ΦΒΚ Alpha Association Events

Annual Meeting. The annual meeting was held at Mount Vernon Country Club in Golden. The speaker was Dr. Elizabeth Fenn, History Department Chair at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She spoke about her new book, Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People, which won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Visit to Rocky Mountain National Park in commemoration of its 100th anniversary.

The Sherpa House Restaurant and Cultural Center in Golden was the setting for lunch and an open discussion attended by seven PBK Alpha Association members. After lunch, several of the group visited various Golden attractions.

Annual Banquet. The 2015 banquet was held on Saturday, March 28, at the Park Hill Golf Club, 4141 East 35th Avenue, in Denver. Our after dinner speaker was Thomas E. Hames, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the 10th Mountain Division Foundation. His topic was Skiing Off to War: a history of Camp Hale and the 10th Mountain Division.

Tour of the Anschutz Collection at the American Museum of Western Art in Downtown Denver. This collection is considered to be one of the most important Western art collections in the country, with paintings depicting the art of the American West from the early 19th century to the present. Alpha members and their guests viewed this collection on a private tour with the curator of the museum. 25 people attended.

Annual Meeting. The annual meeting was held at Denver’s Park Hill Golf Club. The speaker was Dr. Jerry Peterson, Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who spoke about “What Happened at Fukushima, and What Did We Learn?” in the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Tour of Dale Chihuly’s Glass Artworks. Alpha members and their guests had special docent-led tours of Dale Chihuly’s stunning blown glass artwork at Denver Botanic Gardens. As Chihuly described his goal for such displays, “I want my work to appear like it came from nature, so that if someone found it on a beach or in the forest, they might think it belonged there.” Twenty people attended.

Discussion Luncheon. A luncheon at Mount Vernon Country Club, featuring a discussion on “Hot Topics in Astronomy” led by Dr. Robert Stencel, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Denver and the director of the Chamberlin Observatory near the DU campus and the Meyers-Womble Observatory atop Mt. Evans.

Annual Banquet. The Alpha Association’s 2014 annual banquet was held on Saturday, March 8 at the Park Hill Golf Club, 4141 East 35th Avenue, in Denver. After dinner Ken and Ruth Wright discussed paleohydrological research at Machu Picchu, how they became involved in this research and the extraordinary capabilities of Pre-Columbian Native Americans in the field of civil engineering.

Tour of “The Living West” Exhibit at History Colorado Center. A afternoon tour of the new History Colorado Center’s current exhibit, “The Living West”. The exhibit had three sections: life in the heyday of Mesa Verde, the 1930’s Dust Bowl, and a display of contemporary life and problems in the Rocky Mountains today.