I could make it easy for myself and just list names of the people who weren’t at the Marriott City Center on Saturday night for the High Hopes Tribute Dinner.
But that wouldn’t do now, would it?
Nine hundred, give or take, hauled out the heavy artillery — designer gowns, major jewels, hair and makeup professionally done — to be a part of an elegant and star-studded evening that was chaired by Peter and Cathy Culshaw and raised $750,000 for the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes.
Davis and her late husband, Marvin, as we’ve told you a million times before, started the Carousel Ball 30 years ago when their daughter, Dana, then 7, was diagnosed with diabetes. Twenty-five years ago the family left Denver and moved to Los Angeles so that Marvin, who’d made his fortune in the oil industry, could better oversee his expanding interests. They included show business (he once owned Twentieth Century Fox), real estate and other investments.
They took the Carousel Ball with them — during its Denver years, the ball attracted such as Henry Kissinger and Lucille Ball — renaming it Carousel of Hope and upping the starpower to include not only movie and television figures but presidents and other heads of state.
No other Denver event even came close to the Carousel Ball until the Davises, who have always had a soft spot for their longtime home, started the High Hopes Tribute Dinner. Like the Carousel Ball and Carousel of Hope, it’s a fundraiser for the Barbara Davis Center.
High Hopes has always been good, with entertainment provided by such favorites as Neil Diamond and Bob Newhart. But this year was the best, with Grammy- and Academy Award-winning musician/composer David Foster flying in with such friends as the legendary Smokey Robinson, comedian George Lopez, singer/composer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and “American Idol” runner-up Katharine McPhee to put on a show the likes of which Denver has not seen since the Carousel Ball ended its run in the mid-1980s.
Everyone — from the headliners to the backup singers and boys in the band — donated their services for what must have been a very long day for them. They arrived in Denver around 9 a.m., checked into the Marriott and spent the afternoon rehearsing.
All but Robinson, who was suffering from flu-like symptoms and appeared just long enough to sing two songs, was dressed and ready to party not long after the first guests arrived at 5:30 p.m.
In fact, Lopez’s wife, Ann, proved to be one of the best shoppers in the pre-dinner silent auction. Browsing the Jewels for Hope tables, she spotted a diamond-encrusted owl pin that Barbara Davis had donated for the occasion and snapped it up for the $6,000 asking price.
Melly Kinnard, one of the volunteers staffing Jewels for Hope, said Ann Lopez told her she planned to give the VanCleef & Arpels pin to her mother for her 75th birthday.
Katharine McPhee added fuel to the gossip that she has become engaged to longtime beau Nick Cokas, by purchasing the Maui getaway offered for sale in the live auction. Cokas accompanied McPhee to Denver, and fans were wondering if the trip would be used for their honeymoon.
The head table, long and rectangular and situated at the head of the ballroom, was reserved for Davis and the celebrities. They were joined by Davis’ daughter and son-in-law, Nancy Davis and Ken Rickel; Nancy’s son, Jason; and High Hopes Award recipient Steve Farber and his wife, Cindy.
Another celebrity in the crowd was four-time Indy 500 champ Al Unser. There with his wife, Susan, Unser told us he was attending the benefit to honor Dr. Igal Kam of the University of Colorado Hospital, who had performed a life-saving heart transplant on him several years ago.
Earlier Saturday, a ceremony had been held at the hospital to dedicate a new transplant center. Kam is the director, and his position was endowed by the Farber family, in gratitude for the care Steve Farber had received during his own kidney transplant operation in 2004.
Steve Farber has been a member of the Barbara Davis Center board since the start and the Farber and Davis families share a friendship that spans the decades. As Barbara Davis said at the benefit, she and Marvin had been the hosts for Steve and Cindy’s engagement party and had since celebrated many other joyous occasions with them, including the births of children and grandchildren.
Barbara Davis also pointed out that it is fitting to honor one who has had a kidney transplant because kidney problems, sometimes so severe as to necessitate a transplant, are but one complication a diabetic can have.
So who all was there?
From the medical community, Dr. Richard Krugman, dean of the CU School of Medicine; Drs. Peter Chase and George Eisenbarth from the Barbara Davis Center; Dr. Jules Amer, who’d been the Davis family pediatrician; Drs. Georgeanna and William Klingensmith; Dr. Michael Schaffer; and Dr. Richard Abrams, a longtime Barbara Davis Center board member and a co-chair of the High Hopes Tribute Dinner.
From The Guild of the Children’s Diabetes Center: Debbie Gradishar, Connie Pohs, Sally Frerichs, Lisa Corley, Herminia Vigil, Wendy Aiello DeHaven, Suzanne Adler, Gretchen Pope, Georgia Imhoff, Bonita Carson, Helen Hanks, Peggy Crane Epand, Goldie Zerobnick, Sandy Alpert, Adrienne Ruston Fitzgibbons, Margy Epke and Judith Ann Bien, just to name a few.
Also, Steve Farber’s father-in-law, Herb Cook, and his wife, Barbara; his law partner, Norm Brownstein with wife, Sunny; Debbie and Jimmy Lustig; Shelly and Rick Sapkin; Deb and Bill MacMillan; Dana and Chuck Farmer; Lorna and Gerald Gray; Sandy Vinnik; Marsha and Ted Alpert; Alice and Jack Vickers; David McReynolds; Evi and Evan Makovsky; Arlene and Barry Hirschfeld; Ellen Robinson and Mark Schwartz; Diane Huttner; Faye and Wayne Gardenswartz; Josh Hanfling; Sue and Doug Seserman; Jody Epstein and Don Yale; Barby Sidon; Bonnie and David Mandarich; Molly Broeren and Bill Mosher; Robin and Steve Chotin; and Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey.
Pictures from the High Hopes Tribute Dinner can be seen at denverpost.com/SeenGallery.
Society editor Joanne Davidson can be reached at 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@denverpost.com. Her column appears every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
