Just because President George W. Bush faxed his personal congratulations and Vice President Dick Cheney expressed his best wishes in a videotaped message, don’t think for a minute that the dinner honoring 2007 Citizen of the West Cort Dietler was all solemn and pomp-and-circumstance-y.
Gov. Bill Ritter and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper didn’t joke around as they addressed the importance of the occasion – celebrating the Western way of life while raising $150,000 for the National Western Scholarship Trust – but some of Dietler’s other high-placed pals got plenty of laughs at the honoree’s expense.
A video with remarks by such oil-and-gas industry friends as Phil Anschutz, Jack Vickers, Tom Petrie, Hal Logan and Fred and Jan Mayer; Denver Art Museum director Lewis Sharp and others played off Dietler’s wry sense of humor and self-deprecating style and recounted a life well-lived.
For example: former Wyoming Sen. Alan
Simpson,who was Citizen of the West in 1990, pointed out for anyone who might have missed it that when Miss Rodeo America Ashley Andrews escorted Dietler into the Adam’s Mark Plaza Ballroom, Dietler was clutching a glass of bourbon. “How many previous honorees have done that?” he asked.
“There sure are a lot of comedians out here tonight,” Dietler observed after the 800 guests finished a steak and apple pie dinner coordinated by Marne Davis Kellogg, Ben Houston and National Western Stock Show president Pat Grant.
The son of an oil company executive,
Dietler served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during World War II, commanding a transportation company responsible for delivering fuel to combat units in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany. After the war, the Denver native earned a degree from the University of Tulsa where he met and married the former Martha Nicholson. The couple celebrate their 59th wedding anniversary this year.
“I’d like to thank my wife, Martha, and associates past and present who’ve helped me get to where I am today, wherever that is,” Dietler quipped.
Dinner guests also included Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman; the 2006 Citizen of the West, Sue Anschutz-Rodgers; Fred and Jane Hamilton; Nancy Petry; Peter and Philae Dominick; Katie Stapleton; Peter and Marilyn Coors; Bill and Rita Bass Coors; John and Anna Sie; Charlie and Diane Gallagher; Tom and Rebecca Love Kourlis; Bruce and Marcy Benson; University of Colorado president Hank Brown; Ellie Caulkins; Jerry and Mary McMorris; Brown and Mardi Cannon; and 2003 honoree Bill Hybl, the dinner’s emcee.
Society editor Joanne Davidson can be reached at 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@denverpost.com.
