She was born, raised and still lives in Saskatoon. There is an arena and street named after her legendary father. She has a don’t ask, don’t tell policy when it comes to her private life, but you don’t get to be Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneur without attracting some attention. In the winter issue of Fine Lifestyles Saskatoon, Thom Barker gets Up Close and Personal with the Duchess of Saskatoon hotels,

Betty Anne Latrace Henderson.

On the far northeast edge of Saskatoon, in a “gated” community still waiting for its gate, neat executive houses line an immaculately kept private road. The area has the aloof atmosphere that new housing projects often do as they nurture the generations of families who will transform them from real estate developments into neighbourhoods. But as guests arrive at one of these sterile-looking units, all aloofness disappears. Before the door even opens, guests are greeted by the enthusiastic yapping of Brando and Bree, a mini schnauzer and a shitz-poodle cross who graciously share the house with Betty Anne Latrace Henderson and Brian Henderson. Brian, tall and lean, with an easy grace and engaging smile, immediately makes newcomers feel at home with his more soft-spoken, but equally welcoming, greeting. In the spacious, open-concept living/dining/kitchen area with a floor-to-ceiling back wall of glass overlooking pastoral parkland, Betty Anne is in her element. Entertaining family, friends, colleagues and even complete strangers is what she loves to do best, befitting for the Duchess of Saskatoon’s hospitality industry. Brian tells the story of Christmas 2009 in Palm Springs, California, where the couple owns a condo and spends part of the winter: “We were having dinner [at a restaurant] and Betty Anne gets talking to the server,” Brian said. “He’s from Cuba, he’s a landed immigrant American and [she asks], ‘so your folks are back there? Your family’s all back there? What are you doing for Christmas?’  So we had Rocky over for Christmas dinner.” Betty Anne’s and Brian’s home in Willowgrove is elegantly furnished with modern, quality pieces in white leather, rich wood and lots of glass. Original art adorns the walls. Brian proudly shows off the Al Weitzel painting of a tiger in their large en-suite bathroom. The table is set with fine china, crystal and flatware.

Despite all the nice things, Betty Anne does not have a most-prized possession. “They’re just things,” she says almost dismissively. If she has a favourite, though, it might be the electric grand piano in the corner. “I’m a piano plunker,” she declared modestly, but with obvious glee. “I did take lessons as a child but hated them because Mum made me do it and I would have to practice while all my friends played. Now I wish I would have practiced more.”

In private moments, you might find Betty Anne plunking out popular songs from the 1970s and ’80s; or engrossed in a good whodunnit with Brando curled up beside her; or watching Pretty Woman, her favourite movie because, “it’s just such a wonderful fairy tale, isn’t it?”

You might also catch her watching Oprah—the one person, living or dead, Betty Anne would most like to meet. “You talk about the power of media,” she said. “[Oprah] has taken that power and done so much good with it. There will always be those who say, ‘Oh, but she’s this and that,’ but on the whole, if you look at the programs she’s started and the literacy; I mean, how many people read because of Oprah’s book club? That’s real power.”

Most likely, though, you would find her reading business books...but this night was about properly welcoming Lana Doke, the new Chief Executive Officer of Airline Hotels and Resorts. For Betty Anne and Brian—who is chairman of the board—a proper welcome means getting out of the board room and into the dining room. That personal touch has gotten them a long way in business. When Airline was bidding for its Saskatoon Hilton property, they naturally invited the executives from the famed hospitality giant over for dinner. “They said it was the only time they had ever been asked to an operator’s home,” Betty Anne said.

Betty Anne inherited Airline from her legendary father, Harold Latrace, who built a hotel on a slough by the airport long before the rest of the city caught up. “People thought he was crazy,” Betty Anne admitted. “But he was a visionary.” And, she added, the most influential person in her life. “He would see people in need and do something about it. He was always quiet and unassuming and when you needed something done, you never had to ask twice. He taught us a lot of good lessons. Mistakes were accepted as something to learn from and not make the same one twice.”

Her mother was also a major influence. “Mum was very strong. She probably would have been a good business person, too. She managed the household and no matter how busy dad was, she made sure Sundays were for family. She was our morals and family values.”

Betty Anne was born August 11, 1952 to Vilda (Cole) Latrace and Harold, the third of four daughters. She spent her early years on the family dairy farm north of Saskatoon, adjacent to what is now the Auto Clearing Motor Speedway. That experience provided her with business lessons that are still with her today. “I was involved in 4H,” she said. “When you’re responsible for an animal that relies on you, it doesn’t matter whether you’re feeling good or not feeling good, or whatever, you’ve got to participate, you’ve got to be responsible for it.”

By the time Betty Anne was nine, the family had moved to a home on 8^th Avenue North and her eventual calling was starting to become evident. “She wanted to be a teacher from day one, I’m sure,” said Sharon Robert, Betty Anne’s younger sister. “We had a playhouse, and I’m six years younger, so all my friends [and I] would have to come to ‘school’ every day, and she taught us.”

The youngest sister doesn’t remember what Betty Anne taught, but she does recall her older sibling as a shy, organized and dutiful girl. “She would never cross Mum,” Sharon said. “She was very obedient, not like her younger sister.”

That is not to say there was never any mischief in the young Betty Anne. “We were at a Kiwanis convention and we were with this other family,” Sharon said. “They had boys and I just remember jumping back and forth on the beds and we ended up breaking a bed, in a hotel.”

