Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > Charity, Faith & Education category
Charity, Faith & Education
June 21, 2009
Austin Shakespeare House Concert in Tarrytown
Movin’ on up … to the West Side.
Tom Cronk, Kathryn Cronk
Since Ann Ciccolella took the reins of Austin Shakespeare, the theater company has expanded its scope and reach well beyond its historical bounds.
Sharon Watkins, Jean Works
The group’s highest-profile backer during the Ciccolella era has been gaming magnate Richard Garriott, whose Elizabethan-style theater on Lake Austin makes for magical special events. Yet the Garriott connection only takes one so far.
Yvonne Tocquigny, Carol Arnold, Helen Foster
Thanks to board president Boyce Cabaniss, however, Austin Shakespeare shot up in the fundraising hierarchy by hosting a Caroline Herring house concert at Yvonne Tocquigny’s contemplative Tarrytown house.
John Bernadoni, Margo Thomas
The guest list was definitely A List — and I’m not talking about nightclub-snaps variety. Among the luminaries were Nancy Scanlan, Jo Anne Christian, Fern Santini, Sharon Watkins, Margo Thomas, Lucia and Paul Woodruff, Gabrielle Sheshunoff, Tom and Kathryn Cronk, Jodi and Fred Zipp and John Bernadoni.
Gary Deaver, Christy Ten Eyck
I could stay for just the first hour of the event, but I was so impressed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Austin Shakespeare zoomed ahead of other small-to-midsized theater companies in the nonprofit sphere.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Nightlife
June 18, 2009
Charity Bash for Heritage Society at Paggi House
Old-school charities, such as the Heritage Society of Austin, are learning from new-school charities.
Carsi Mitzner, A.J. Bingham
You see, fresh, grassroots groups such as Charity Bash are connecting younger Austinites to worthy causes, such as the Heritage Society.
Scheleen Walker. Rep. Donna Howard
Sure, the blithe Bashers primarily give parties.
Adam Greenspan, Claire Vo
Sure, the guests are shockingly toothsome.
Kathryn Ballay, Cody Dyce
But they are raising money and awareness — between $2,000 and $3,000 from the door alone at Paggi House on Wednesday — like few other organizations.
Donald Park, Carlos Garza
Charity Bash’s Alex Winkelman, Jessica Gross and Taylor Perkins are the new godlings of Ausitn social giving.
Carlos Ortiz, Michele Skelding
The crowd of 300 or so wilted gently on the Paggi House porches — ideal for such an event.
Liz Burkhart, David Levy
Love it when a pedigreed traditional social group blends with an upstart new one. Don’t you?
Brett Williams, Leslie Poulsen, Chase Newell
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Nightlife
May 30, 2009
Breakfast with the Winkelmans
Oh boy. What a morning. Breakfast with the Winkelmans. There’s Suzanne and Marc, who’ve accomplished so much in their lives, melding business, education, politics and charities. And they’ve raised three remarkable children, Eli, Alex and Jake, all social connectors in their own rights. They nimbly combine entrepreneurial with charitable instincts. So does Grandpa from Detroit, in for a visit and a welcome addition to the mass interview, which had me laughing and nodding in agreement from the get-go. Don’t want to give away too much, but I’m planning a major profile of the Winkelman family. These things take time to percolate. So expect it later in the summer.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Biz & High Tech, Charity, Faith & Education
May 26, 2009
What Would It Cost ... No. 2
Downtown encloses between 200 and 300 full blocks, not counting the Texas Capitol grounds. Lets say 50 of them are in very good to excellent condition. Which leaves about 250 blocks to complete.
Architect and urban planner Sinclair Black once told me it costs about $1 million to bring a full city block up to the “Great Streets” standards he pioneered with the first AMLI block on Second Street.
That translates into $250 million or a quarter billion dollars. That’s a big amount to swallow. Yet considering how much federal stimulus money proposed for expenditure by state and local leaders on various freeway flyovers — almost the same amount according to Statesman transportation reporter Ben Wear — the comparative value for encouraging density, green transportation and development of small businesses seems an open-and-shut case.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
May 17, 2009
Roll 2 Walk at South Austin Athletic Club
I estimate it would take almost 20 years to attend one nightly event for each of the more than 6,000 public nonprofits in Central Texas (see previous post).
Carly Millican, Haven Peschko
So I’m grateful when a nonprofit unfamiliar — to me — holds a social gathering not three blocks from our house. And at a convenient hour.
Jack Goodman, Tracy Frazier
Roll 2 Walk, an aggressive recovery program which helps people transition from traditional physical therapy into gyms such as the South Congress Athletic Club, is the latest to cross my radar.
Aaron Johnston, Jeni Godwin
I met executive director Keith-Ann Steed and talked at some length with social connector Tracy Frazier.
Tracy Frazier, Keith-Ann Steed
The match between charity and facility — formerly the Austin Rehearsal Center under the SoCo retail strip — seemed comfy.
Katie Phillips, Bryan Phillips
The whole project sounds worthy. And the South Congress gym regulars mingled merrily around light drinks and snacks.
Katherine Piaget, Paul Johnston, Lauren Dekker
Bonus: If I ever decide to join a gym — trading the social interaction for the solitude of our improvised garage workout zone — I have my eye on no-nonsense South Congress.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out, Sports
No wonder I'm so tired
Receiving an early briefing on a breakthrough Greenlights for Nonprofit Success’ study, Eugene Sepulveda from the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Central Texas learned this week that Central Texas is home to 6,309 public charities. You read that right. More than 6,000. Read about it in Community Matters.
Nimble as ever, Sepulveda responds: “My personal opinion, No, not too many started. Like business startups, why would you ever want to stifle the initiative and innovation? Should so many exist? Probably half the number being reported don’t, but have you ever tried killing an incorporated entity? Most don’t complete that process.
“Should more be retired by their boards, merge with others or at least participate collaboratively? Absolutely. And, it’s especially incumbent upon those of us on the boards of more mature — even institutional — nonprofits to look and push for opportunities to merge, collaborate and ‘acquire’ other nonprofits. I find comparisons between peer communities enlightening.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
May 12, 2009
There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch Luncheon at Renaissance Austin
Years ago, in between graduate school and full employment, Kip and I depended on the People’s Community Clinic.
Amy Dunkelberg, Albert Lin
As do tens of thousands of Austinites who are among the millions of Texans without health insurance.
Perla Cavazos, Ruby Cavazos
Almost no one denies the vital role the clinic plays in Austin’s health. Just look at the list of notables on the There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch Luncheon Committee: Dr. Nona Niland, Becky Beaver, Karen Burgess, Mary Margaret Farabee, Dr. John Hogg, M.P. Mueller, Judy Osborn, Nina Seely, Maria Sifuentes, Julia Null Smith, Sabrina Streusand, Claire Stuart, Margot Thomas, Tricia Traeger, Alisa Wledon, Stephanie Whitehurst and Lynn Yeldell. Stellar.
