit Stanford ‘62, Richard Patt ’67 and P’86, Jan Cantrill ’68 and P’96 and ‘00, David Ebner ’73, John Ladd ’75 and P’06, and Lino Lipinsky ‘79.   

To all Colorado and Wyoming alumni who have throughout the years interviewed prospective students and provided support to the club.  And to Marjorie Marks ’67, winner of a Spotlight Award at Brown’s 2005 Leadership Weekend, for keeping the club going!

Introduction

In 1979, local alumni officially formed the Rocky Mountain Brown Club after an inspiring visit from Brown University President Howard Swearer.  The roots of the club, however, may also be traced to the early 1960s, when a few alumni originally from the East formed the Brown Club of Denver, a group solely dedicated to interviewing prospective students.  Looking back before the 1960s, we owe thanks to Judge Joseph (Joe) E. Cook ’14 and parent (P) ’43 and Joseph (Joe) McGarry ’44 and P’83, for first getting the word out about Brown to local students and planting the seeds for ongoing alumni involvement. 

Cook Park:  Remembering the Legacy of Judge Joseph E. Cook

In the 1950s, Judge Cook and Joe McGarry would gather at the University Club in Denver, most certainly to discuss their common passion for their alma mater.  Thanks to stories recently told by Mrs. Gwen McGarry, whose husband passed away two years ago, we can now trace early alumni activity of the Colorado Chapter of Brown University Alumni to Cook.  In the July 1990 issue of The Colorado Lawyer, James L. Treece profiled the extraordinary life of Cook, including mention that he was a Colorado recruiter and fundraiser for Brown, as well as the winner of the Brown Bear Award.  In 1946, the Brown Alumni Association commenced giving annual Brown Bear Awards to one to three alumni who demonstrated "outstanding and wide-ranging personal service rendered to the University over a period of years."  For years, even before the 1950s, Gwen McGarry believes that Cook was the most active Brown alumnus in Colorado.

In addition to his service to Brown, Cook dedicated much of his life to improving the lives of Colorado’s youth.  Born in 1892 in Massachusetts, Cook moved to Colorado in 1914 to take a position as a Rocky Mountain News reporter.  After serving in World War I, eventually as a lieutenant, he returned to Colorado to work as a court and sports reporter for both the News and The Denver Post.  After attending Westminster Law School (now The University of Denver College of Law), Cook served as deputy district attorney for 12 years and Denver District Court Judge for 20 years.  Handling cases involving domestic relations and troubled youth became Cook’s passion.  In The Colorado Lawyer, Treece describes that Cook’s “puckish good humor, ready wit and quips and eternal grin” allowed him to handle with grace these often difficult cases. 

Outside the court, he devoted his time and leadership skills to dozens of organizations that promoted the well-being of youth, including Boy Scouts of America and Big Brothers.  For his years of public service, Cook received a myriad of accolades, including the Denver Bronco Award for Service to Young Americans, the American Legion Award for Service to Children and Youth, the Red Cross Award for Service to Humanity, and a feature on the television show This is Your Life.  After Cook’s death in 1963, a park in south-east Denver was named in his honor. As Treece describes, this tribute was fitting for a man who loved youth, family, and athletics.  Cook’s legacy of public service is certainly a mark of pride for Brown and our local alumni.

Where is Brown?

In 1951, Joe McGarry moved to Denver after leaving his hometown of Boston, where he attended the University of Boston School of Law.  In the 1950s, Denver was still a small town, where few students ventured East for college.  When he began recruiting for Brown in 1955, Joe McGarry would represent the University during college nights at local high schools. Gwen McGarry recounts that almost no one would approach the Brown table, and those who did asked, “Where is Brown?”  And the talk at the University Club was usually about local students going to other Ivy schools, especially Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Joe McGarry felt as though it took “beating the bushes” to pique students’ interest in Brown just so that they would apply.

Starting in the late 1950s,  Gwen McGarry recalls Brown admission officers visiting Denver for recruiting and development purposes. Admission officers would go to local high schools to spread the word about Brown and interview prospective students.  Before one officer visited his home, Joe McGarry asked friends and neighbors to attend the meeting just so that his Brown guest would have an audience.  Admission officers would also visit other cities in the West and Southwest, again in the hopes of increasing the numbers of students from these areas.  With humor, Gwen McGarry recalls how the 1960 film Where the Boys Are helped bring some local notoriety to Brown, because the character played by George Hamilton was a student at the University.  

