It’s delightfully obvious that when Anna Sie chose the menu for the Chinese New Year party that she gave in honor of her husband, telecom giant/philanthropist John Sie, she was sharing her hopes for everyone in the Year of the Rat.
After all, the popular couple’s diverse crowd of friends were going to assemble in Perfect Harmony (winter melon soup) for a Happy Gathering (walnut prawns) sure to result in Everlasting Prosperity (Chilean sea bass), Good Fortune in Abundance (Imperial risotto) and Blessed Longevity (E-Fu noodles).
Realizing that Western cultures might not appreciate the significance of a year named after a pesky rodent, Mayor John Hickenlooper, whose first stop of the night had been the Up With People concert at Buell Theater, reminded the Sies’ non-Chinese guests that according to the Chinese zodiac, those born in the Year of the Rat are clever, quick-witted, charming, possessed of a keen mind and always looking for new challenges.
Which so happens to describe John Sie, who was born in a year of the Fire Rat. Born in Nanking, China, he grew up in Shanghai, the son of a Nationalist China diplomat, and came to America in 1950, not speaking a word of English and opting to remain in a New York orphanage with one of his brothers when the rest of the family returned to China.
After years spent in electrophysics, aerospace — even gemology — he was drawn to cable television, which was then in its infancy. He quickly became a leader in the field and retired several years ago as the founder, chairman and CEO of StarzEncore. Sie is credited with leading the industry in HDTV, fiber optics and subscriber video-on-demand, among other things.
Retirement, though, has led him down other avenues. The Anna and John J. Sie Foundation is immersed in funding Down syndrome research and in fact brought one of the nation’s best, Pat Winters, to the University of Colorado from Johns Hopkins University. Winters and her daughter, Elizabeth, an opera major at CU, were at the party held at Palace Chinese Restaurant.
Other guests were Secretary of State Mike Coffman and his wife, Cynthia, Colorado’s chief deputy attorney general; Suzanne Arkle Wilson, whose husband, Dr. M. Roy Wilson, is the chancellor of CU-Denver; Jim Schmerling, chief executive at The Children’s Hospital; Dr. Richard Krugman, dean of the CU School of Medicine, and his wife, Mary; and the five Sie children: Susan, Debbie, James, Michelle and Alison.
Also, such friends as Diana Lee and Dr. Roy Stahlgren; Bill Jackson; Joanne and Harvey Sender; Linda and Jimmy Yip; Ron Otsuka; Joy Burns; Peter Kudla; the Sheldon Steinhausers; Celeste Fleming; and Gayle and Gary Ray.
Society editor Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@denverpost.com; also,