Joyce Durst, Chris Long
The snappy folks around our shared table discussed their histories with the clinic, with children (including Chris Long’s best little boy in the world.) and with the state’s precarious health safety net. Most pertinent was a discussion sparked by Marc Gold about how aging and disabilities affect the gay and lesbian communities.
Obviously…
An effective tool employed by the luncheoneers, by the way, were the menu-card stands that held, instead, pledge cards and envelopes that were gathered up by the table leaders in a metal lunch box. Clever.
Marc Gold, Kathryn Miller, Brenda Thompson
Several readers have asked after Nick and Nora, our Labs. Rest easy. Both have recovered from their misadventure on the Turkey Creek Trail. Still, as you can see, they need some fitness training before heading to Colorado in June!
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
May 10, 2009
Links & Lyrics at the UT Alumni Center
A tip to first-time gala-goers: If Ed Clements is on the bill, go.
Cyrus Shennum, Rhianna Horan
Red-maned and round-faced, the KLBJ sports talk host looks as cheerful in person as he talks on the air. He can deliver a stinging zinger, but he’s happier celebrating victory than finding fault in defeat.
Casey Laine, Conley Covert, Stephanie Cramer, Jonny Rodgers
Clements, as at home with Austin music as with sports, helped organize Links & Lyrics, a fundraiser for Alzheimer’s Association of Travis County. He’s generous with his time, but selective about his causes. He serves on the association’s working board of directors.
Linda Traylor, Jonathan Traylor
In contrast to the Trekkie confab for the Austin Planetarium down the street at the Bullock, this golf-and-guitar function lured the polished and groomed set.
Terra Schuh, Mark Schuh
Some bore natural face-paint from a day in the sun, but others looked cool, collected in their summery attire.
Robert Pitman, Andy Albright
The orange-tinged UT Alumni Center is perfect for such events, which included Darrell Royal, Becky Beaver and Mary Margaret Farabee among the guests. It’s especially gratifying to see Royal out and about, his eyes beaming with pride.
Lynne Ohmstede, John Schweitzer, Nancy Horton, John Horton
There’s a quiet, low-slung dignity to the center, renovated by famed architect Charles Moore, whose final years were spent in Austin.
Lezlie Glade, Frances Netherton
Good hosts. Good cause. Good crowd. Good spread. Good night.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Nerds at Play: 'Star Trek' for Austin Planetarium
The meth-addled street hustler intended to put me in my place. “I bet you were a nerd in high school,” he bleated, his emerald eyes narrowing like a cat’s.
Amy McFadden, Roz Mandola
His verbal dart hit its mark. Yes, I had been a nerd. No amount of retro-cooling in my twenties — in that manner awkwardly documented in “Freaks and Geeks” — took away the social stain.
John Rebok, Rich MacKinnon
By some measures, my high school, Houston’s Strake Jesuit College Preparatory, was 100 percent geek. At least my geeky pre-teen and teen tribes were various: Drama queens, debate dorks, Tolkien elves, Boy Scouts.
Lucas Martell, Luke Lovett
Ultimately, I created a dweeb society of one, by declaring myself a Wordsworthian. Favorite movie: “Ryan’s Daughter.” Novelist: Henry James. Composer: Claude Debussy. Painter: J.M.W. Turner. Poet: Who else? English Romantic William Wordsworth.
I was a teen, after all. Forgive me.
Jennifer Ayers, Stephen Scott
By relative adulthood, nerds traded places with the socially at ease. They frustrated evil forces in “WarGames” (1983) and “Weird Science” (1985). More crudely, they conquered bullying jocks and won romance in the “Nerds” movie franchise (1984-1994).
Kaiti Carpenter, Stephen Carpenter
In larger life, too, they ruled. Bill Gates and his compatriots often outranked sports and rock stars for fame, wealth and, eventually, good works. Gaming and computing went universal. In our pockets, we carry more digital power than the computers that sent our astronauts to the moon. (This is not an attempt at smutty humor.)
By 2000, one could say without irony: “We are all nerds now.” Contemplate some of our cultural heroes. Fashion nerd: Ugly Betty. Magician nerd: Harry Potter. iNerd: Steve Jobs.
All along, head-busting crack for many younger nerds were their comic books and science fiction novels. As they aged, fanboys and their fangirl allies made cultural history through their compulsion to get lost within “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” “Batman” and other alternate realities.
Jenny Ainsworth, Dustin Hay
All this reeled through my head during a long, jubilantly nerdy fundraiser for the Austin Planetarium during the “Star Trek” premiere at the Bullock IMAX theater on Friday.
Nerdiest of all: The planetarium doesn’t even exist, except in the fantasies of its backers, who are growing in numbers from the evidence of their social gatherings.
More to come…
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
May 8, 2009
Celestino for Dell Children's Medical Center Foundation at Spazio
Classic.
Venus Strawn, Sergio Guadarrama
Or at least classical.
Nevada Pressley, Daniel Zwiener, Shadia Omar
That’s the best way to describe Celestino.
Julie Maples, Caren Burbach, Monica Byram
That’s the line by Sergio Guadarrama, formerly of Austin, now of New York.
Tamara Dorrance, Lilly Moskal
A pristine runway show at the pristine furniture and art gallery Spazio showed off Guadarrama’s feminine, wearable designs.
Ana Perkins, Cyndy Perkins
Scalloped beads, stiff tops and soft drapes came in waves down the runway, a lot of it with a wedding sensibility.
Tyler Carr, Amer Elliot of Brilliant Magazine
The fashion show benefited — or at least showcased — the Dell Children’s Medical Center Foundation of Central Texas, the city’s most successful nonprofit start-up.
Amber Kuhaneck, Ashley Escobar
In just a few years, it has raised more than $100 million for the new medical center at Mueller.
James Tohill, Everdil Tohill
As usual with Austin events, the guests and their attire skewed all the way from punky hip-hop to highly polished high fashion.
Lukas Ulrich, Adriana Gudarrama, Brett Worrell
And there’s still a place for a man in a cowboy hat.
The Celestino group.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out, Style
Three new Out & About personalities
I met three fascinating people this week, two in person, one by phone. I anticipate all three contributing tremendously to my understanding of Austin’s wider social scene.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
May 6, 2009
Sheryl Lee Ralph on being a diva and a DIVA
Sheryl Lee Ralph is an original Dreamgirl.
Meaning, she starred as Deena Jones in the 1981 Broadway production of “Dreamgirls.” Since then, she’s enjoyed a career on film, television and, especially, as an organizer, fighting HIV-AIDS through her DIVA Foundation.
Out & About: I know you’re a diva. But what’s a DIVA?
Sheryl Lee Ralph: It’s an acronym for Divinely Inspired Victoriously Anointed about the Business of Driving Infectious Viruses Away. We do more than help divas with wig and wardrobe problems. The DIVA Foundation was created 1990 as a memorial to all those who I had lost to HIV-AIDS (during the 1980s). As part of the Original Four (Dreamgirls) in June 1881, I remember that time. It was an ugly time, one I will never ever forget. It’s important that we never forget so we don’t keep repeating it.
You’ve made your work with HIV-AIDS very personal. Where do you see the crisis now?
