Central City Flower Girls represent rich history of Colorado
For 87 years, the presentation of the Central City Flower Girls has been the social centerpiece of the Central City Opera’s annual summer festival. And, in keeping with tradition, the 25 high school juniors honored this year reflect the rich history associated with this former mining town and Colorado’s early-day settlers.
Flower Girl Christine Cole, who will be a senior at St. Mary’s Academy, is descended from a family that came to Colorado shortly after the Colorado Gold Rush. Originally known as the Pikes Peak Gold Rush, it began in 1858 and was the second-largest in U.S. history.
Delaney Cain’s forebears founded the Black Diamond coal mine in Lafayette. It operated from 1931 to 1956 and with 82 miners extracting 348 tons of coal per day was said to be one of the region’s highestproducing coal mines. A fifth-generation Coloradan, Cain will be a senior at Kent Denver School.
Other fifth-generation Coloradans were Flower Girls Caroline Burke-dullinger and Hayden Schwartz. Burke-dullinger, who’ll be a senior at Colorado Academy, teaches Sunday school at her temple and is spending the summer at a local nonprofit, teaching life skills and the importance of staying in school to elementary school-aged kids. Schwartz, who’ll be a senior at Regis Jesuit High School, is a member of a pioneer Denver family. Her great-grandmother, Lucille Bansbach, and her aunt, Pam Bansbach, have been longtime supporters of the Central City Opera. Pam Bansbach is a past president of the Central City Opera Guild and serves on the opera house association board.
Colorado Academy’s Anne Freeman will be eligible to join the Territorial Daughters of Colorado when she turns 18, thanks to a family history in Colorado that dates back to 1876. Annabel Benes, whose mother, Katrina, will chair the 2020 Yellow Rose Ball, has a greatgreat-grandmother and great-uncle who were early settlers in Central City and are interred in one of its cemeteries.
Lanny Martin, chairman emeritus of the Central City Opera board of directors, introduced the 2019 Flower Girls, a group that also included his granddaughter, Taylor Lester, a recipient of Denver Academy’s Lady Mustang of the Year award, an honor given to students of outstanding compassion and character.
Once the Flower Girls were introduced in a ceremony held in the Teller House Garden, they assembled on Eureka Street to dance to the Yellow Rose Waltz before adjourning to the opera house for a musical performance. The event continued with dinner and dancing inside the Teller House. Money raised at the Yellow Rose Ball, chaired this year by Brooke Domich, helps support the nation’s fifth oldest professional opera company and its yearround programming that reaches 42,000 students, families and seniors through live performances, workshops and residencies.
Others in the Flower Girl Class of 2019 were Charlotte Danos, whose two sisters and four aunts also were Flower Girls and whose grandmother, Barbara Danos, is a past president of the Central City Opera Guild; Andersen Dodge, whose relationship with Central City began when she attended a performance of “Carmen” for her ninth birthday; Kristiana Drawe, a competitive dancer and member of Valor Christian High School’s varsity pom squad; and Grace Faircloth, who, after graduating from The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey in 2020, will play lacrosse at Cornell University. Jordan Fisher, who’ll be a senior at Regis Jesuit High School, volunteers on behalf of Special Olympics, Clothes to Kids of Denver and the Ronald Mcdonald House; Anna Fucarino’s family settled in Colorado in 1947; she was a Colorado Academy exchange student to China. Lucinda “Lulu” Geller’s passions are law, politics and the judicial system. Her grandmother, Linda Alvarado, is an owner of the Colorado Rockies.
Mallory Groth’s family has lived in Denver for 40 years and she has put in two years as captain of the Cherry Creek High School volleyball team. Classmate Caroline Hashimoto is on the high honor roll and is captain of Creek’s soccer team. Alexandra Haymons is president of the Marine Biology Program at Kent Denver School and like her mother, 1987 Flower Girl Melinda Smith Haymons, is an accomplished artist.
Emma Hybl, a fourthgeneration Colorado native, is a member of the student council at Cheyenne Mountain High School in Colorado Springs and works as a Wilhelmina contract model. Annabelle Johnson is on the Head of School List at Kent Denver School, where she plays varsity field hockey and soccer and has earned All-state Soccer honors. Grace Madden is on the St. Mary’s Academy student council and is working to achieve her Girl Scouts Gold Award.
Tillie Pinkowitz is editor of the South High School yearbook and considers herself a champion of equal rights. Lane Rippey, a fourth-generation Coloradan, is on the honor roll at St. Mary’s Academy and is a first-degree black belt in American Taekwondo and a second-degree black belt in karate. Abigail Wilkinson also is a fourthgeneration Coloradan and is part of a family that played a significant role in Colorado community banking for over four generations.
Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314, partiwriter @hotmail .com and @joanne davidson on Twitter.