Twenty years ago, a group of Delta Gamma sorority members came up with a clever idea for raising money for Anchor Center for Blind Children: an event called Day in the Country. It would involve asking a group of their friends to invite some of their friends to enjoy lunch and a silent auction in the backyard of a beautiful Cherry Hills Village home.
It wouldn’t be a typical ladies luncheon, in that each hostess would be responsible for the food, utensils, drink and decor at her table. The themes they chose ranged from whimsical to spectacular.
This went on for several increasingly popular years, until someone decided that with a little tweaking, the fundraiser could be even more profitable.
Thus, Sunset in the Country was born, and what had been a ladies luncheon became a couples dinner.
Table hosts would still provide decor and beverages, but the meal would be catered, there’d be a professional auctioneer to help sell one-of-a-kind items and lead the special appeal, and live music would add to the ambience.
The festivities would take place in and around a giant tent on the grounds of Jim and Pam Crowe’s magnificent estate, also in Cherry Hills Village. Jim Crowe had spent 15 years as CEO of Level3 Communications before stepping down in 2013.
The event’s 20th anniversary was celebrated on July 29, when co-chairs Marlo Naumer and Dinah Sink welcomed a record 560 guests for a night that brought in $350,000 from the special appeal alone.
Naumer and her husband, Charles, co-founder and CEO of CiviCore, are the parents of an Anchor Center graduate and have been table hosts for Sunset in the Country for the past seven years. Sink works for the Crowes and handles logistics for Sunset in the Country.
This year’s table hosts included such longtime supporters as Wendy and John Clayton; Mary and Tom Rogers; Thierry Kennel, general manager of the Four Seasons Denver; Cheryl and Dave Dutton; Gretchen Gagel; Jan and Dan Casson; Murri and Andy Bishop; Jean and Dr. Ben Galloway and Carla and Bob King.
Colorado’s former first lady, Frances Owens, recently became Anchor Center’s community relations manager and filled her two tables with a group that included daughter and son-in-law Monica and John Beauprez, John’s mother, Claudia Beauprez, and retired Lockheed Martin Astronautics president Tom Marsh and his wife, Cyndy.
Steve and Ryta Sondergard (he manages the Sinclair Oil refinery manager in Sinclair, Wyo.) were hosts to a group that included Debby Fisher, Valeria Howard-Vason and Glynis Albright. Albright and her husband, jazz saxophonist Gerald Albright, are the Sondergards’ neighbors in Castle Pines Village.
Paula Herzmark, executive director of the Denver Health Foundation, and her sister, Nancy, were there, too, along with Carol and John Lay (he formed the public policy group Lay and Associates six years ago, after heading such groups as the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, Colorado Ski Country USA and the Southeast Business Partnership); Sage Scheer, president of the local Delta Gamma alumnae chapter, and her nephew, Sawyer Shirley; such host committee members as Cheryl Blankenship, Annie Green, Dawn Schipper, Lisa Gallegos and Shannon Batal; auctioneer Karen Sorbo and April and Anthony Lambatos, whose Footers Catering provided the filet mignon and Atlantic char dinner.
