The diamond cotillion: 75 years of the Owl Club’s debutante ball
DENVER — A windowless conference room at the Renaissance Hotel transformed into a glam-packed dressing room, with hair tools and makeup bags piled on top of folding tables.
Thirteen young women in perfectly pressed white gowns scurried about, their dress hems hovering ever so slightly above the floor. They asked about the whereabouts of safety pins and steamers. The June afternoon heat seemed to be making its way inside the air-conditioned room. That, combined with the adrenaline of what was to come, had breathless mothers calling out for box fans.
“We can’t have the girls sweating their makeup off,” said one mother while tightening her daughter’s corset.
In a matter of hours, these women would officially become Owl Club debutantes, a 75-year-old tradition presented by Denver’s longest-running Black social group, the Owl Club. Since 1951, the Owl Club has used the annual debutante ball to uplift and celebrate young Black women in the Denver area as they graduate high school.
Becoming a debutante is a months-long process which culminated in Saturday’s ball, where the women are presented by their fathers and participate in the Waltz of the Bells, a dance tradition at the cotillion that was originally choreographed by Owlette — that is, wife of an Owl Club member — Ernestine Smith in 1952.
Between the bi-weekly dance rehearsals and anticipation of the event itself, debutante Amari Green was relieved when the big day finally arrived.
“I feel like I've just been rehearsing it over and over again, and I think it's going to feel really good to go out there,” said Green, who wore her aunt’s Owl Club debutante gown from the 1990s.
Due to segregation, when the Owl Club’s cotillion originally started, the only local schools that participated were East High School and Manual High School. Today, the process of becoming a debutante begins with letters that are sent out to 300 high school counselors at 77 different schools, inviting them to nominate seniors who meet the qualifications. Those qualifications include a 3.0 GPA or higher, active contributions to community service and “high moral standards,” among others.
“One of the Owl Club’s biggest investments in the community was making sure that they invested in young people, invested in their future,” said Acoma Gaither, the associate curator of Black history at History Colorado. “So they decided to start a cotillion to highlight the achievements of young Black women within Denver's Black community.”
The cotillion presents each debutante, listing their accomplishments throughout high school and their hopes for college and beyond. Many of the women led multiple extracurricular groups, held leadership positions at school and volunteered their time in the community while also holding down part-time jobs. The debutantes are heading to various schools across the country, including University of San Francisco, Xavier University, Metro State University, University of Colorado Boulder and more.
This year marks the event’s 75th anniversary, and this year’s class joins more than 1,600 alumnae of the program. Owl Club debutantes from years past include former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and local dance legend Cleo Parker Robinson.
Each class spends more than 40 hours preparing for the cotillion. In an interview with Rocky Mountain PBS ahead of this year’s cotillion, Rice said that when she was a debutante, the event was crucial, giving young Black women a sense of what was happening in what Rice refers to as “the parallel society.”
“There was white society and there was Black society,” Rice said. “Parents went out of their way to give their kids, their children, comparable experiences to what was going on in the parallel white society.”
According to waltz instructor and Owl Club historian Ron Washington, the ball is an exciting finish line for everyone involved.
“It's showtime for them,” Washington said ahead of Saturday’s program. “They've been practicing very hard and this will be the culmination of their journey since last fall. So tonight, we celebrate our debutantes.”
Nine Black men founded the Owl Club in 1941. The founders were businessmen, entrepreneurs and railroad workers who would play cards at each other’s homes late into the night. After one of their wives called the group “night owls,” the name stuck. According to History Colorado’s Acoma Gaither, Denver didn’t have racial codes or Jim Crow laws deeply embedded into the culture at the time, but discrimination still existed. With the segregation that was happening, these types of clubs were rare and necessary for the Black community.
“There weren't many opportunities or associations or anything that really was attributed to the minority folks at that time,” said Marvin Pierce, a current Owl Club member. “Just by stories, they had to make their own way or, as they say, sometimes make their own party happen and create their own clubs and agendas.”
The Owl Club’s current clubhouse in the Skyland neighborhood is on the National Register of Historic Places. It also acts as headquarters for cotillion planning. The concept for the cotillion came from a desire to uplift and celebrate the young women in their community. The cotillion is the Owl Club’s largest community event throughout the year.
According to debutante Jasmine Yol, the ball is the finale of a hectic week — between graduating high school, hosting out-of-town relatives and remembering the steps to the waltz, she was happy to put a bow on this week of accomplishments. She laughed, recalling how chaotic the dressing room was, but was happy they made time to film a few TikToks. She said being a debutante is much more than presenting a perfect image of femininity.
“Most of the debutantes I’ve met are not polished people. They’re a hot mess just like me,” Yol said. “They’re women who are just trying to figure out life as they go, and looking good is just something that happens along the way.”
Families and loved ones looked on lovingly as the 13 visions of grace and poise made their way center stage during the cotillion, each of them executing the Waltz of the Bells to perfection. As an older sister to several siblings, Yol knows being a debutante continues even after the Waltz of the Bells is over. To her, being a debutante is a state of mind.
“That’s what I would want my little sisters to know since they might become debutantes in the future,” Yol said. “It’s so important to be a debutante because not only am I carrying the Owl Club with me, I’m also carrying and representing Black girls around the world.”
Watch this year’s debutante class from the beginning and learn more about the Owl Club in a new upcoming documentary from Rocky Mountain PBS. “Colorado Experience: Owl Club Debutantes” premieres June 25 at 7 p.m. on Rocky Mountain PBS, our YouTube channel and the RMPBS+ app.
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