Recruiting for Pembroke College

In 1945, Jean Barr ’44 moved to Denver from outside Boston with her husband, O. James Barr III, a veteran of the 10th Mountain Division.  Barr serves today as CEO of JHB International, a Denver-based company she started in 1969 that is a major domestic and international supplier of fashion, novelty, and basic buttons.  Barr notes with pride that women students of Pembroke College graduated with Brown degrees.  According to The Encyclopedia Brunoniana, Brown had established the Women’s College in 1891 as a structure to educate women within the University.  Later named Pembroke College, the women’s college merged with Brown in 1971.

Barr, who fondly remembers Cook and Joe McGarry, enjoyed “talking a lot” about Pembroke and Brown to local students.  In the 1950s, Barr would open up her home to prospective Pembroke students during the college recruiting season.  As a prospective student, Pat Carlson Collett ’58 attended a party hosted by Barr and featuring Alberta Brown, Pembroke’s admission director from the 1950s until the 1970s.  Collett, a graduate of South High School, vividly recalls Barr’s enthusiasm for her alma mater and the admission director’s graciousness.  Collett, who was eager to go to school back East, actually learned about Pembroke from her high school counselor. The sole economics major of her Pembroke class, Collett later obtained master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Denver.

When Collett returned to Denver after graduation, she participated in Pembroke recruiting events.  Collett commented that Barr was instrumental in getting the word out about Pembroke by interviewing students throughout the state and hosting numerous recruiting events.  During the 1950s and 1960s, Pembroke alumni also took part in recruiting venues sponsored by the Seven Sisters, a consortium of distinguished women’s colleges. The Pembroke recruiting efforts, as well as those of the other women's colleges, were often afternoon teas with prospective students.  Held after school hours in an alumna’s house, some of the teas were quite elaborate, with the college president or admission officer in attendance.  Until the early 1980s, local Pembroke alumni also participated in periodic events sponsored by the Seven Sisters’ alumni clubs.

The Brown Club of Denver

By the early 1960s, local alumni activity burgeoned when a small band of Brown graduates formed the Brown Club of Denver.  Dick Wolf, a 1950s alumnus and transplant from New York, served as the first club leader.  Wolf connected with Joe McGarry and recruited two other Easterners living in Denver, Ted Crane ’50 and Ben Aisenberg ’52, both of whom had obtained advanced degrees at Harvard in the 1950s.  (Crane is now Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Denver and Aisenberg practices law.)  The club’s sole purpose was interviewing prospective Brown students and providing recommendations to the University. 

During these first years, Wolf would call the club’s members and ask them to gather on certain Saturdays to interview students.  Aisenberg, who led the group from 1963-66, remembers with a bit of humor that the University denied admission to many of the students local alumni had recommended.  Gwen McGarry also recalls how her husband wanted everyone he interviewed to attend Brown and his disappointment when students were not admitted.

Eugene (Gene) Kay ’59 and P’83, who had been president of the Brown Club of Cincinnati, took a leadership role in the club after moving to Denver in 1966.  Richard (Dick) Mauro ’67 and P’91, a North High School graduate whom Aisenberg had interviewed, also took an active role in the club.  From 1968-70, Mauro served as National Alumni Schools Program (NASP) director for region eight, which included Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming and Utah.  Kay would go on to serve as the club leader until 1979. 

Kay recalls that, in 1966, there were only four students from Colorado and Wyoming at Brown, and the challenge still for alumni was raising the University’s name recognition and encouraging local students to apply.  Kay gives credit to Joe McGarry for organizing the first Introduction to Brown nights at the University Club in the late 1960s.  Featuring a Brown admission representative, these information meetings helped raise Brown’s local profile.  Once the club outgrew the University Club, the event took place at the Denver Public Library or the Museum of Natural History (today the Museum of Nature and Science) with the brown bear statue outside overlooking the city.