Betty Anne was rarely in trouble, though, and when she graduated from City Park Collegiate in 1970, she dutifully followed through on her early career aspirations, earning her Bachelor of Education from the University of Saskatchewan. “My father was very proactive in a lot of things,” she said. “However, we were orchestrated to go and either become a nurse, a teacher or a receptionist, the traditional roles. And, of course, we never dreamt of anything else. It was just the way it was.”

Getting married was just the way it was for women, too, as was having kids. In 1974, Betty Anne completed the first part of that equation, but never the latter. “We were the wrong people together,” she said. “Thank goodness we were smart enough to realize we needed a foundation before we brought children into the world.”

When Betty Anne met Brian at the wedding of mutual friends, both were recently divorced and neither was in any hurry to get involved. “We had a nice dinner together,” Brian, then a pharmacist, remembered. “Then she kept coming over to the drug store, pestering me for donations for Big Sisters. She just had this great smile and these great eyes and she was always animated; she always had something to say.”

“He finally broke down and we went on a date,” Betty Anne interjected. They were married in 1984.

In all, Betty Anne spent 20 years in the Saskatoon public school system, teaching at inner city elementary schools and working with at-risk kids. “I could just relate to those kids better,” she said. “I don’t know why. I guess maybe a need: you could see a need, you thought maybe you could make a difference in their life.”

But she was restless. In the late 1980s, she took a leave of absence from teaching to open Brianne’s Lingerie. She eventually went back to school part-time, but trying to teach and run a business at the same time took its toll.

“I thought, ‘This is crazy, either I quit teaching or I don’t do the store’,” she said. “So I quit teaching. I’m a firm believer that if you don’t love what you’re doing in teaching—I mean absolutely love it—get out, because those kids don’t deserve to have you there. I was to the point that my love was waning.”

Betty Anne ran Brianne’s for 10 years, demonstrating her business prowess by making the store into one of the top retailers in sales per square foot in the country. She sold the store—which is still in business on 2nd Avenue—and joined Airline as vice president when Harold became ill in 1994. She assumed control of the company when he died six years later.

Having inherited the president’s desk, and in part because of her gender, Betty Anne foresaw a rough road ahead with respect to steering the company in the direction she wanted to go. She had to make some very hard decisions, the first of which was disbanding a board of directors largely made up of Harold’s friends and business associates.

“There were some of those second- and third-generation families on that original board and I think she wisely recognized that to take the company forward it was time for some new ideas, some new perspectives,” explained Mike Stensrud, a current member of the board.

Firmly at the helm, and with a new board in place, Betty Anne rapidly expanded the company from a successful, local family enterprise to a small empire with six properties across the country, more than $45 million in annual revenue, a 109-per cent three-year growth rate and almost 700 employees. It was a feat that earned her honours as Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneur for 2009, as recognized by Profit 100 magazine.

If you ask Betty Anne, that success is a tribute to her people, but Stensrud gives her credit even for that. “If there is one absolute wonderful characteristic of Betty Anne Henderson, it is her ability to analyze the character and skill set of the individual in her presence,” he said. “She really has a way to attract trustworthy, kind people to her midst—and what a tremendous skill that is!”

One of those people is Lynn Flury, general manager of the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Saskatoon. She says Betty Anne’s people skills are unrivalled. “It’s not unlike her just to come over to the hotel, wander around, chat with people, give people hugs, thank-you notes, just ongoing encouragement and recognition, and it really inspires you to want to make sure you meet her expectations.”

For most people who meet Betty Anne, it is hard to imagine her being anything but confident, outgoing and dynamic, but she insists that’s not always the case. “There’s a shy part to me too,” she said. “That part that still has vulnerability.”

Brian elaborated: “There are certainly lots of decisions that come down to her and her decision alone. She struggles with it, as everyone does who’s in that position.”

“They say it’s lonely at the top,” Betty Anne said. “That’s really true sometimes.”

Wilma Halstrom, a high-profile Saskatoon businesswoman in her own right and a long-time friend, says it is extremely important for women in their position to have people they can just kick back or cut loose with. For that, they go sailing. “It’s probably the one place we can all relax and not think about business,” Halstrom said. 

But don’t ask Halstrom, or anybody else for that matter, what goes on out there on the open water. “What goes on the boat stays on the boat,” Wilma said, a sentiment echoed, verbatim, by Betty Anne and Sharon.

Halstrom does give up one little tidbit, though. “[Betty Anne] talks all the time. Even at golf. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Even in your backswing? “Absolutely!”

But that is hardly a state secret, even to Betty Anne, who tells this story about herself:  “When you’re hiking you’re supposed to talk because it’s the sound of voices more than anything else that scares bears away,” she said. “One time, we were hiking in the mountains and nobody else was talking, except me. I finally said I’d had enough and everyone was shocked when I actually stopped.”

Like her father, there is little doubt Betty Anne Latrace Henderson will leave a legacy, but what does the woman herself hope that legacy will be?

“If there is one thing I would like people to say about me, it’s that I was a person of my word, followed through, and was somebody they could trust.”

That might have to be the second thing people say about her, though, right after “thoughtful and compassionate.”

“I’d never been to a job interview where I had a hug,” Flury recounted. “That sort of sums it up.”