Fundraiser honors journalist through dancing

By Katrin Madayag
J-School Web Reporter

photo by Garret W. Smith

Journalism students Danny Davis and Alex Strickland helped cater the fundraiser for the Jeff Cole Professorship.

Downstairs in the lobby of Missoula’s Florence Hotel, a biographical video on Jeff Cole played while guests mingled on a recent Saturday evening. Journalism students wove through the crowd, serving hor d’oeuvres. By the fireplace, guests could dip pretzels and strawberries into fountain flowing with chocolate.

Upstairs in the ballroom, tables had either a ceramic cowboy boot or an outlined New York skyline cutout as a centerpiece. Black silhouette cutouts of a cowboy with a necktie and a svelte-yet-curvy vamp with a white boa flung around her neck welcomed guests into the Governor’s Room.

One was a hat-tipping “howdy,” the other a throaty “hello.”

The night had a touch of the country and a hint of the city, reflecting the life of Jeff Cole — a cowboy-booted reporter from Montana who rose to prominence as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal.

Maria Cole

In honor of her late husband, Maria Cole hosted the dance-themed fundraiser, “From Montana to Manhattan,” on March 25 to help finance the Jeff Cole Professorship, set to begin next spring.

"It turned out so well,” Maria Cole said. “It came out so great.”

The fundraiser, which raised about $12,000, honored Journalism School alum Jeff Cole, who graduated in 1981. The aerospace editor for the Wall Street Journal, he died in a plane crash while on assignment in 2001. His wife decided to finish the house they were building in the Bitterroot Valley and boost journalism education at UM.

About 130 people attended, including guests Gov. Brian Schweitzer, UM President George Dennison and J-School Dean Jerry Brown. The financial success and turnout for the fundraiser were good signs for the Jeff Cole Professorship, which will be the second distinguished professorship for the Journalism School.

"Jeff Cole was one of the leading business editors and writers,” Brown said. “We hope the professorship will help us to perpetuate that aspect of reporting – business reporting, media management. … We need that.”

Brown added that for the first time, the J-School will have a distinguished professorship for an entire year: the Pollner professor in the fall and the Cole professor in the spring.

Honoring Cole’s memory through a professorship was exactly what he would have wanted, his wife said. “It’s a living, breathing thing,” she said. “Students get to interface with a professional.”

At the fundraiser, guests socialized in cowboy hats, neckties and evening dresses, echoing the fundraiser’s theme. “From Montana to Manhattan” followed Jeff Cole’s own life, from his jobs at the Missoulian to the Wall Street Journal.

Maria Cole, who had been working on the fundraiser since last July, wanted to put together a program of dances that were Montanan as well as urban. Dancing was a part of the life she shared with her husband, Cole said.

“If he heard a tune in the grocery store he liked, he’d put down the groceries in the grocery store and dance with me,” she said.

But putting on a fundraiser wasn’t without its perils. The entertainment fell through about a month before the event, Cole said. Luckily, she found replacements with only three weeks to spare. 

The day before the fundraiser, the sound system of the Florence Hotel wouldn’t play Cole’s burned CDs. She broke the bad news to the DJ.

“He didn’t even flinch,” she said. He hooked up his equipment, and it worked.

With all the last minute scrambles, “My hair should’ve been standing on end,” Cole said.  “But there’s so much hair spray in it.”

As people milled about, they remembered Jeff Cole’s go-get-‘em attitude and genuine love for journalism.

Jonathan Weber, founder and editor of New West, knew Cole from their days in Los Angeles when Cole worked at the LA bureau of the Wall Street Journal and Weber was an editor at the LA Times. He’s in Montana because of Cole, Weber said, and New West drew its inspiration from him.

“New West is a legacy of Jeff,” Weber said.

Schweitzer also spoke of his respect for journalism and for Cole.

“The press has become a watchdog and resource for their government,” Schweitzer said.  At his open meetings, he doesn’t hesitate to ask the opinion of a reporter.  “[The press] is a resource,” he said.  “Use it.”

The parallels between Cole’s life and his are striking, the governor said. Cole was born five days before Schweitzer and lived in Whitefish then Bozeman, same as the governor. They both also had strong interests in education and aviation.

Around the ballroom, several framed stories were placed on easels for guests to read, and his much-scribbled day planner was on display.

Former Missoulian publisher John Talbot worked at the newspaper at the same time as Cole, but did not know him well. He got to know Maria Cole through her involvement with the J-School. Until 2003, Talbot taught media management, a now-defunct class that the new Jeff Cole professorship would revive. 

Throughout the night, partygoers could also bid on silent auction items, which included a Starbucks gift basket straight from the flagship Starbucks in Seattle, a last-minute addition courtesy of Maria Cole’s financial planner.

“People just rise to the occasion,” she said.

photo by Garret W. Smith

Hip-hop dancers perform a self-created dance number.

The dance program started in Montana with a couple performing a triple two-step swing combo to a country twang warble. It continued to Manhattan through a hip hop dance choreographed just that morning.

The final portion included a couple dancing the salsa, complete with sashaying hips and a lift reminiscent of “Dirty Dancing.”  After the passionate dance, they got a standing ovation.

“That certainly gets the blood circulating in your veins, doesn’t it?” Cole asked the crowd.

A little later, meringue lessons compelled everyone to get up and swivel their hips rhythmically to the Latin beat on the dance floor.

Nearing the end of the evening, print students Danny Person, Alex Strickland, Danny Davis and Rose Boyer, who had volunteered to work the fundraiser as servers, got to put away the uniforms and enjoy the evening. 

“We just think the School of Journalism has given us so much,” Person said.

For the first time, all three winners of the Jeff Cole Memorial scholarship were together: Chelsi Moy, a 2004 J-School grad who works for the Great Falls Tribune; Chelsea DeWeese, a 2005 grad now with the Sedona Red Rock News in Arizona; and current photojournalism student Sarah Galbraith, the 2005 recipient, who also brought along her camera to photograph the event.

“I feel like these are my girls,” Cole said, drawing them in for a giant hug.

Most of Jeff and Maria Cole’s family also came to the fundraiser. Her three nieces helped out with the planning, and Jeff Cole’s mother, Jeannie Bury, arrived from Stevensville with her husband, Les.

“He always wanted to write,” Bury said. “All he wanted to do was write.”

The J-School committee and Cole plan to start looking at applications for the professorship later this summer or early this fall. 

“Because of Jeff’s standing nationally and internationally, we’re getting attention and money,” Brown said. “The credit for the whole effort – the Jeff Cole Scholarship, the Jeff Cole professorship – goes to Maria.”

Cole noted the need for more training in business reporting, an area the Journalism School doesn’t teach. “We wanted to fill a gap not filled before,” Cole said. “This is absolutely right.”

She remembers Jeff Cole’s method of writing. He’d pound away at the computer, then demand she sit down and read the first two paragraphs. Then he’d reach out to turn her head towards him and ask her what she thought. It made her feel part of the process, Cole said.

And everything she has done is to honor her late husband who loved the J-School and the art of journalism. “Jeff deserves it,” Cole said.

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