Kay also remembers a local visit by Ray L. Heffner, Brown University President from 1966-69, who encouraged alumni to form an official club.  According to Kay, Heffner flew to Seattle after Denver for a formal event, and because of a luggage mix-up, ended up with a suitcase full of lady’s clothes and a hat box with the brown cowboy hat the Denver alumni had presented him.  It is interesting to note that Heffner tendered his resignation on May 9, 1969, the day after marathon faculty meetings resulted in a vote to adopt a new curriculum that abolished distribution requirements and made letter grades optional.

In 1976, the Brown Band paid a memorable visit to Colorado to perform at a hockey match between Brown and Colorado College.  (That season, Brown’s hockey team won the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference championship and made it to the final four of the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship hockey series.)  The McGarry family and several of their neighbors hosted all the band members.  One side trip included a visit to the Continental Divide, a majestic sight most of these students had probably never seen.  Gwen McGarry was impressed that all of the band members wrote thank you notes to each of the Colorado host families.

Throughout the 1970s, recruiting and interviewing remained the backbone of alumni activity.  In 1975, Shirley Burr Darling ’44 moved to Denver with her family from Northern Ohio and recalls meeting with Joe McGarry and Jack Lutz ’65 to discuss the local club. (Darling and Barr knew each other as classmates at Pembroke and later re-connected as residents of Denver.)  An independent college advisor, Darling began serving as NASP area chair in 1976 and went on to become NASP director for region eight.  She recalls the eagerness of alumni to be in touch with and to interview all students who had applied to the University, a sentiment still true today. Gwen McGarry remembers the energy and enthusiasm Darling brought to the local alumni group as she began organizing and hosting NASP gatherings at the Denver Athletic Club and other venues.

Because of her unwavering dedication to NASP until the mid-1980s, the University awarded Darling the Brown Bear Award in 1984.  Darling had actually never heard of the award before the University contacted her about being a recipient.  Once on campus for graduation, Darling was surprised to be sitting on the same stage as the honorary degree recipients, including Robert McNeil and Jim Lehrer of the McNeil-Lehrer Newshour.

The Emergence of Brown and the Rocky Mountain Brown Club

In April 1979, President Swearer came to Denver for a barnstorming visit with alumni, speaking at separate functions at the University Club and the Denver Athletic Club.  The times were exciting for the University because of its growing national recognition. As an April 9, 1979 Time education article featuring Brown’s admission process explained:

Until now, because of the almost immutable pecking order of colleges, only about one-half of the students admitted actually enrolled at Brown.  The rest went to schools like Princeton, Yale and Harvard, which has about a 75% yield.  But lately Brown has become very popular.  At a time when the end of the baby boom spells a declining applicant pool, the school’s applications have jumped 24% in two years.

Brown had one of the highest applicant-to-position ratios of any university in the country, accepting only 2,500 students from 11,500 applicants for the class of 1983.

During his visit to Denver, Swearer attributed the ignited interest in the University to its first-rate faculty.  He also explained how a commitment to a lean administration and close financial accountability had fostered quality on College Hill.  A modest Swearer would eventually receive press for Brown’s success, as described in a Time article dated May 24, 1982: 

Today, endowment stands at a healthy $144 million, the faculty is first rate, and student recruiting programs seem to have yielded rich dividends….The students, like the stars of the 485 member faculty, seem to have been attracted, in part, by the positive atmosphere of a school on the rise. 

Swearer concluded his visit by urging local alumni to gather occasionally to socialize, recruit promising students, support area students at Brown, and serve as an organizational conduit between the University and area alumni.  

On June 21, 1979, Kay hosted the kick-off cocktail party for the official Rocky Mountain Brown Club (coined for a short time ROMOBRO) with its first officers:

By 1980, the club had 77 charter members who had paid $10 per individual or couple among a local alumni population of approximately 400.

The club’s first years saw a parade of visits from a myriad of University representatives for alumni outreach, development, and recruiting purposes.  Visitors included Swearer, Vice President Robert Seiple, Director of Admissions Jim Rogers, NASP and then Field Services Director David J. Zucconi ‘55, Deans Bruce Donovan ’58 and John M. Robinson, and several professors.  In 1982, one visit by the charismatic Zucconi yielded $82,000 in pledges with the help of local alumni, including Linton, club president from 1981-2, Lutz, and Kay.  Another memorable early club event was the 1980 Christmas Pops on Ice with Colorado Springs Symphony Conductor Charles Ansbacher ’65, organized by Althea Patt, wife of Richard Patt ’67 and P ‘96. 