It’s still terrible. If sex could be death for men, who would be next? Of course, women. Think about where it hit first — the stigmatized and marginalized — the gay community. Then it spread to women of color, another group that continues to be marginalized. Not just marginalized, not even considered. It’s women now; it’s got to be children next.
You’ve enjoyed a varied career. What advice will you give the Huston-Tillotson students?
I want to encourage them to live their lives out loud. Be true to themselves. Get those relationships right that you have to get right: The one you have with yourself and the one you have with God. Nothing can stop you. Stop thinking the way your parents taught you to think. Think for yourself. Very often the first thing, when they graduate, students think ‘I’ve got to get a job.’ No. You might take time to find your passion. What would you do for the rest of your life for absolutely no money. Then find out how to make it pay. Most people think they are their parents second chance. You are your own first chance.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
May 3, 2009
Austin Children's Museum matures at Browning Hangar
The Austin Children’s Museum is growing up by growing young.
Jill Lane, Rebecca McKee
At the museum’s first nighttime gala, two longtime philanthropists told me on the way out that they felt much older than everyone else under the Browning Hangar’s arc. I’m glad they joined the crowd, because almost every event that I attend includes a sprightly mix of ages. This one, perhaps dominated by young parents — and a few with offspring on the way — was no exception.
Susan Engelking, Caitlin Reilly, Gail Papermaster
The circus midway theme was amplified by a troupe of clowning performers and, later, elegant, slow Blue Lapis aerial dancing of a sort familiar to most audiences through Cirque de Soleil saturation. (Zounds! The core body strength!)
Laura Loudamy, Katherine Wallin
Of course, the organizers were most concerned about the impending storms from the north, but any tempests waited until the gala was completed.
George Farley III, LoRee Farley
Sure, events such as this one are much more difficult to stage than a mere luncheon for donors. Yet the singularity of the evening won’t be forgotten when the museum launches its drive for a home right there at Mueller.
Ellen Dorsey, Marsie Stauch
Speaking of — that campaign should start soon. I think the beauty and convenience of the development will encourage potential backers, as well as the proximity of other services for youngsters, including the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas and the Rathgeber Village.
Amanda Webster, Brent Webster (she’s Gladiator Ally Davidson’s sister!)
I enjoyed this grown-up gala so much, I skipped the Flamingo-A-Go-Go event at The Monarch, which I’m sure shimmied and raised more money for cancer causes. Earlier in the day, voting for the Austin Critics Table nominations precluded several potential Derby parties and the Heritage Homes Tour.
Vandana Rawal, Rajiv Rawal, Gital Lal
Hey, if you can’t be flexible in this job, you’ll drive yourself nuts trying to partake in all the worthy socializing.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
May 2, 2009
Social integers unite at Wildflower Gala
The Wildflower Gala unites people.
Malini Rajput, Vim Rajput
I talked to political legends and ordinary gardeners, working lawyers and rising artists, liberal activists and conservative donors at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Victoria Corbett, Leslie Nowlin
Even the extended Johnson family was represented in contrasting modes by the legacy-minded Luci Baines Johnson and the whimsical Catherine Robb, who was wearing one of her grandmother’s White House gowns, despite being quite a bit taller than the late first lady.
Elena Barnes, Melanie Barnes
The night smiled on the gala again this year.
Deryn Davidson, Julie Krosley
The art — nature themed — improves every year, with big names like Lance Lescher and Kate Breakey leading the way. This time, credit super-active philanthropist Becky Beaver with that triumph.
Catherine Robb, Phillip Gibbs
I enjoyed a long conversation with John and Mary Jones, who usually fly under the social radar, but whose Austin home is complemented by a shared ranch, beach house and mountain cabin. (They obviously get along well with others.)
Mary Jones, John Jones
My (fake) cousin, Melanie Barnes, was there with her now-grown daughter, Elena. Last I saw her, she was a tender bud of a girl; now she’s a grown woman going off to college. Sigh.
Janet Wilson, Luci Baines Johnson
Some of my favorite people were there: Ray and Mary Margaret Farabee, Juan Miro and Rosa Rivera, Suzanne and Marc Winkelman.
Owen Brainard, Sally Brainard
The Center clearly appeals to Austinites concerned with the environment and sustainability as well as those more concerned with old-fashioned conservation and landscaping.
Kelly Ledford, Cassandra Jones
Not that those are conflicting goals, but that might help to explain the broad range of guests enjoying superior gala food and ambient music.
Claire Pinkerton, Joe Pinkerton
Does anyone hate the Wildflower Center?
Deacon Turner, Richard England
Personally, I love it when all the Austin partisans sit down together for the sake of art and nature.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Charity, Faith & Education, Out
May 1, 2009
East Night 2009
Is the Mexican American Cultural Center east? Or is it central?
Joaquin Mariel, Brent Perdue
PeopleFund’s East Night 09 took place at the MACC, which, except for some new construction, looks as stunning as it did when it opened.
Tanya Ladha, Jaime Noyola
Compared to the down-home Fiesta Gardens, where this group pushing economic opportunity staged East Night last year, the MACC is urban, cosmopolitan and — central. It will appear more so to the public as the Rainey Street neighborhood evolves and becomes more dense, inevitably.
Tina Fernandez, Lucia Fernandez, Margo Weisz
Not that East Night must take place east of Interstate 35. But it brings up a sore point: Too often, the highway is simplistically labeled the boundary between east and west Austin.
Eduardo Magaloni, Mary Palmer
Austin’s history is much richer and more varied than that, no matter which general statistics are brought to bear. And it is always changing. Always has.
Don Baylor Jr., Catherine Crawford
The MACC is — and should be — located centrally, because the heritage it serves is central to Austin. And PeopleFund, whenever possible, should be at the center of our attentions, too.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Toast of the Town at Mattsson/McHale residence
How could you not want to see the inside of Chris Mattsson and John McHale’s house?
Dana Friis-Hansen, Camille Lyons
The long, idiosyncratic residence opened eyes wide, back when Tom and Deborah Green had it built on Niles Road, perhaps Austin’s most exclusive address.
Dale Dewey, Karen Landa
Now it looks fresh and bright, thanks to Mattsson/McHale touches. And the art. Which is what a dozen or so people had come to see.
Jeff Russell, Scott Pennington
It was another small Toast of the Town fundraising event for St. David’s Community Health Foundation. The money actually accumulates over the course of several events, and goes to scholarships in the health sciences. Twenty-five are given a year and, when the newest crop comes in, 65 will be funded.
Maria-Gisela Mercado-Deane, Daniel Deane
I spent the most time with Dana Friis-Hansen, who was there to explain the hosts’ electic art collection for the gathering, and with flawlessly attired Karen Landa and Dale Dewey, who promised confirmation of some much-rumored business news soon.
Debra Pennington, Nancy Bowman
My favorite quote of the evening, however, came from Nancy Bowman, who said with convincing charm: “I read your column. Being from Old Austin, I don’t know any of the people you write about. But I read it.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Shout Out Awards at Covenant Presbyterian Church
I learned several things at the Shout Out Awards on Thursday.
