What if an organization had two major awards to bestow and the recipients didn’t show up to accept them?
There’d better be a really good excuse – which there was – when John and Anna Sie and George and Helen Yoshida missed all the pomp and circumstance planned for them at the inaugural Dragon Boat Gala. The Sies, who were to have been recognized as the first honorary patrons of this weekend’s Colorado Dragon Boat Festival, had accompanied their daughter, Debbie, to China as she accepted custody of an adopted daughter. The Yoshidas, the festival’s honorary chairs, were in her native Hawaii to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.
Michelle Sie Whitten, who had given birth to her second child, Patrick John Whitten, three weeks before the gala, accepted her parents’ award from presenter and festival board member Bei-Lee Gold. The Sies “symbolize what the festival is trying to accomplish – the bringing together of diverse cultures,” Gold said, adding: “He was born in China, her family is from Italy and they met in the United States.”
Longtime friend Gloria Williams spoke warmly of the Yoshidas and their commitment to the community. She said they had volunteered at each of the five previous festivals and would be holding down the fort at the Pepsi booth in 2006. Williams also noted that the fresh-from-Hawaii leis that she and Mayor John Hickenlooper were wearing at the gala were gifts from the Yoshidas.
The gala, emceed by former Fox-31 reporter Whei Wong and held at the Donald R. Seawell Grand Ballroom, featured a silent auction, artist demonstrations, a multicourse Chinese banquet from Imperial Chinese Restaurant, and the traditional Lion Dance by members of Shaolin Hung Mei Kung Fu.
John Chin, chairman of the festival board, noted that the event has enjoyed steady growth, so much so that this year’s attendance is expected to easily top the 85,000 seen in 2005. The next step, Chin added, is for the festival to purchase its own board (crurrently, they’re borrowed from other cities) so that teams can practice year round. By 2008, he predicted, the festival will attract spectators and racers from around the world.
Chin also introduced the festival’s executive director, Ding-Wen Hsu, and board members Violet Chan, the managing partner of Tryst Lounge; Tony Smith, chief financial officer of the Cherry Creek Arts Festival; Ken Tapp, whose Colorado New Home Realty is the presenting sponsor; Jim Fore of Charles Schwab Business Services Co.; and John Wright, president of the Asian Chamber of Commerce.
Guests included Cheryl Kisling Crouch, director of development for the University of Colorado Foundation, with M. Roy Wilson, new chancellor of CU’s Health Sciences Center; Denver Art Museum benefactor Bill Jackson; Kelly Weist, president of Colorado Grassroots Strategies; Joshua Casto, special assistant to the president of Johnson & Wales University; attorney Woon-Ki Lau; corporate trainer Erin Yoshimura; Faye Tate from the sponsoring CH2M Hill and her husband, attorney Penfield Tate III; Mary Lee Chin; Angela Cho, chief financial officer of the Asian Pacific Development Center; Darby Doll; LaFawn Biddle; Phyllis Gottesfeld; and a group fresh from touring China’s Silk Road with Martha Liao and Hao-Jiang Tian: Linda and Jimmy Yip, dermatologist Kevin McKee, Gayle and Gary Ray, Celeste Fleming and Jennifer Heglin.
Society editor Joanne Davidson can be reached at 303-809-1314 or jmdpost@aol.com.
