When Mary Bowen Benes of Broken Arrow, Okla., came to Columbus in April for the Baker High School reunion, she watched “Good Morning America,” the ABC early morning show.
“I saw the giveaway thing on April 23,” she said. “You know, I’m going to take a chance. You never know what’s going to happen.”
The Dream Dress Giveaway was the brainchild of “GMA” co-host Robin Roberts. She was given three dresses to wear when she hosted the pre-Academy Awards show. Instead of keeping the dresses in her closet, Roberts decided to give them away.
Roberts asked people to write letters to nominate a deserving woman.
Benes chose her daughter, Ashley, a second year graduate student at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.
She thought that Ashley had worked so hard to become the soprano she is now that she deserved to have a perfect master’s recital dress next spring. The segment aired on June 29.
The other women included a 16-year-old girl in Charlotte, N.C., whose mother says she does a lot of community service, working in food banks and homeless shelters, and an Army wife in El Paso, Texas, whose husband wrote that she’s stood by him while he recuperated from injuries in Iraq, and wanted her to have a dress to wear to a military ball this fall.
The third dress, a midnight blue Reem Acra gown, went to Ashley, whose mother surprised her in a rehearsal hall with the dress.
After putting on the gown, Ashley sang part of an aria.
“We stayed with a friend of mine in Atlanta,” Benes said. “She showed us a dress online, a midnight blue dress. It was the same color, so it couldn’t have been more perfect.”
While the dress fits, it will have to be altered so Ashley Benes can expand her ribcage while she’s singing. It’s also a little too long, her mother said. Ashley should have the altered dress sometime this fall.
Benes’ parents, Earnest “Bo” and Betty Bowen, live in Ellerslie, Ga., on the outskirts of Columbus.
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