“Trains and boats and planes … ev’ry time I see them I pray … the trains and the boats and planes will bring you back, back home to me.”
Almost like the Burt Bach arach song, it took many modes of transportation to get several of the principals to Colorado in time for Friday night’s Denver Debutante Ball. Boats were the only exception.
With airports and roads closed because of the holiday blizzard, debutantes, post-debutantes, family members and friends found themselves doing whatever it took – even accepting the kindness of strangers – to get to the Brown Palace Hotel.
Leslie Liedtke, whose daughter, Mimi, was presented at the 2005 ball and would be one of the 21 post-debs taking part in the 8 p.m. ceremony, prevailed on her father, who owns his own jet, to ferry Mimi and three others who attend school in the Michigan area to Denver. The trip was successful, with Mimi, fellow post- deb Amy Craig; Peter Zarlengo, who was to escort his sister, post-deb Ali Zarlengo; and Jaime Latcham, whose sister, Keely Latcham, was one of the 29 debutantes, arriving in plenty of time for not just the presentation, but the 3 p.m. rehearsal.
While her brother was flying, Ali Zarlengo was in Colorado Springs with debutante Holly McHugh and post-deb Kelsey Smith waiting for Interstate 25 to open so they could make the drive from Colorado College to their Denver-area homes.
Debutante Kedzie Schotters figured she could circumvent the airport closure by taking a bus from Washington University in St. Louis. But even that ambitious plan failed when the bus made it only part of the way before road closures dictated that Kedzie figure out a Plan B: taking a train. It got her as far as La Junta, where a family friend picked her up and gave her a lift to Denver, where her parents, Barney and Nancy Schotters, were waiting.
Post-debs Sarah Coxhead and Hilary Harrington, who attend college in San Diego, were in the middle of finals when they learned their flight to Denver had been canceled. So they took the only alternative available: with a third friend to help with the driving, they hopped in their car on Thursday afternoon and drove nonstop to Denver, all the while hoping that the midnight blue, Duchess satin gowns that designer Kay Unger created for the post-debs in cooperation with Neiman Marcus would fit. That’s because there was no way they’d be making it to Denver in time for the final fitting.
The last time there was this much weather-related excitement for the ball was in the infamous blizzard of ’72.
“Fortunately, it didn’t start snowing until everyone had arrived at the Brown Palace,” recalled Barbara Knight, who was the 2006 ball’s honorary chairwoman.
The Denver Debutante Ball began in 1956 as a benefit for what was then the Denver Symphony Orchestra. It has raised $4.5 million, according to founding chair Katie Stapleton.
