The year 2011 is going to be a big one for Dutch Hodges, who, after 24 years on the job, just left her position at KBDI-Channel 12 as veep of marketing and development. Now 65, she figured that instead of riding around the country in a Teardrop Trailer and bugging all her friends, she’d join the Peace Corps and go to Namibia. The southern African nation is poor and isolated, but it’s also where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and their brood spent the holidays. Less paparazzi.
She starts at the end of next month with some training in the States, then off to the sand dunes.
“I have a crank radio — not a lot of electricity there,” she says. No computer, but you guessed it, cellphones are everywhere.
Excited?
“I am terrified, Bill,” she says. “But I’m healthy, and I thought it would be good to do something. I’m renting my house, and if I survive, I’ll be back.”
She says there are only about 700 “older” people in the Peace Corps. “If Lillian Carter can do it, I can do it,” Hodges said. The mom of former President Jimmy Carter went to India with the Peace Corps in 1966 when she was 68.
The seen.
Aspen bloggers are excited that Jessica Simpson hit town with fiance Eric Johnson, a Yalie/footballer. Never known for nice, the blog Celebrity Smack mocks Simpson’s weight, running the headline “Jessica Simpson & Double Chin Shop Aspen.” Stupid. Simpson is on a roll these days.
Also in town is “NCIS: Los Angeles” star Chris O’Donnell with wife Caroline, as well as actor/author/comedian Steve Harvey.
If there wasn’t so much snow, they’d be playing golf in Telluride. Pros spotted at the New Sheridan Hotel include Justin Leonard, Paul Casey and star instructor Peter Kostis.Hic!
The Daily Beast has just named Denver the “12th drunkest city” in America. I mean, just because the average person here drinks 12.94 pops a month, and 17.1 percent of adults are binge drinkers?
Milwaukee is No. 1. New Orleans is 25. Las Vegas is 36.
Most reader comments wonder why the drinking illustration for Denver shows someone pulling a nonalcoholic Coors out of a fridge. Is this town suffering from the placebo effect?
Party time.
January is shaping up to be a good party month — really good. Ocean Prime on Larimer opens with a whopper party benefiting Denver Hospice on Jan. 19. $100 for you, $75 for young professionals like me.
And then on Jan. 21 — MAX brings Diane von Furstenberg to town for a fashion show. On the same night, Jon Bon Jovi rocks at a benefit for Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation (CeDAR) at the Colorado Convention Center.
City spirit.
Wynton Marsalis brings in his Jazz@Lincoln Center Orchestra to close the Jazz Aspen Snowmass June Festival on July 2. . . . Sez who: “Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors and let each new year find you a better man.” Benjamin Franklin
Bill Husted’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. You can reach him at 303-954-1486 or bhusted@ . Take a peek at Husted’s next column at /husted.
