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Remember the University of Colorado at Boulder before Hank Brown took over as president? The institution's reputation had fallen to subterranean depths after a series of public embarrassments and subsequent investigations, and previous prez Elizabeth "Betsy" Hoffman's ineffectual attempts to set things right only made matters worse. Enter former senator Brown. His steady leadership and open, plainspoken style surprised skeptics and silenced critics. Despite having given his notice -- Brown says he'll leave by early 2008 -- he continues to be CU's best advertisement, and a real recruiter.
Metrosexuality comes naturally to sportscaster Chris Tanaka. Rather than stick with the typical hair helmet favored by style-challenged on-air males, he rocks a spiky/sexy cut that tells members of the younger demographic that he knows about scoring in every sense of the word. There aren't many besuited TV dudes who can pull off such a daring look -- but on Tanaka, this 'do is far from a d'oh!
It's not often that a single station sweeps the much-coveted Best Hair category. But the moment morning forecaster Crystal Egger hit Fox 31's airwaves, her locks made her a lock for this honor. She wears a blond swoop over her right eye that blends boldly into what appear to be yards of silk whose shifting colors practically throb when seen on a high-def set. Her moniker may seem made up -- sounds like a porn name to us -- but her spectacular coiffure is the real thing.
Drew Soicher's the reigning jester of Denver sports anchors, but what happened to his snout back in the day isn't funny. A childhood accident thoroughly scrambled his cartilage, and before the injury had fully healed, he took a softball in the proboscis that damaged it permanently. Today, one of his nostrils is still longer than the other, making his sniffer look as if it's melting la Salvador Dal -- but on Soicher, it looks perfect. He wins this race by a nose.
Talk about growing into a role. During the '90s, when he was on Channel 9's staff, Jim Benemann was a solid TV presence, but the passage of years since then has given him a gravitas only hinted at by his earlier work. That's not to say he's a stiff -- Benemann comes across as downright avuncular at times and can banter with the best of them. When the news is serious, though, he delivers it with a brand of thoughtfulness that only comes with experience.
Although big brother Marc preceded Drew Soicher to Denver, he failed to catch on with viewers at Channel 4, in part because he always seemed a little too slick for his own good. (The same criticism was occasionally leveled against his hair.) But an interim slot with FSN Rocky Mountain showed him to be a more insightful commentator than he'd seemed, and since moving to Channel 2, he's gotten even stronger. In this ESPN age, he's a traditionalist who takes sports seriously -- and that's a nice change of pace.
From his earliest years on Denver television, Marty Coniglio has been one of the market's most credible forecasters. Why? He's cautious about his predictions and aware of technology's limitations, never implying that he knows with metaphysical certitude precisely what sort of clothes viewers should wear five days in the future. As a result, he tends to be right about the weather more often than not -- something plenty of his peers can't claim.
Longtime residents will remember Rob "Sunny" Roseman as a younger counterpart to the late Leon "Stormy" Rottman on Channel 9 back in the '80s; they were paired in an ad campaign with the slogan "Sunny days and Stormy nights." Since then, Roseman has worked as an actor and a silkscreen printer, and is the author of Life's Little Ahas, a book filled with pithy sayings such as "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." Apparently, he decided to take his own advice, since he's now back doing what he did decades ago: providing a Sunny take on Denver weather.
When he hit Denver screens in 2000, Daru quickly carved out a niche as the resident loon on Channel 2's morning show. That gig ended when he and his wife, former Channel 2 anchor Wendy Brockman, moved to Florida. But last year they returned, and Fox wisely hired Daru to pick up where he'd left off. Today, he's once again making the early hours more tolerable by making practically no sense at all. Nice work if you can get it.
Television news is frequently bashed for its superficiality. Frankly, a lot of those gripes are justified -- but not in the case of Adam Schrager and Raj Chohan of Channel 9 and Channel 4, respectively. In the run-up to the 2006 election, they did a fine job of examining the myriad claims made in campaign commercials via "Truth Tests" (the name given to Schrager's segments) and "Reality Check" (Chohan's umbrella term). Since then, Chohan has branched out to tackle other issues of the day under the same heading, while Schrager is developing Your Show, a new Sunday program devoted to current events. Wouldn't it be nice if these guys started a trend?

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