Police Chief Art Acevedo, Niyanta Spelman
First, there’s an organization called Austin Voices For Education and Youth, which advocates strengthening schools and expanding opportunities for Austin’s youth.
Eric Metcalf, Fire Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr
Second, it’s helmed by a bold executive director, Amy Averett, who apparently can convince anyone of anything.
Jen Lentsch, Arturo Castellanos
Third, Austin civic leaders hold the group in high esteem. Police Chief Art Acevedo, Fire Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr and incoming AISD Superintendent Meria Carstarphen — as well as various candidates for area offices — made sure they showed up at the awards. Carstarphen even flew back from St. Paul just for the dinner at the Covenant Presbyterian Church on Northland Drive.
Jill Williams, Jerry Bock
And that’s the other thing I learned — the church just completed its $16 million fellowship and education building in time for the awards. The four-story complex includes facilities for adults, kids, Sunday school, even a gym. The church leadership sees it as a resource for the surrounding community as well as for members at Central Presbyterian. Expect to see more events there.
Meria Carstarphen, Amy Averett
On a final note last note, another dogged leader, Karrie League of Alamo Drafthouse fame, convinced me to attend, despite five competing social events that evening.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
April 30, 2009
Concert for Candlelight at The Belmont
Certain charities glow.
Katie Moscoe, Anthony Gallo
I did not intend that statement as a pun. I swear.
Jason Allgood, Vanessa Johnson, Dennis Sims
Yet Candlelight Ranch, which provides Hill Country recreation for youngsters with disabilities, emanates uncomplicated good will from its staff, board and backers.
Laura Von Der Ahe, Leann Beadle, Ann Berry
Enfolded by a soft, forgiving dusk, Candlelight supporters gathered on the mod patio of The Belmont for a fundraising concert Wednesday.
Jenn Grogono, Martin Grogono, Wendy Wells
I stayed long enough to hear Phoenix Down, a stripped-down ambient indie act. The soft chords and suggestions of epic guitar eruptions complemented the occasion.
David Breed, Tara Gray
I met many Candlelighters, including past and present presidents David Breed and Tara Gray. Everyone, including board members, sensed that I didn’t need to be sold hard on the charity. Its growing reputation speaks for itself.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
April 29, 2009
Signs from above
Walking while distracted, I spied two signs from a distance. Part of my mind misconstrued their religious meanings.
At University United Methodist Church on Guadalupe Street.
At first, I thought this announced a meeting of those who identified with the Roman governor of Judaea from 26 CE to 36 CE.
At the the First Church of Christ Scientist on Guadalupe Street.
An anti-homosexual admonition? Of course not.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
April 28, 2009
Griffin School Re-Prom at Zilker Clubhouse
The Griffin School believes everyone should enjoy a prom.
Bryan Counts, Frog Froeba, Lawrence Morgan
So before the students at the microscopic North Campus liberal arts academy stage theirs, the adults have their way.
Eric Nelson, Marilia Souza
Faculty, staff, parents and former students gathered Saturday at the Zilker Clubhouse for a fundraising “Re-Prom.”
Natalya Medv, Tim Shelburne
That way, if the first prom — all those years ago — didn’t go well, then you’ve earned a second chance.
Rick Carpenter, Sarah Carpenter
The Dr. Seuss costume theme fit the imaginary regression to youth.
Richard Finley, Camille Latour, Chad Johnson
And the soulful band, T-Bird and the Breaks, got those prom dates up and thrashing.
Laura Britt, Suzie Roselle
My thanks to dear friend Lawrence Morgan, a Griffin trouper, for the invitation. And for Amazonian drag.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
April 26, 2009
Doug, Lone Star Paralysis has already arrived
“Now that you’re here, we must have hit the big time.”
Eric Holle, Michelle Holle
So said Doug English, president of the Lone Star Paralysis Foundation. Wrong, Doug. You and your cause smacked the big time long before I crashed your gala at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Jeff Quade, Ali Cooper
After all, you were an All-Star defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions in the 1970s and ’80s after triumphing with the University of Texas Longhorns. And although you’re now 55, you’re still ruggedly handsome, with hands so big you could enfold both of mind in your fist. (Talk about a startling handshake.)
Gary Brightwell, Kristen Rini
And your foundation, which seeks a cure for spinal cord injury, has been raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on a regular basis. Your Four Seasons event drew 500 guests and netted between $200,000 and $300,000, despite lower admission prices this year.
Sadie Corrie, David Corrie
Sorry I couldn’t stay for comedian Bill Engvall’s set. He’s the classy component in the blue-collar comedy brigade. He even joked, in advance, that the American-Statesman was one of his favorite newspapers. (Good save, Bill.)
Doug English, Bill Engvall
One thing that distinguished this event was the swarm of security officials. Not as many as Tuesday, when Vice-President Joe Biden swooped into town, but numerous enough to arouse comment.
Curtis Meeting, Virginia Lee
Lone Star spokeswoman Emily Schmitz said extra force was necessary because of high-dollar auction items such as a signed Rolling Stones jacket. Plus Gov. Rick Perry showed up with his secret service.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
April 25, 2009
ASH gets bigger BASH for '09
ASH BASH is not new. Yet it has been renewed.
Helen Heard, Chase Heard
The event raises money for the Austin State Hospital, a taxpayer-supported institution that nevertheless is always short of resources.
Dianna Pickens, Richard Smith
Backers sell patient and professional art at ASH BASH. That’s made it a rare blend of community and charity, staff and volunteer collaboration.
Alexis Ledesma, Joshua Sampson
Different this year was the push from a group of social connectors to make it a headliner event. Among the many supporters was Marcy Hoen, particularly adept at networking business, social and artistic assets.
Roi James, Dr. Amy Myers
Among the familiar faces I encountered on the 18th floor of 816 Congress was Richard Smith, former columnist for the American-Statesman and longtime cable news commentator. Among my new acquaintances was a social sparkler, Donna Pickens, wife of former state Rep. Ace Pickens. This West Texas bundle of kinetic energy told me more fascinating stories in five minutes than most people can muster in five hours.
Richard Gonzalez, Megan Jaster
With several hundred guests present in the raw office space, BASHers estimate that attendance at this year’s event perhaps doubled previous outings. We wait to hear the net take.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
April 22, 2009
Tracking Austin's social giving
Is charitable giving down? Is social giving up?
But what about social giving? Does anyone track that?
We attend several fundraisers each week and organizers routinely report record nets. Perhaps this is because they are spending less — 25 percent, say, rather than 30 or 40 percent — on the events themselves. That tends to improve the bottom line.
Those fundraisers are one component in “social giving.” I like to define it as “giving in front of other people.”
Some donors prefer to write checks in private. Nothing wrong with that.
Others give through social outlets — parties, auctions, athletic races, meetings, volunteer opportunities, giving clubs.
This kind of giving increases the social bond among the givers and with the nonprofit group. One is contributing time or treasure in public, not for vanity — although that universal human weakness can play a part, surely — but because putting your name on something in front of other people means you believe in it.