In the Rocky Mountain region, as was true across the country, the word about Brown as a premier choice for top students was continuing to grow quickly.  The 1982-83 New York Times Selective Guide to Colleges by Edward B. Fiske gave Brown and Stanford the highest rankings of 14 out of 15 stars for academic quality, social life and quality of life.  During this time, Bingham, club president from 1982-86, and Darling had organized an Introduction to Brown Night, renting the same small conference room they had used in years past at the Denver Athletic Club (DAC).  Expecting the usual 15 to 20 prospective students, Bingham and Darling vividly recall an overwhelming turnout.  As Bingham describes:

The avalanche of students and their parents that night at the DAC quickly ran out the door and down a flight of stairs. Shirley and I were aghast. I elbowed through the throng and dashed upstairs (I could still do that back then), saw that the main dining room was unoccupied, and buttonholed the maitre-d' to open it up to our gathering crowd.

Darling remembers the number of local student applications in the range of 25-35 until the early 1980s, when applications reached above 100, with 133 applying in 1983. Brown had indeed arrived in Colorado.    

Passing the Baton into the 1990s

Thanks to the ongoing involvement of many of the first RMBC supporters and the integration of new alumni, the club continued to flourish.  David Ebner ’73, a Wheat Ridge High School graduate whom Mauro had interviewed, took over as Colorado NASP chair and region eight director following Darling’s decade of NASP service.  After Bingham’s nearly six years of faithful service as club president, Pam Strauss ’82 became president in 1988.  Lino Lipinsky ’79, NASP area chair at the time, humorously recalls Strauss being elected at a board meeting that she could not attend.  Strauss was also a local, having graduated from Cherry Creek High School in 1978.

During this time, the club started meeting monthly at the Cherry Creek Inn at 7:00 a.m., a tradition that lasted until 1997.  To encourage early riser attendance, Kay, club president from 1989-92, paid for everyone’s breakfast.  Kit Stanford ’62 paid for the mailing and distribution of the minutes during this epic of early meetings and beyond, until 2002. 

During this time, the club saw increased alumni participation in events, such as professor visits and social venues from football parties to family picnics.  NASP activities also continued to be a central part of the club, including the Brown Book Award program (giving an inscribed Webster’s dictionary with the Brown University seal to top high school juniors).  Two memorable events in the late 1980s were visits to the U.S. Olympic Training Center before Brown’s women’s soccer team played Colorado College and to the United Airline’s Flight Training Center with Captain Bill Traub ’59, Kay’s classmate.  Traub took alumni in the flight simulators, and, as Kay fondly remembers, “it was fortunately only in the simulators that most of downtown Denver got wiped out.” 

In April of 1989, Ray Fisher ’63 organized a visit by Brown Professor Thomas Webb who spoke on the Greenhouse Effect.  This discussion was reminiscent of professor lectures the club sponsored in the early 1980s on topics such as energy efficiency and the uneasy triangle of America-Soviet-Chinese relations.  Fisher also helped organize a talk in 1990 with Professor Abbott (Tom) Gleason, who addressed the fall of the former Soviet Union.      

Lipinsky, club president from 1992-4, had the honor of welcoming President Vartan Gregorian at the Colorado Governor’s Mansion to more than 125 alumni and guests in June 1993.  Gregorian spoke with enthusiasm about Brown’s innovative programs, including affiliating curators of world-class museums with the University, endowing chairs for assistant and retired professors, and creating an exchange program within the Ivy League.  Responding to recent press, he also stressed that political correctness was not impinging on free expression at Brown.  Gregorian further discussed the merits of the New Curriculum, which included recent changes such as not accepting AP credits and increasing the number of credits required for graduation.

Also in 1993, the University gave the honor of the medium-sized Brown Club of the Year to the Rocky Mountain Brown Club (RMBC).  During this time period, Lori Roberts ’86 held the position of NASP area chair.  After his term as president, Lipinsky would go on to serve on the Board of Governors of the Associated Alumni of Brown University (AABU), as would Jan Cantrill ’68, P’96 and ’00.  Colorado received additional national representation when Anne Jones Mills ‘60, an elected alumni trustee of the Brown Corporation, moved to Castle Rock in the early 1990s.

