DENVER DEBUTANTE BALL

Denver

News: It takes fortitude, along with keen organizational skills and a sense of calm, to chair an event with as many moving parts as the Denver Debutante Ball. Good thing that 2022 chairwoman Julie Egan possesses all three, because there were a couple of big surprises leading up to the Dec. 22 event.

The ball, a fundraiser for Denver Botanic Gardens, has been held – without a hitch — at the Brown Palace Hotel every year since its founding in 1956. This year, however, anxious moments ensued when:

· A fire broke out in the hotel’s basement on Nov. 17, damaging the boilers that supply the heat and hot water.

· A burst pipe flooded Ellyngton’s restaurant on Dec. 9, causing its closure.

· An arctic blast with record-setting subzero temperatures and slick roads roared into Denver on Dec. 21, causing some guests to question the wisdom of venturing out because slick roads and the potential for suffering frostbite remained the night of the ball.

Issues relating to the fire were resolved by early December, but Ellyngton’s, where a good number of the estimated 900 guests are seated for the dinner that follows the debutante presentation, remained closed. Those who’d been set to dine in Ellyngton’s were relocated to a space elsewhere in the hotel.

While all of this may have caused any other group to postpone or select another venue, the Denver Debutante Ball committee soldiered on. The evening’s most popular refrain was basically to “Never underestimate the fortitude of debutantes, their families and the ball committee.”

Twenty-four debutantes, all of whom are midway through their freshman year in college, were presented at the 66th edition of the Denver Debutante Ball. In addition to completing a day of service at the Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield

Farms this past summer, the debs distinguished themselves by raising money for the Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program.

“It’s a cause that touches so many,” Egan said. “The committee had offered several nonprofits to the debutantes, and this was the unanimous choice.”

Egan, who had been presented at the 1983 ball, wore the gown that her mother, the late Joan Egan, wore when she chaired the ball in 1988.

The 2022 debutantes, who curtsied to a receiving line made up of Dr. William and Kay Jobe; Michael and Heidi Hammell; Julie Egan and her dad, Kenneth Egan; honorary ball chair Missy Eliot and Brian and Shannon Furgason, were:

Anna Scott Arnold, Isabel Frances Bragg, Hope Balsam Brown, Paris Leigh Corporon, Emma Caroline Dencker, Ella Kathryn Dutton, Annabel Rinehart Filippini, Emory Anderson Gerlach, Lauren Kennedy Jobe, Natalie Jane Kanouff and Ruby Elizabeth Leuthold.

Also, Kathryn McNally Loftus, Grace Ellen McHugh, Annalee Paticia Miner, Elizabeth Parks Morris, Grayson Elizabeth Parsley, Anne McMillan Possehl, Bronwyn June Purchase, Kathleen Delight Sawyer, Isabel Panian Shutts, Keely Grace Simpson, Caroline Wylly Staab, Kendall Elise Stevens and Riley Grace Stewart.

About the organization: The Denver Debutante Ball honors Colorado families for their good citizenship, philanthropy, volunteerism and leadership, the core values necessary for their daughters to become the next generation of community leaders. Since 2012, the ball has raised in excess of $650,000 for the Denver Botanic Gardens to enhance its cultural and educational goals. Prior to 2012, ball proceeds went to the Colorado Symphony.

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