Austinites, I suspect, are particularly drawn to social giving. We are a participatory society by nature. And the idea giving here is not limited to some imaginary upper crust.
Studies have shown that, on a dollar or per capita basis, we are not a spectacularly charitable city, however. Our history of serious philanthropy is alarmingly short.
Yet Austinites give in increments. And they give in public. And that does not seem to have disappeared in a bruised economy.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
April 20, 2009
Rise School of Austin Gala at the Steve Hicks-Donna Stockton-Hicks Residence
I always feel privileged to visit the home of Steve Hicks and Donna Stockton-Hicks. The Renaissance Revival manse, planted on a serene piece of hilly Pemberton land, is like something out of an antiquarian’s dream.
Steve Hicks, Donna Stockton-Hicks, James Street
You cross a vine-covered ravine to reach a cluster of buildings. The big one, restored to its original integrity by Stockton-Hicks, rises to your right. Two matching outer buildings peek out from greenery to the left.
Mandy Myers, Mack Brown, Sally Brown
Out back, one finds a civilized terrace bracketed by loggias and overlooking a professionally dappled lawn, more out-buildings, a beautifully shaped pond and manicured gardens. It’s the kind of design synthesis so secure in its origins and surroundings, it could date back 500 years, not just a few decades.
Susan Cullen, John Cullen
I had returned Sunday for the Rise School of Austin Gala. Aimed at children with Down Syndrome and other developmental delays, the Rise School also integrates typically developing kids with its primary clients, as I learned from Dinah Street’s uplifting address to a dignified group seated under a modest tent.
Dinah Street, Ryan Street
She was only one of many Streets — Austin sports and business royalty — in attendance, along with her husband Ryan and his father, James. The latter brought in plenty of marquee power, along with Edith and Darrell Royal and Mack and Sally Brown.
Lisa Youngblood, Wes Youngblood
Horns were hooked, and some of the live auction items included access to coaches and players next football season. Among the other big shots I greeted under the tent were John and Susan Cullen (he teams with Hicks at Capstar Partners), Venus Strawn, resplendent in a floral frock, as well as that super-couple, Michelle Valles and Ray Benson.
So I felt triply blessed, by the surroundings, the guests and the commendable cause.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Starry, Starry Night Gala for Girls' School of Austin at the Four Season Hotel
You learn things at galas. I learned about the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders at two parties the past season. I learned about the Girls’ School of Austin at a gala on Sunday.
Suzanne Quinn, Cathleen Sutherland
Talking to parents, teachers and backers, I heard familiar praise: That the single-gender experience within a small student body and even smaller classes is highly effective for certain types of students. (It did for me: I attended the similarly structured Strake Jesuit in Houston.)
Alva Learmonth, Jennifer Hotz
On another scale-related issue, the school’s Starry, Starry Nights Gala fit the Four Seasons Hotel banquet rooms like Cinderella’s shoe. No crowding. Plenty of time and space for the silent auction in the lobby. (Hint to organizers: Cash bars undercut auction sales. Not that I was indulging, mind you.)
Elizabeth Nieto, Jenny Smrekar
I didn’t stick around for the grub, either, but I’ll gamble it was special. Almost always is at the Seasons. And the staff sets the gold standard for service in town.
MaryPat Bolger, Frank Curry
In fact, they go too far sometimes. I kid them about their over-protective policies regarding guests’ privacy privileges. Once, a concierge refused to tell me the correct name of a gala over the phone, as if fact-checking the title might compromise the event’s security. Can’t be too careful, I guess.
Brandon Smith, Farren Smith
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
April 17, 2009
Crawfish Boil for the Busby Foundation at Stubb's
Because fraternities and sororities are, by definition, closed societies, it’s easy to forget, if you are on the outside, that they often do good works. And they do so without much publicity.
Guy Perry, Nicole Perry
(In fact, they could use some expert media relations advice. Maybe one of those crack University of Texas teams of publicity-skilled students could take them on as projects, one at a time.)
Anne DeVries, Tracie Dickey
Phi Delta Theta, for instance, stages a huge fundraiser for the Busby Foundation, a local charity that provides support for families dealing with ALS.
Peggy Mosteller, Tim Mosteller
It is named for Bo Busby, who, before his death in 2006, seems to have met everyone, including many of these pre-, post- and present-fraternity brothers, along with family and friends. He headed Hill Partners Corporate Services, LLC as well, so the crowd included representatives from law, business and real estate.
Tim Gray, Melissa Gray
The Phi Delta Theta Crawfish Boil has reached its fifth year without any sign of diminution. The central draw is the huge tubs of the reddish pink critters, piled high on butcher paper. Beer is the beverage of choice.
Griffin Byatt, Crystal Lincoln, Travis Alvarado
They also came for Bob Schneider, the consummate professional, who is capable of attracting a crowd of 1,000 more intense followers to the outdoor Stubb’s stage, even though he plays Austin almost every week.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
April 15, 2009
'One Peace at a Time' Party at Austin Museum of Art
Turk and Christy Pipkin apparently can do no wrong.
Roni Gendler, Jonathan Saad
They’ve waltzed their way through several careers worth of entertainment.
Kate Gose, Matt Naylor (the movie’s editor/associate producer)
More recently, they’ve turned their prodigious energies to the global stage, where they work to solve massive problems, in the terms of the latest Pipkin movie, “One Peace at a Time.”
Courtney Rainwater, Caroline Boudreaux, Myndi Garrett
The earlier “The Nobelity Project,” which focused the minds of Nobel Prize winners on crushing issues of hunger, poverty and such, attracted a national cast of celebrity supporters.
Mariel Falbo, Fred Falbo
Some of those were in attendance at the Austin Museum of Art, for a “One Peace at a Time” pre-party; at the Paramount Theatre, for the premiere screening, and at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, for the after-party.
Philip Berber, Turk Pipkin, Christy Pipkin, Donna Berber
Founders of various charitable foundations, including Glimmer of Hope and Miracle, were present, as were big names on the social and philanthropy scene.
Nav Sooch, Whitney Casey
We met a few for the first time, caught up with others, and also made a fool of ourselves, failing to recognize some of the city’s most notable notables.
Charles Duggan, Garth McGuire
The pre-party was spiced up by Leslie Moore’s Word of Mouth Catering’s niblets and some of the best Texas wine from Becker Vineyards.
Suzanne Winkelman, Sherry Matthews
The only thing missing was Amy’s Ice Cream, although instead we got a chance to meet Amy and Steve Simmons, which is even better.
Eloise DeJoria, Eddie Safady, Donna Berber
We quizzed producer Charles Duggan about his plans to jump back into the local theatrical gambit. And we spent the most time with the Winkelmans, a multi-generational family social entrepreneurs who have blazed new trails for conscience and commitment.
Anika Kunik, Steve Simmons
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
April 7, 2009
Media Relations 8: Sweet Media for Sweet Leaf Tea
At the McCombs School of Business, students in Ben Bentzin’s marketing class spend a good chunk of the semester helping out local businesses with recently acquired skills. Banking off that premise, I geared my quickie media-relations workshop for those particular semester-long projects during two of Bentzin’s classes on Thursday.