During his presidency, Lipinsky sought to welcome more recent alumni to the club.  The idea of organizing young alumni events began, as well as the focus of having recent alumni help with NASP activities.  As Kay humorously points out, the club thought that applicants to the University might more readily identify with younger graduates rather than with the “graybeard” alumni.  While Lipinsky was president, alumni including Andrea Banks ’88 (maiden name Link), Danny Winokur ’92, and Pam Cowan ’92 became involved in the club.  In 1994, Cowan would go on to serve as NASP area co-chair along with John Ladd ’75 and P’06.

Linton, a long-time faithful supporter of the club like Kay, served again as president again from 1994-97.  In December of 1994, Linton and Richard Patt organized several events during the University of Denver Hockey Cup Tournament at McNichols Arena that included hosting Brown’s hockey team.  In February of 1995, local alumni once again heard President Gregorian speak, this time via a satellite discussion with National Public Radio correspondent Mara Liasson ’77 on the topic of “Brown Higher Education:  A Vision and A Voice”.  In the fall of 1995, Cantrill rallied local alumni to support the creation of a scholarship fund for one to two students a year.  Because of the generosity of local alumni, this fund continues today as Aid to Matriculating Students (ATMS).

While president from 1997-99, Cantrill emphasized the importance of recruiting recent alumni to ensure the ongoing livelihood of the RMBC, as Lipinsky also had as president.  In the fall of 1997, the club organized a career networking event at the Denver Athletic Club, giving younger graduates the opportunity to learn from more established alumni in the Rocky Mountain region.  To improve communications with all alumni, Cantrill, Daisy Whitney ’94, and Doug Render ’92 helped the RMBC creep into the Internet age with the beginnings of a website and an e-mail distribution list in 1998.

To further generate interest in the club, Cantrill and Mike Huttner ’92 decided to introduce the tradition of an annual alumni party.  In years past, the club had thrown holiday gatherings, such as the one Bingham organized in 1982 at the Zang Brewing Company with Denver Historian Tom Noel, who spoke on “Bars of the Old West.” There were also many NASP holiday or post-New Year gatherings, often with Brown professors, in places such as the Denver Botanic Gardens, the Wellshire Inn and the Museum of Nature and Science.  During her tenure with NASP, Darling organized many memorable holiday gatherings that gave prospective students, current students, and alumni the chance to mingle.

In November of 1999, the re-invented alumni holiday event took place at the Oxford Hotel, with almost 100 alumni in attendance to hear President E. Gordon Gee. Cantrill introduced and greeted Gee, along with Banks, a Cherry Creek High School graduate who served as club president from 1999-2002.  Gee reminisced about his days at the University of Colorado and spoke with passion on Brown’s virtues.  This visit was just a couple of months before his unexpected resignation in February of 2000 to move to Vanderbilt.  In January 2005, the RMBC enthusiastically greeted President Ruth Simmons, who spoke on the University’s Academic Enrichment Program at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.  And the tradition of an annual holiday party remains alive and well, with the event taking place in such festive places as the Boulderado and Brown Palace Hotels.

Moving the RMBC into the 21st Century

Critical to the club’s ongoing development has been increasing the variety and frequency of alumni events, as well as improving club communications.  In 2000, Banks and the other Ivy League alumni presidents began collaborating to plan shared events, from a 5K run / walk to a wine tasting event. The array of all-Ivy events have continued to flourish since Marjorie Marks ’67 became president in 2002.  Matt Conklin ’95.5 and Justin Reilly ’94 were also instrumental in establishing the tradition of all-Ivy happy hours.  Today, club communications have also greatly improved with a website hosted on Brown’s site (http://alumni.advancement.brown.edu/clubs/rmbc/index.html) and an e-mail list that continues to grow as more alumni provide the University with their e-mail addresses.

As has been true throughout the club’s history, alumni commitment to recruiting and interviewing prospective students, as well as warmly sending-off matriculating students, remains strong.  Contact rates of prospective students are consistently in the mid to high 90th percentile range.  Ladd saw this trend move upward locally as the 1994-2000 area chair for NASP and then BASC (Brown Alumni Schools Program, a name adopted in 1997), and regionally as BASC director from 2000-2003.  Michele Fagin ’81 is currently serving as BASC regional director after serving for years as BASC area chair for Southern Colorado.  Tom Beresford Sr. P’02 and ’05, the club’s first Brown parent to serve as BASC area chair, held this position from 2000-03.  During this time, the University introduced the time-saving electronic contact form (eBASC).  The current BASC area chairs are Gwen Burak ’91 for the Denver-metro area and Western Slope, Barry Fagin ’82 for Southern Colorado, and Veronica Silberberg ’82 for Wyoming. 

