You never know where a game of bridge, or the \u201cbridge\u201d of friendships and alumni help, will take you.<\/p>\n
When Carol James and Jody Smith were at Colorado College, they spent a lot of time playing bridge. \u201cMaybe more than we should have,\u201d they both admit somewhat sheepishly today. When truly desperate for someone to round out the game, they would \u201csink to the lowest depths and tolerate having either Brad (James) or I play,\u201d said David Smith. Little did they know then that the friendships formed over a hand of bridge would someday help to bridge a financial need in a young person\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
Colorado College\u2019s Barker-James-Smith Scholarship is named for the three families responsible for its funding: Scot Barker \u201971<\/strong> and Karen Barker; Brad \u201971<\/strong> and Carol \u201968 James<\/strong>; and David \u201970<\/strong> and Jody \u201970 Smith<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The three men were friends at CC. After earning MBAs and spending a few years in early jobs, they teamed up in 1979 with three other entrepreneurs in Denver to form a niche broker-dealer focused on underwriting tax-exempt bonds nationwide for multi-family affordable housing. The friendship among the three families, much like the firm, thrived, so it seemed only appropriate that the families team together to honor Colorado College.<\/p>\n The Barker-James-Smith Scholarship was created in 2001 and is awarded annually based on financial need to first-generation and\/or minority students from Colorado.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so lucky,\u201d said Sirina Milsap \u201909<\/strong>, a first-generation and minority student who graduated from Denver\u2019s East High School and the current recipient of the Barker-James-Smith Scholarship. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have been able to come to Colorado College without the scholarship.\u201d Milsap, a history major and Asian studies minor, says it was as though the scholarship was tailor-made for her.<\/p>\n She and the Smiths had met briefly between innings of CC softball games (Milsap pitched for the CC softball team for four years), but never sat down to get to know one another until the March 2009 Scholarship Appreciation Dinner. There, they quickly found things in common \u2013 including the fact that both Milsap and the Smith\u2019s younger daughter played softball at East High School under the same coaches.<\/p>\n Both benefactors and recipient \u2013 the Smiths and Milsap \u2013 were among the 265 people who attended this year\u2019s Scholarship Appreciation Dinner, where donors and recipients were able meet each other \u2013 often for the first time.<\/p>\n Sitting at the same table were Blake Hammond \u201909<\/strong>, Ella Street \u201909<\/strong>, and Mark Neuman-Lee \u201909<\/strong>, recipients of the CC Alumni Student Leadership Scholarship, along with Ray Petros \u201972<\/strong> and his wife Catherine Petros, contributors to the scholarship. The Petroses, like the Smiths, drove from Denver in a near-blizzard to attend the dinner.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s satisfying to be face-to-face with the student scholarship recipients,\u201d said Ray Petros, who has been on the alumni board for eight years. \u201cThe opportunity to talk to the students is terrific; it makes our contribution come alive.<\/p>\n \u201cIt reinforces the value of our contributions to the college. We are reminded how creative and enthusiastic and accomplished the students are at CC,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Colorado College Alumni Association Student Leadership Scholarship was created by the Alumni Association Board to recognize students deemed likely, based on their college activities, to continue their contributions to the college after the graduation. The scholarship is designed to replace a portion of the loans the recipient would otherwise have to carry, thus reducing the student\u2019s debt at graduation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe scholarship provides assistance to student leaders who hopefully will become alumni leaders,\u201d Petros said. \u201cIt\u2019s very important to encourage students to think about the importance of alumni contributions to the school. It\u2019s a launching pad to remain connected to CC.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe scholarship dinner is one of my favorite events at CC,\u201d said Debby Fowler, director of stewardship and organizer of the event since its inception in 2002. \u201cIt\u2019s a time when we bring together some of our talented and motivated students and the benefactors whose generosity helps bring these students to\u00a0CC.\u201d<\/p>\n The CC Alumni Student Leadership Scholarship and the Barker-James-Smith Scholarship are group efforts, proving that there is strength in numbers. Both scholarships are emblematic of what alumni can do when they band together.<\/p>\n Which brings us back to those games of bridge, the \u201cbridge\u201d of friendships and the help of others \u2026and most importantly, the new bridges to Colorado College they can create.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You never know where a game of bridge, or the \u201cbridge\u201d of friendships and alumni help, will take you. When Carol James and Jody Smith were at Colorado College, they spent a lot of time playing bridge. \u201cMaybe more than we should have,\u201d they both admit somewhat sheepishly today. When truly desperate for someone to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-july-2009","tag-web-extras"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}