Notes, Yale Award - Bill Betz
Colorado Yale Association Annual Dinner
University Club - April 8, 2000
Authored by Chips Barry, delivered by Maureen Doran
  • It is now my pleasure to introduce our special award winner tonight. This is a man known to all of you, as are his many good deeds on behalf of Yale. My attempt to recite his skills and talents - given freely of course on behalf of the University - are bound to fall short. Nevertheless, such a recitation is due.
  • Speaking now of course in the Yale idiom: picture, if you will, a man with the cat-like grace of Calvin Hill, the ready wit of Bart Giamatti, the exuberance of William Sloan Coffin, the ingenuousness of Howard Lamar, the savoir faire of Dean Atcheson, the commitment of Gifford Pinchot (that's for our speaker tonight), and the brooding depth of Maya Lynn.
  • A man of only medium stature, but enormous presence, a man with bright blue eyes, some hair the color of old silk, a man with a laptop at the ready and a family web site picture on load. A man with the hands of a frog dissector (or perhaps a Kremmling lumber Jack), the carriage of an old professor, the transplanted reptiles nerves of a union negotiator, and genes sufficient to marry 1 Yale graduate, and to sire 2 more. He is occasionally humble, enormously well read in a narrow sort of way, speaks English like an native, and has a grasp of the arts, humanities and frog brain structure that puts him in as much demand at the salons of the illuminati as he is in the laboratories of the former Fitzsimons Army hospital.
  • Picture a man who has been to college, and to a University and has both a Masters and Doctors degree, who's lectured in America, Europe, and Israel, whose a crack shot with an electron microscope, a man who types like a demon, runs like a deer, drinks like a fish, works like a Turk, and talks like a gattling gun.
  • A man who has been known to serve and consume drinks in almost any container, a traveler to many distant lands and continents, and so infrequent a visitor to his own home that he has made the phrase 'incontinent' a compliment. He is a friend of the AYA and the CYA, a supporter of many good Yale causes and a tuition check writer of prodigious fame. He can speak for hours about neurons and synapses, and administer intravenous amphetamines thereafter with ease.
  • Picture a man like that - and only one person comes to mind. He is, of course, Bill Betz, our former president, guardian, cheerleader, delegate, and doer. He has done much for the Colorado Yale Association and for Yale graduates throughout the states. Bill is a recipient of our Outstanding Alumni Award this year.
  • [After the laughter dies down (presumably there will be laughter) and probably after Bill makes whatever remarks he has, add the following:]
  • I have just been handed a note from the author of this introduction. He says I've got the Yale In stuff all wrong. It should be:
  • The cat like grace of William Howard Taft; the ready wit of Robert Bork; the exuberance of Bill Buckley; the ingenuousness of Tom Wolfe; the savoir faire of Bill Clinton; the commitment of the Bass family; and the brooding depth of George W. Bush.