Brown’s national popularity has seen unabated growth, as reflected in Newsweek’s 2006 Kaplan guide to “America’s Hottest Colleges,” which listed Brown as the hot school for self-directed learning.  The University will most certainly continue to receive annually at least 175 applications from Colorado and Wyoming, with around 15 to 20 of the best and brightest attending Brown each year. During the fall of 2005, the number of early decision applicants was up 40% in comparison to 2004.  The importance of having local alumni interview students will remain true for years to come.    

Thanks to the dedication of passionate Brown alumni throughout the decades, today’s 1,000-plus alumni in Colorado and Wyoming still find a piece of Brunonia in the West, be it for intellectual, social or nostalgic purposes. And the dynamic presidency of Marks will be included in the next chapter of the club’s history.  May this next chapter also see ongoing club support from Brown graduates of all different decades.

If you would like to add anything to the history of our local alumni club, please contact Banks at 303-884-9363 or andrea.banks@prodigy.net.

IN MEMORIAM:

We remember:

• NASP interviewer Ava Brackett ’76, who passed away in 1992 after a battle with cancer. A 1986 graduate of Yale Law School, Brackett was a community leader in Denver.  In January 1992, the Black Allied Law Students’ Association honored her with the national Nelson Mandela award for her countless hours counseling and tutoring law students.
• Nancy Riley ’57, a board member of the RMBC and the Denver Chamber Orchestra, who unexpectedly passed away in 1993.
• Alice Raudenbush ’00, a Denver student who tragically died in a mountain accident in 1998.

BEAR FACTS:

Rocky Mountain Brown Club, Inc.

P.O. Box 6963

Denver, Colorado 80206

http://alumni.advancement.brown.edu/clubs/rmbc/index.html

Go to the RMBC website to see how you can support your club.

Rocky Mountain Brown Club Presidents

Jack Lutz ’65 - 1979-81

Paul Linton ’68 - 1981-82

Hugh Bingham ’67 - 1982-88

Pam Strauss ’82 - 1988-89 

Gene Kay ’59 - 1989-92

Lino Lipinsky ’79 - 1992-94

Paul Linton ’68 - 1994-97

Jan Cantrill ’68 - 1997-99

Andrea Banks ’88 - 1999-2002

Marjorie Marks ’67 - 2002-2007

Gwen Burak '91 - 2007-present

Highlights of Rocky Mountain Brown Club Events:  1979-2005

April and June 1979:  President Swearer visited Denver in April and the RMBC was formed in June, with a kick-off cocktail party at the home of Kay.

September 1980:  First annual club meeting with Professor of Economics George Borts.  Organized by Aisenberg.  (Borts was also in Colorado to review oil shale development prospects on the Western Slope.)

October 1980:  Rocky Mountain States NASP regional meeting hosted by the RMBC.

December 1980:  Winter Weekend West at the Broadmoor, including a Christmas Pops on Ice show starring Olympic Champion Dorothy Hamill and a cocktail party with Colorado Springs Symphony Conductor Ansbacher. Organized by Althea Patt, club activities chairperson.

April 1981:  Psychology Professor Richard Millward spoke on “What to Do When Your Computer Starts Talking Back to You.”

December 1981 and March 1982:  Luncheon Speakers Program organized by Fisher with two talks on the uneasy triangle, American-Soviet-Chinese relations.

February 1982:  Professors Joseph Loferski and Harold Ward spoke on alternative energy sources and energy conservation ideas (timely then as it is now because of high energy costs).

October 1982:  “Brown Has Arrived in Colorado,” with President Swearer, Vice President Seiple, and Computer Science Professor Andies Van Dam.  Hosted by Joe McGarry and Mauro.

December 1982:  Club Christmas gathering at the Zang Brewing Company with Denver historian Noel, who spoke on “Bars of the Old West.”  Organized by Bingham.

