The MAP Makers

In 1975, Georgia Dentel pulled off a near-miracle when she brought Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to campus.

Dentel, who was the College’s activities counselor from 1960 to 2001, had booked the Boss a year in advance. By the fall of 1975, his star was on the rise, and Springsteen’s promoter tried to finagle his way out of the date.

She was not having it.

Springsteen’s people made demand after demand — more electricity, pizza in the dressing room — it went on and on. Dentel worked through every challenge they threw at her.

She was not about to let Springsteen out of that contract.

People Will Come

The Boss might be one of the most famous performers to come to Grinnell, but there have been legions of others.

When members of the class of 1977 celebrated their reunion in 2022, one of the highlights was a gathering to listen to music and reminisce about the concerts of their student days — and the person who made them possible, Georgia Dentel.

They called the event “One of a Kind, Ahead of Her Time: Appreciating the Unique Entertainment Georgia Dentel Brought to Grinnell College.”

“We didn’t want to do anything particularly formal,” says Kit Wall ’77. “I said, ‘I’ll bring wine. The College will have other stuff. People will just come.’”

Wall and her co-organizers, Pat Irwin ’77, DHL ’12, and Bob Render ’77, also came up with the idea of creating a playlist to run in the background. Irwin, a professional musician, composer, and former member of the dance-rock band the B-52s, curated the list, which is now available on Spotify.

The event was a big success, and it led to something bigger.

Putting Georgia on the MAP

These Grinnellians (and many others) knew that Georgia Dentel was a significant figure in the history of the College. The events she brought to Grinnell contributed to the campus culture and brought joy to the student experience.

And it wasn’t just music. Students benefitted from all kinds of cultural events — films every weekend, theatre, and much more. Wall remembers when actress Julie Harris came to campus to perform the one-woman play, The Belle of Amherst. “That was a big deal,” Wall says. “I remember going to that and thinking, oh my God, Julie Harris is here.”

There was no reason for students to leave campus to experience good music, Wall says. “We don’t even have to go anywhere!”

Obstacles

Thinking about Dentel, Wall adds, “She gave us so much — I wish I’d known more about her.”

She also thinks about how difficult it must have been for a woman in the entertainment business during that era. Even today, women in the music business face obstacles that men do not. Wall says she only came to understand this once she was in the midst of her own career in public relations, marketing, and entertainment.

“While I was clearly aware she was bringing ‘live entertainment on a world-class level’ to a small liberal arts college in Iowa, I didn’t fully comprehend how amazing she was,” Wall says.

But yet, Dentel was mostly absent from the official history of the College.

The Fabric of Life, Examined

In the immediate aftermath of the reunion event, Wall and several other interested alumni began talking about how best to honor the legacy of Georgia Dentel. This small team decided to immediately create a designated — i.e., cash-in/cash-out — fund to support a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) in the Department of History.

The MAP students supported by the fund are working closely with Professor Sarah Purcell ’92, the L.F. Parker Professor of History, to uncover new information and materials. Through research and oral history interviews, they are focusing on the history of concerts and other cultural events at Grinnell, as well as the life and work of Georgia Dentel.

In addition, another group of alumni has created the Class of ’79 Georgia Dentel Endowed Memorial Fellowship, an endowed fund that will support faculty-student research in future years.

The Brightest Moments

One particularly fertile area of investigation for these students has been the memories of Grinnell alumni — people like Pat Irwin.

When Irwin remembers his time at Grinnell, he doesn’t just think about the professors or what went on in the classroom. “It was the people all around us in the community, of which Georgia was essential. It was the staff, it was the maintenance people. It was the people in the post office, in the bookstore.

Irwin adds, “Georgia was responsible for some of the brightest moments at the school. And I just could not bear to think that those moments would be lost.”

Read more about the Mentored Advanced Project.

Working the Phones

As a student, Irwin was concerts co-chair, which meant he interacted with Dentel a lot — almost always over the phone.

“She was a talker,” he says. “She could really work that phone.”

Irwin says he didn’t realize how much he was learning from Dentel until later. He was an American studies major and had no plans to become a musician. But at some level, he was already moving in that direction.

“Deep down, that’s all I wanted to do,” Irwin says.

Being in contact with so many musicians as concerts chair was life-changing, Irwin says. Even a task like collecting the sheet music from the music stands after Charles Mingus played in the South Lounge was powerful.

“It meant everything to me to hold that music in my hands and look at it.”

For Irwin, it was an opportunity to meet and interact with people he idolized — musicians like Mingus, Bill Evans, Gil Scott Heron, and many others.

“I’m meeting my heroes, and they’re just regular people,” Irwin says.

It was all thanks to Georgia Dentel. “I wouldn’t have met any of them if it wasn’t for her,” Irwin says.

Fighting for Georgia

Students, faculty, and staff came together to support Dentel when Grinnell President Richard Turner tried to fire her in a 1976 cost-cutting campaign.

Irwin wrote a strongly worded column that appeared in the S&B. He also met with the dean and the president. “It was just unthinkable to me,” he says. “And Georgia was crushed.”

“It was just a horrible thing. We were all shocked,” Wall adds.

But the outpouring of support from all corners of campus succeeded — Dentel kept her job (though cut to half-time), but she came under fire again in 1984.

A Cultural Explosion

Bob Render served as social coordinator as a senior, which brought him in contact with Georgia Dentel. Student government was emerging as a force on campus, and Render worked with others to choose movies, bands, and more to help create a sort of “cultural explosion” on campus.

“It had an obviously major impact on my life, in ways that still amaze me and were totally surprising,” Render says.

“Georgia was very mysterious, but alluring,” Render says. Wall agrees. She remembers a stylish woman, but in the manner of another era — like a 1920s flapper with a china-doll bob, perhaps.

Dentel had a way of connecting with the students she worked with. Render was no exception. He often spent 45 minutes to an hour on the phone with her. Before long, Dentel knew all about his parents, his siblings — even his girlfriend. She gave him advice on classes, assignments, relationships, and more.

When his parents came to campus for commencement, Render hoped they would be able to meet Dentel. It was a long shot — she didn’t often come to campus. But on this occasion, she made an exception.

She met Render and his family in a parking lot near campus, Dentel behind the wheel of her 1964 Ford Falcon. They had an amazing visit, Render remembers. But even more surprising, she took his father aside for a private conversation.

Render was amazed. “There’s Georgia, walking off with my dad.”

What was said? “I think she was encouraging him to listen more to what I had to say,” Render says.

He adds, “Knowing that she really didn’t like to go out in public, that was quite a nice thing for her to do.”

One of a Kind

It’s impossible to overestimate the impact Georgia Dentel had on campus life at Grinnell College. The concerts and cultural events Dentel brought to campus contributed to a joyful and meaningful student experience, exposing students to artistic genres and forms they might not have encountered before.

“I was not a huge blues or jazz person until I got to Grinnell,” Render says. He says that his introduction to these musical genres at Grinnell — and the ideas and perspectives of his fellow students — was life-changing.  

You could even say it was part of a Grinnell education.

“She gave us so much, and all of us loved it for our quality of lives during that time,” Wall says. “I just thought, wow, what a gem.”

Thanks to the efforts of the student researchers and their MAP adviser — and the alumni donors who made it all possible — the Grinnell community is learning more about Dentel, the concerts and events she brought to campus, and the cultural explosion she made possible at a small college in the middle of Iowa.

Read more about the Mentored Advanced Project.