I’m now tracking several students marketing/media relations groups. It will take a while to enter the reports into the system. I promise to follow them for at least a month.
As usual, each group of six or more students divided up the tasks of pitching me live — via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, imaging, phone and face-to-face — and I responded honestly as a working journalist.
Student Group: Sweet Media
Austin Client: Sweet Leaf Tea
A classic case of excellent marketing making for weak media relations: Deftly named Sweet Media proposed a story for Austin-grown Sweet Leaf Tea: “Granny goes on tour.” The reference, of course, was to the Sweet Leaf logo lady, and food goliath Nestle investing millions in the local company so it could expand outside niche markets.
Yep, that’s true. Trouble is, our Biz department had already done a banner story on the the Nestle venture. What fresh idea worked for the social columnist? Sweet Media never quite got there during our short class time. But there’s still plenty of time to develop this story online…
My suggestion: Talk about Sweet Leaf’s success as a cocktail mixer promoted through lifestyle marketing in this city. It’s amazing.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Food
Media Relations 7: Five Media for Eliza Page
At the McCombs School of Business, students in Ben Bentzin’s marketing class spend a good chunk of the semester helping out local businesses with recently acquired skills. Banking off that premise, I geared my quickie media-relations workshop for those particular semester-long projects during two of Bentzin’s classes on Thursday.
I’m now tracking several students marketing/media relations groups. It will take a while to enter the reports into the system. I promise to follow them for at least a month.
As usual, each group of six or more students divided up the tasks of pitching me live — via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, imaging, phone and face-to-face — and I responded honestly as a working journalist.
Student Group: Five Media
Austin Client: Eliza Page
Elizabeth Serrato’s Second Street District boutique, Eliza Page, is well known in style circles. So the student group, Five Media, had a problem: How to make Serrato’s story fresh?
Through electronic messages, they emphasized Serrato’s outreach to local jewelry designers. This is a promising pitch, but as of yet, too vague and general. Which designers? And why?
The vague pitch is hardly uncommon. I just received one from an Austin source who has been pushing his ballroom dancing program for what seems like decades, and it’s the same every time: Do a story on us. What story? Let’s be specific.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Style
Media Relations 6: Pinnacle Media Solutions for Solid Gold
At the McCombs School of Business, students in Ben Bentzin’s marketing class spend a good chunk of the semester helping out local businesses with recently acquired skills. Banking off that premise, I geared my quickie media-relations workshop for those particular semester-long projects during two of Bentzin’s classes on Thursday.
I’m now tracking several students marketing/media relations groups. It will take a while to enter the reports into the system. I promise to follow them for at least a month.
As usual, each group of six or more students divided up the tasks of pitching me live — via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, imaging, phone and face-to-face — and I responded honestly as a working journalist.
Student Group: Pinnacle Media Solutions
Austin Client: Solid Gold
Right away, the women of Pinnacle Media Solutions personalized their pitch for Solid Gold by suggesting that Nick and Nora, our Labs, would love it. Would appear that Solid Gold is a place to purchase goods for your pets
“New dog-friendly boutique, Solid Gold, comes to East Austin. Come in to shop for high-end, organic and fair trade clothing with your dog!” arrived one e-mail from Pinnacle.
Attempts to follow up on the Internet and by phone determined that Solid Gold is in fact a good place to shop for human clothing and accessories, as well as to sample the usual day-spa services. But for pets? Not according to the receptionist or the Web site.
Wonder why I got this pitch so wrong. Maybe Pinnacle can explain.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
Media Relations 5: Music City Media for Austin Java
At the McCombs School of Business, students in Ben Bentzin’s marketing class spend a good chunk of the semester helping out local businesses with recently acquired skills. Banking off that premise, I geared my quickie media-relations workshop for those particular semester-long projects during two of Bentzin’s classes on Thursday.
I’m now tracking several students marketing/media relations groups. It will take a while to enter the reports into the system. I promise to follow them for at least a month.
As usual, each group of six or more students divided up the tasks of pitching me live — via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, imaging, phone and face-to-face — and I responded honestly as a working journalist.
Student Group: Music City Media
Austin Client: Austin Java
Austin Java has been breaking ground on the local coffee house scene for years. Now it’s introducing a “green roaster.” The lively gang with Music City Media — see them rocking out above — seemed extremely jazzed about the concept.
Yet they had a hard time telling me what it meant. Somehow, the smoke from the roasting is recycled — or something. I look forward to a more complete explanation later, because anything “green” is worth investigating.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Food
Media Relations 4: Omar's Media Solutions for Greenlings
At the McCombs School of Business, students in Ben Bentzin’s marketing class spend a good chunk of the semester helping out local businesses with recently acquired skills. Banking off that premise, I geared my quickie media-relations workshop for those particular semester-long projects during two of Bentzin’s classes on Thursday.
I’m now tracking several students marketing/media relations groups. It will take a while to enter the reports into the system — and it’s going slower than I though it would. I promise to follow them for at least a month.
As usual, each group of six or more students divided up the tasks of pitching me live — via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, imaging, phone and face-to-face — and I responded honestly as a working journalist.
Student Group: Omar’s Media Solutions
Client: Greenling
Greenling is an organic food group. It is throwing a soiree at a private home in San Antonio, with selections of Greenling products. The best recipes will go into a planned Greenling Central Texas seasonal cookbook.
Omar’s made the tasting soiree sound inviting. Yet is in San Antonio, way outside my usual beat. Additionally, despite the links to an Web site about the event, I was still unsure after our various correspondence what exactly the promised Greenlings were. (Actually, it’s singular, and Greenling is a an organic delivery service.)
Since it’s an Austin company, I’m cool with reporting on their future events, as long as they are closer to home. Although we travel, most newspaper work has always been local, local, local.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Food
April 5, 2009
Media Relations Group 3: Voyage for HomeAway
At the McCombs School of Business, students in Ben Bentzin’s marketing class spend a good chunk of the semester helping out local businesses with recently acquired skills. Banking off that premise, I geared my quickie media-relations workshop for those particular semester-long projects during two of Bentzin’s classes on Thursday.
I’m now tracking several students marketing/media relations groups. It will take a while to enter the reports into the system, but by the end of the weekend, they should be launched. I promise to follow them for at least a month.
As usual, each group of six or more students divided up the tasks of pitching me live — via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, imaging, phone and face-to-face — and I responded honestly as a working journalist.
Student Group: Voyage
Austin Client: HomeAway
The Pitch: The group calling itself Voyage could not hope for a better client. HomeAway, the vacation rental Web site, is among Austin’s fastest growing companies. Its product is well-designed, useful and associated with good times.
Cleverly, some of the electronic pitches referred to a recent Out & About posting about my heading to Alaska. This personalized the messages, especially delivered via social media. It broke the ice, so to speak.