September 1984:  First football party, with a cable viewing of Brown-Yale football game.  Organized by Bingham.

January 1984 and 1985:  Meet the students event at the Botanical Gardens House.  A chance for current Brown students, prospective students, and alumni to mingle.  Organized by Bingham and Darling, who had hosted previous NASP holiday parties.

October 1988:  Visit to the U.S. Olympic Training Center before Brown’s women’s soccer team played Colorado College.  Hosted by Kay.

April 1989:  Professor Thomas Webb spoke on the Greenhouse Effect.  Organized by Fisher.

September 1989:  Tour of the United Airlines Flight Training Center with Captain Traub. Organized by Kay.

Winter 1990:  Professor Gleason spoke on the then recent fall of the Soviet Union.  Organized by Fisher.

January 1993:  Anthropology Professor Liza Bakewell gave a tour of the Aztec exhibition at the Denver Museum of Natural History after speaking at the annual holiday party.

April 1993:  The RMBC, for the third consecutive year, sponsored a spring concert by the Denver Chamber Orchestra.  The concert was dedicated to the memory of Riley.

June 1993:  President Gregorian spoke at the Colorado Governor’s Mansion.  Hosted by Lipinsky.

January 1994:  Professors Thomas Banchoff and Anne Morgan Spalter presented a Continuing College seminar on “Evolution or Revolution?:  Computers, Fine Art and the Fourth Dimension.”

December 1994:  Brown’s hockey team participated in the University of Denver Hockey Cup Tournament at McNichols Arena.  Events organized by Richard Patt and Linton.

February 1995:  Satellite broadcast of President Gregorian speaking with National Public Radio correspondent Liasson on “Brown Higher Education:  A Vision and A Voice.”  The event took place at the Gates Planetarium near Denver’s City Park.  Hosted by Linton.

June 1997:  Tour of the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center with Sean McCann ’82, chief psychologist at the Sports Science Center.

November 1997:  Career Networking Event at the Denver Athletic Club. Organized by Render.

January 1999:  Dr. Ken Miller, Professor of Biology, spoke to the club on “Darwin and God:  Is co-existence possible?”

November 1999:  First Annual Alumni Holiday Party with President Gee at the Oxford Hotel, organized by Cantrill and Huttner.

January 2000:  Winter Party for prospective students with current Brown students as panelists.  Located at the Denver Athletic Club and hosted by Banks and Linda Samuels ’85, BASC area chair in 2000.

March 2000:  Brown’s men’s lacrosse team came to Colorado to play the University of Denver and the U.S. Air Force Academy.  Included reception with team members.  Organized by the Brown Sports Foundation and Ford Kimball ’95.

December 2000:  Second Annual Holiday Party at the Boulderado Hotel.

January 2001:  Winter Party for prospective students with current Brown students as panelists.  Located at the Denver Athletic Club and hosted by Banks and Sue-Lin Toussaint ’97, MAT ’98.

May 2001:  The Brain Science Program at Brown University with Professors John Donoghue, Elie Nienenstock, and James Anderson at the Oxford Hotel.  Hosted by Rebecca S. Betjemann '96 and Banks.

December 2001:  Third Annual Alumni Holiday Party at the Brown Palace Hotel.

January 2002:  “Not-a-Retirement” seminar given by Darling.  Organized by Cantrill.

December 2002:  Fourth Annual Alumni Holiday Party at the Boulderado.

May 2003:  Professor Richard Fishman of Fine Arts packed the Denver Art Museum for a lecture and private tour of special Bonnard Exhibit.  Organized by Marks.

December 2003, 2004 and 2005:  Annual Alumni Holiday Parties at the Brown Palace Hotel.

August 2004:  Professor Barbara Tannenbaum amused the crowd on gender differences in communication at the Denver Botanic Garden and the Vail home of Kent Logan '65.  Organized by Marks.

January 2005:  President Simmons spoke on the University’s Academic Enrichment Program at the Denver Center for Performing Arts. She discussed significant projects from capital improvements to the goal of need-blind admissions.  The gala reception with Simmons drew more than 90 alumni to downtown Denver and the weather cooperated.  Organized by Marks.

August 2005:  Philosophy Professor Felicia Nimue Ackerman spoke on end-of-life issues at the Belmar Center in Lakewood and at a private estate in Vail.  Organized by Marks.