USAFA grads ring bell at NYSE to mark 50th anniversary of law allowing women to enroll at service academies

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO — It's a familiar sound, the closing or opening trading floor bell at the New York Stock Exchange. On Tuesday, October 7, 2025 the people ringing that bell were graduates of our nation's military academies. The group was there to celebrate the moment fifty years ago on October 7, 1975 when President Ford signed a bill into law allowing women to enroll at military service academies.

One of those on the podium was retired Air Force Colonel Carolyn Benyshek.

NYSE Group

"What a great opportunity to help everyone else understand where we are, where we've come from, and we still have many miles to go," Benyshek said.

I spoke with Benyshek and former Air Force Captain Gretchen Cook ahead of their trip to New York to ring the famous bell. The pair graduated from USAFA in 1987. Cook was behind the push to help the graduates mark the important anniversary at the New York Stock Exchange.

"We let our classmates from the different service academies know that we could have 115 people and we didn't just want us women alumni, we wanted husbands, daughters, sons, wives, to come with us so that it wasn't just about us, it was about the people that support us, that love us," Cook said.

Fifteen of the women got to be on the podium to ring the bell.

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"Carolyn was selected to be on the podium because of all that she's done, not just, the amazing thing she did as a cadet, but then as an Admissions officer and then beyond, still mentoring cadets," Cook said.

Benyshek spent 31 years in the military before she retired. Along the way, she served as the Director of Admissions at the U.S. Air Force Academy, a role she held from 2009 to 2017. Cook spent six years in the military and went on to become an aerospace engineer.

"So human factors engineering, designing cockpits, and research with night vision goggles all in the aerospace industry," Cook said.

But both women acknowledge they would not be there without the women who graduated ahead of them.

"We stand on their shoulders," said Benyshek. "But for them we wouldn't be."

The first co-ed class at USAFA entered in 1976. Of the 1200 applicants accepted, 157 were women. Sixty of the women in that group did not graduate.

Benyshek and Cook knew when they applied to be part of the graduating class of 1987 the competition would be tough.

"I think for our class 28,000 people applied and then 1400 were accepted," said Cook.

Once in, they both worried they would not graduate.

"A lot of our classmates thought that because there were so many struggles and challenges, and just a little hiccup could have you fail," Cook said.

Those challenges perhaps part of the cost of obtaining a free education at a military academy.

Carolyn Benyshek: It's not exactly free.
News 5's Dianne Derby: There's a cost.
Carolyn Benyshek: There's a cost.
News 5's Dianne Derby: What is the cost?
Carolyn Benyshek: I think your own blood, sweat, and tears, if you will,maybe not literally but figuratively,right?

And as they celebrated this week the groundbreaking moment President Ford made five decades ago, they honor the women who came before them.

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"I think that as we look back at the trailblazers that have come before us we are grateful," said Benyshek. "It is a reflection on what they were able to do and persevere in their resilience through the process that allowed us an opportunity to be at the Air Force Academy and to thrive at the Air Force Academy."

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