Not long after the Summer Olympics wrapped up in Beijing last summer, teams of differently abled athletes began arriving in China for the Paralympic Games.
Seven Craig Rehabilitation Hospital graduates were among them: Dave Denniston, Matt Updike, Andy Cohn, Chance Sumner, Christina Ripp, Jason Regier and David Lee. Several of them brought home the gold, medals proudly displayed when the athletes accepted the Christopher and Dana Reeve Inspiration Award at the hospital’s PUSH Dinner, held last week at the Marriott Denver Tech Center.
PUSH, which commercial Realtor Art Seiden and his late wife, Julie, started eight years ago, is both a fundraiser and testament to the unparalleled care that Craig provides to people with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries resulting in paraplegia and quadriplegia.
Located in Englewood, the 100-year-old Craig is regarded as one of the world’s top facilities of its type. “We use our often sparse resources to develop and provide programming that allows our patients to live life with a disability, rather than just survive with a disability,” noted Denny O’Malley, Craig’s immediate past president and dinner chair.
It’s only rock ‘n’ roll.
Nothing against anything on the current Top 40, but old- school rock definitely has its fans. Just look at the standing O that the Saturday Night Alive crowd gave to World Class Rockers — a bunch of guys who used to be in Lynyrd Skynyrd, Toto, Steppenwolf, Journey, Santana and Boston.
It was about as loud as the applause that greeted the “in my next life” lead singers, guitarists and keyboard players who donned go-go boots, paisley prints, wigs and skintight jeans to sit in for couple of numbers with the band: Adrienne Ruston Fitzgibbons, Ed Harris, Gail Johnson, Ed Haselden, Jack Overstreet, Roger Hutson, Gayle Novak, Dan Ritchie, Debi Tepper, Brian O’Meara and Penny Parker.
“The guys (in the band) couldn’t have been more patient with us,” said Johnson, who shook her tambourine and sang. “We rehearsed for a couple of hours (earlier in the day), but I still had to read my lyrics from a cheat-sheet.”
Saturday Night Alive is the Denver Center Alliance’s signature fundraiser. Ralph and Anne Klomp of Trice Jewelers were the chairs, and the 710 guests raised about $600,000 for Arts in Education, a program of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts that reaches an estimated 70,000 school children statewide. Read more about it in my Seen First blog: blogs .
Society editor Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@ .; also, .
