The Importance of Being Holly

"I said to Holly, 'If you don't actually need to have a paid career but still want to do something worthwhile, you could do non-profit work,'" recalls Everding, a Southern lady who can trace her roots back to Civil War generals on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.

"Charity work for my mom started when she was a little girl in Texas," explains Rich, himself a member of several boards, including those governing Children's Hospital, Rocky Mountain PBS and the Webb-Waring Foundation. "She would play missionary with her friends; she was president of her high school class; she was an officer in the Junior League; she was on the Colorado Academy board and on the boards of St. Joseph Hospital and the Denver Foundation."

Not only did Rich's mom set an example through her volunteer work, but the nannies she hired to help care for her boys were pregnant teens from the Florence Crittenton Home who lived with the family until they gave birth. "It was expected of my brother and me to give back to the community," Rich explains.

It was expected of Holly, too. "My mom pressured Holly to join the Junior League, but Holly was kind of a failure at it," Rich says, chuckling.

"I think when Holly joined the Junior League, they had certain expectations and rules for volunteer work, and trying to tell Holly what the rules were didn't work," adds Everding. "She needed to put her own oar in the water, so to speak."

Holly's rebellious nature and rock-star style certainly didn't lend themselves to selling cookbooks, one of the League's big fundraisers, so in 1999, she contacted the Metro Denver Volunteers Board Bank and asked to be paired with an organization that helps animals. She had always envisioned living on a farm, having been surrounded by a menagerie of animals throughout her childhood, including dogs, cats, ducks, ferrets and rabbits. "My mom was always bringing animals home," says Holly, who has a cat and a Belgian sheepdog of her own.

The board bank turned her on to Harrison Memorial Animal Hospital, where her brother-in-law also happened to be working. Next came seats on the boards of the Denver Zoo, Planned Parenthood and the Denver Film Society, which she just rotated off of. She now chairs three to five charitable events a year, is in charge of four or five Choice Affairs fundraising parties annually and helps friends organize several more events.

"I had no idea she was going to take her work to the level she has," Everding says. "When I think about how much money she's been able to raise, it's remarkable.

"Holly's style is not my style; I like to go to bed at 9 p.m.," she adds. "But that's a generational thing. There are people in my generation who may not be familiar with Holly's style or comfortable with it, but you have to applaud success. If she's able to attract the young, mod set, so be it."

The fact that someone from a working-class city in Illinois can rise to the position Holly has is a testament to Denver's egalitarian nature. In this formerly lawless town, the fact that a society scene even exists seems rather odd. Unlike the East or the South, where ancestry and old money rule, anyone in Denver with enough dough to cover the ticket price at a black-tie event can enter the circuit. That's one of the things Holly loves about her adopted home. "Colorado is a very accessible state that doesn't care which relatives came over on the Mayflower," she says.

Rich also pokes fun at the notion of Denver society. Both he and Holly are listed in the Denver Social Register and Record, a who's who of local bluebloods that Kathy Piper Johnson edited until she died in September 2001. (That task has been passed down to Piper Johnson's daughter-in-law, Renee Piper.) "I got a thing in the mail five or seven years ago that said, 'We want to include you in it, and you can purchase it for $50,'" recalls Rich. "I think my mom ran into Piper and told her she should put us in it. It's not quite as mystical as how you win Best Burrito in the Best of Denver issue. I personally aspire to be on the Best Of list, but instead, I'm in this blue book." (Holly was declared Best Socialite by Westword in 2003.) "I don't know the people in the registry. There's no party; there's no secret handshake. They sent me a form, but I didn't have an interview or a physical."

As much as he jokes about society life, Rich is serious about the work that Holly does. "The idea of not giving back is kind of frightening," he says. "When you've had the opportunities and blessings we've had, it would be the most hideously selfish existence to use them all for yourself and not try to help other people."