During the phone and face-to-face pitches, however, Voyage reps offered free or discounted services, something no journalist with integrity could accept. How could they have known? It’s a learning experience. This energetic group will find a way to reconfigure their pitch for a story.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
April 4, 2009
Adoption Coaliton of Texas Gala at the Austin Club
The cause is peerless. The institution demonstrably effective. The supporting evidence is moving in the extreme.
Lara Wendler, Austin City Council Member Mike Martinez
Yet the Adoption Coalition of Texas Gala at the Austin Club seemed a bit out of joint. At 8 p.m., the guests moved from drinks in the foyer area of the main upstairs room to the dinner tables. Yet dinner — even salad, or water — was yet to come. By 9 p.m. some were heading for the door.
Jason Reese, Stacey Reese
Presentations, anecdotes, testimonials, a video took up the next hour as the guests appeared both transfixed by the message, but restless with the staging. (At first, I lingered in the foyer with about one fourth of the guests, then moved around the dining area to take photos and ask questions.)
Catie Beck, Clinton Butler
Coalition director Tracy Eilers runs a tight ship, and nothing would interrupt the presentation, not even an errant video. What she might not have realized is that each part of the program was rhetorically effective on its own. Repetition can turn into overkill.
Bella Guzman, Steve Guzman
State Sen. Steve Ogden was thanked many times for his honorary chairmanship. Ogden admitted that, as a senator, his speech would naturally exceed 10 minutes, and nobody would argue with his smooth, funny, practiced delivery. He spoke touchingly about his adopted son, Chaz, and his wife, Beverly, whom he volunteers to solve the most difficult problems.
(Pregnant with their second!) Crystal Cotti, State Rep. Mark Strama
Yet the emotional highlight of the evening was the appearance by Alice Jones, a Vietnamese American child who spent 16 years in foster homes, but was not adopted, even by her last foster parents. She met Eilers and told her that story, and, at age 36, the computer programmer from Houston was adopted by Kate Held, originally from the Carolinas.
Judge Andy Hathcock, State Rep. Valinda Bolton
Jones and Held told stories you couldn’t imagine even in novels. They were the evening and the message: “There’s never a time in life when you don’t need a family.” Bless them both.
Alice Jones, Kate Held
KVUE and Fox 8 were recognized for running segments on children available for adoption. Eilers, as well as the gala chairwomen, were presented with bouquets. The crowd included several prominent politicians (I met for the first time Mike Martinez’s new bride, Lara Wendler. Mozel to both of them.)
State Sen. Steve Ogden, Beverly Ogden
A quick word about the private Austin Club as a gala venue. It’s tight for a crowd this size. The grandness of the bar/dining area suits some purposes, not others. I, of course, mourn the building’s passing as a theater (Miller Opera House), but you know, it kind of works for events like this. I’d like to see more there.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Michael Huff Charity Casino at Gibson Guitar Showroom
The fans arrived early. The NFL players a bit later. The Michael Huff Charity Casino at the Gibson Guitar Showroom dovetailed neatly with Texas Relays-related festivities, which means it was just one of many social commitments hosts and guests made on Friday.
Kathy J, Tee Lynee, Comfort Agara, Brandy Broussard, Raquel Raquel
Still, guests were shy about playing the games of chance and skill until former Longhorns Michael Huff and Derrick Johnson sidled up to the tables.
Nicole Durand, Vince Galloway
Both men — Huff alert and fastidious, Johnson tall and quiet — drew the similarly dressed women (associated models travel in flocks to certain parties) and the hip-hop attired young men to the play.
Jennifer Mueller, Gregg Mueller
The music, however, early in the evening was bright jazz. People steered toward hearty food from Renee’s Catering. Others gravitated to the sports photos, signed jerseys and musical instruments that dominated the silent auction.
Karen Viotto, Dan Viotto (austin.com)
I wavered for a bit, wondering if my youngest brother remembered how he idolized Early Campbell in the 1970s. A framed and signed jersey beckoned. And his 50th birthday is not that far off.
Michael Huff, Marques Haynes, DJ Warrior
The NFL players didn’t seem too gregarious early in the evening. Polite when addressed, they tended to seek the margins of the room, as if they’d had their fill of the spotlight.
Dondra Wilson, Derrick Johnson, Cissy Stasio
The early closing of Highland Mall and some Sixth Street clubs during the Relays weekend popped up in several conversations. Everyone seemed baffled. The unwelcoming act just didn’t jibe with the Austin ethos.
Mike Hissey, Rhonda Hissey, Brian Northridge
The revelers didn’t let it dampen their spirits. Non-sports celebrities and ordinary ticket-purchasers mingled easily with the NFL elite, who could have benefited from an ID system. People don’t really look like they do on TV or from Row 73.
James Carranco, Chris Zabaneh
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out, Sports
Media Relations Group 2: All About MEdia for Neighborhood Longhorns
At the McCombs School of Business, students in Ben Bentzin’s marketing class spend a good chunk of the semester helping out local businesses with recently acquired skills. Banking off that premise, I geared my quickie media-relations workshop for those particular semester-long projects during two of Bentzin’s classes on Thursday.
I’m now tracking several students marketing/media relations groups. It will take a while to enter the reports into the system, but by the end of the weekend, they should be launched. I promise to follow them for at least a month.
As usual, each group of six or more students divided up the tasks of pitching me live — via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, imaging, phone and face-to-face — and I responded honestly as a working journalist.
Student Group: All About MEdia
Austin Client: Neighborhood Longhorns.
The Pitch: This group chose a nonprofit client that uses the charisma of UT sports to promote achievement in elementary and middle schools. “Are you a sports fan?” the clever marketers asked. Of course, had they been reading me regularly, they’d know the answer, but a good opener. Then they made an enticing pitch via various media: Interview Mack Brown, Colt McCoy and Quan Cosby during a “Lunch with the Coach” session.
Although I’d just met Cosby for the first time at the Beyond the Lights Celebrity Golf Classic, the chance to chat with Brown and McCoy is rare for a reporter who does not work for the newspaper’s sports department. And they are big names. I jumped at it. Only trouble — the lunch was the previous week, so the pitch missed its target. I hadn’t emphasized enough in the prep time that the subjects had to be entirely factual.
Hey listen, keep trying, guys. Good cause. Good celebrity gets. If you can get them.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
April 2, 2009
Exclusive Report: Preview Party for the Lance Armstrong Foundation Headquarters
He wanted to help at least one other person with cancer. He has, instead, helped millions. Lance Armstrong started his drive against cancer way back in the 1990s, while he was still under a possible death sentence from the disease and before he won seven Tours de France.
Thursday night, a few dozen invited guests previewed the Lance Armstrong Foundation Headquarters, home for 70 or so staff members on East Sixth Street. “We began as friends and family determined to beat the disease,” Armstrong said. “Now it’s a great organization, efficient and effective with a special place to work.”
NASA astronauts Karen Nyberg, Mark Kelly
Guests, staff and board members milled around the former lumber yard and paper warehouse, which the architects at Lake Flato and The Bommarito Group have turned into a buzzing hive of bright activity (LiveStrong yellow is a contributing color). The primary room is shared among all, with saw-toothed skylights high above the cubicles to let in plenty of light. Smaller rooms that look like packing crates are placed at strategic spots for meetings and such.
