Cynthia “Cinci” Turnbull

Cinci was someone who saw people.

Born in Arvada, Colorado, in 1957, she became a college professor of costume design for more than thirty years — twenty-four of them at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. She earned her BA from Nebraska Wesleyan University and her MFA in costume design from The University of Texas at Austin. Over the course of her career she created more than 2,300 costumes. But what she really created was confidence.

She helped young theater students find themselves. She could put a costume on someone shy and suddenly they stood differently. She could find the right fabric for a character no one else could fully see yet.

Her students often remembered not just what she taught them, but how she made them feel capable.

She often called herself “Pollyanna in a pith helmet” — a joke about her own stubborn optimism, the kind that carried her through eighteen years with breast cancer — diagnosed in 2007, metastatic in her final years — while she kept living vibrantly, far past anyone’s expectations.

She had a way of naming what she loved. She always called her husband by his full name — “Dana Berry.” Never shortened. Never rushed. Said like a small ceremony every time.

She had a sharp, warm sense of humor — the kind where she’d tease you about something silly for years, but you always knew you were loved. She chose her wedding music carefully — songs about time passing and how love is measured — because she understood emotional weight without making everything heavy.

She was generous without pretending to be perfect. She would take a friend out for a birthday when no one else remembered. She loaned money to people in trouble. She could tell off a lifelong friend when he deserved it, then sit with him for hours afterward and work things through. She didn’t pretend to be nicer than she was. She was genuinely kind — and genuinely direct.

If she asked how you were doing, she meant it.

She gave great hugs. She loved deeply and forgave quickly.

She loved purple, Cherry Garcia ice cream, hydrangeas, theater, her cats, her dogs, her sisters, her mother, her father, her stepmother, her students, her grandson, her husband, and the Denver Broncos.

A lot of things. Deeply. All at once.