'Leadville kid' Helne Monberg donates
$1 million to CU and other institutions

Monberg

Helene Monberg ('40) has continued her long-term commitment to helping students by bequeathing a total of $1 million to five educational entities, including CU.

Each of the five Colorado institutions will receive $200,000 of the $1 million. The selected recipients are CU at Boulder, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo, the Lake County Board of Education and the Robert Hoag Rawlings Foundation. Monberg's hometown of Leadville is in Lake County and the Rawlings Foundation is an organization dedicated to helping young people in southern Colorado.

The $200,000 for CU will be used "for nonscholarship programs to benefit its student body, including disadvantaged and handicapped students."

Stephanie L. Cuthbertson a pre-journalism major from Northglenn, will receive the Monberg scholarship of $1,608 for her freshman year.

Giving money to students has been a 30-year passion for Monberg, 80. She and colleague Ethel Payne began collecting money through fundraisers for young people in the 1960s. Several Colorado students have received scholarships through Monberg's program started in 1994 to honor her parents, Luther and Helene Denzler Monberg.

Monberg will continue her commitment to helping needy students with her $1 million bequest. She stipulated that the $200,000 for CU cannot be used for scholarships because she believes it would not be given to students who really need them.

Monberg, who describes her life as hard but fulfilling, has learned many things from the students she has helped in the past three decades

"I've learned how resourceful human beings are who want to get ahead, and you don't have to be a genius to be a success," she said. "If you want to make it, and are reasonably intelligent, you can succeed in this country. This is a great country.

"Who would have thought a skinny little kid from Leadville would give a million dollars to her state?" she asked.

"No one!" she laughed. "Isn't that great?"

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