Public Strategies’ Mark McKinnon, Annie McKinnon
Incredibly, 95 percent of the original building materials were reused and recycled. A Nike-backed fitness room waits off to the side and a “pit” for mass meetings and meals backs the west wall — itself leading to a patio. WiFi ties everyone together and allows them to migrated around the 30,000 square-foot building. (In the foundation’s previous offices on MoPac, there was no space large enough for the staff to meet, and the employees were separated into three separate suites.)
Foundation Employees Nos. 2 & 3: Liz Kreutz, Renee Nicholas
“Dealing with such a heavy subject, it’s good to have such a light, happy place to work,” said Renee Nicholas, Employee No. 3 at the foundation, and dealing with her own breast cancer challenge now.
Jack Reed, Sally Reed, Foundation President Doug Ulman
I talked with Eric Shanteau, the Austin Olympian who overcame testicular cancer to prepare for the World Games in Rome. (He checked out the competition at the NCAA swimming finals in College Station last week.) I met Bill Gimson the “$3 Billion Man,” who was recruited from the Centers for Disease Control to run the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (recall Armstrong’s championing the taxpayer funding proposition).
Becky Treviiño, Philip Chang of the Young Leaders Cancer Council
There was Ramona Treviño, principal of the University of Texas elementary school across the street, and, wearing his jaunty hat, Public Strategies’ Mark McKinnon (he’s on the foundation board). Doug Ulman spoke eloquently — he’s the former Brown University soccer player who went three rounds with cancer, met Armstrong by e-mail, and now is president of the foundation.
UT diversity specialist Martha Oestereich, UT elementary school principal Ramona Treviño
“It’s been a once-of-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of the design and part of the staff teamwork, and to be embedded in the community as we are on East Sixth Street,” Ulman said. “I was always excited to go to work, but now I’m really excited.” The building will open to the public April 21. (According to the foundation’s amazing spokeswoman, Rae Bazzarre, Armstrong discovered the building while on an East Austin bike ride.)
Armstrong’s key players: Mark Higgins, Bill Stapleton
Among the most touching mementoes is a table with five chairs from Z’ Tejas, representing the place where Armstrong first dreamed up LiveStrong with Bill Stapleton, Bart Knaggs, Gary Seghi and John Korioth over lunch. Even the menu is there.
Andy Miller, Dr. Amelie Ramirez, Bill Gimson, head of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas
At the evening’s climax, NASA astronauts Karen Nyberg and Mark Kelly presented Armstrong with his yellow jersey they took into space, where it traveled around the Earth 200 times and a distance of 5.8 million miles.
Clayton Christopher, Natasha McRee
Kelly shared a quick anecdote about hearing that he and his family would get to meet the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. When he asked his daughter, then 8 or 9, if she was excited, she said, “Yes, I get to meet Lance Armstrong!”
Nick Denby, Eric Shanteau, Olympian
Oh, and how was the comeback competitor doing after his extensive collarbone repair? He looked and sounded as healthy as ever. “I feel like a patient again,” he said. “But it’s going good for those of you who were wondering.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out, Sports
Media Relations Group 1: UT ME for Amy's Ice Cream
At the McCombs School of Business, students in Ben Bentzin’s marketing class spend a good chunk of the semester helping out local businesses with recently acquired skills. Banking off that premise, I geared my quickie media-relations workshop for those particular semester-long projects during two of Bentzin’s classes on Thursday.
I’m now tracking several students marketing/media relations groups. It will take a while to enter the reports into the system, but by the end of the weekend, they should be launched. I promise to follow them for at least a month.
As usual, each group of six or more students divided up the tasks of pitching me live — via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, imaging, phone and face-to-face — and I responded honestly as a working journalist.
Student Group: UT ME
Austin Client: Amy’s Ice Cream
Pitches for stories so far: On the surface, it would seem that Amy’s Ice Cream, the longtime Austin institution, would make an easy pitch for media coverage. Fun food. Fun service. Just fun. Yet UT ME ran into a common obstacle with its first tweets, e-mails, etc. — finding a story angle that the media has not already covered.
It was not until the face-to-face pitch that I heard — a saw mimed — a part of the Amy’s experience I didn’t know about: The employment application sketched on a paper bag. Applicants can do with the bag whatever they want — make it into a balloon, whatever. I didn’t know that. Or maybe I just forgot. Next step: Research to see if we’ve covered that particular element in a big way before, and if so, when? UT ME, your move.
Well done. Well done.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Food
March 30, 2009
Michael Huff on his NFL Celebrity Weekend
Michael Huff is back. The former Longhorn defensive stand-out, 2005 Jim Thorpe Award winner and current Oakland Raider is returning to Austin for his second annual NFL Celebrity Benefit this weekend. We talked with him by phone from California.
Growing up, I never had that kind of support around me. I had it from my family, but not from outside. Just to see NFL players and be around them would have brightened my day and focused me even more.
Your charities are Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas and Women Called Moses Coalition and Outreach Center in Dallas. Why?
I love kids. I don’t have any, but I love being around them. Visiting the hospital, seeing what some are going through, it tests my heart. As for the (Dallas center for abused women), I’m close to my mom, and I always wonder if what happened to them, happened to her.
You grew up in Irving, where you family still lives. Is Austin like a second hometown?
It’s my one-and-half hometown. (He laughs) I was there five years. Coach (Mack) Brown is like my dad. The other players were like my brothers. You go through all that blood, sweat and tears, you never forget it.
But you’re in California now.
I live in Texas; I work in Oakland. I’m a Texas boy at heart. It’s hard to get adjusted out here.
It’s not a coincidence that your event coincides with the Texas Relays, right?
The Texas Relays have always been big in my life. I’ve been running track since I was 5. And you know, the athletes are already in town, so it’s easier to get them involved. And for the people at the track meet, it’s hot outside, they can come into the air conditioning for a while, the go back to the meet.
It’s such a social weekend. A lot going on.
A lot going on. We have trouble getting rooms for all the players. We have to plan a year out. We’re thinking of maybe syncing more closely with the Relays down the line.
So NFL players on the basketball court. Quite a sight. Did you all play high school basketball?
Everybody except me. I was the one not blessed with any basketball talent at all. I may be the best worst basketball player. I look good in my shoes and everything. But not dribbling or making shots. There are guys out there dunking, making me look bad.
So you keep up with Michael Griffin, who owns a house here.
Griff, he’s the one I keep in touch with, yes. I lived with him at Texas. I’m gonna hang out at his house, drive all his cars. Always keep up with Griff.
Playing in the NFL must be quite a switch from college ball.
You don’t appreciate it until you leave. I tell (the new players), cherish every moment at Texas. It’s the best out there. The NFL is all business, not as much fun. There’s not that bond you have in college. That’s where it happens.
Events and stars: The second annual Michael Huff NFL Celebrity Benefit includes a visit to the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, a private Evening with the Stars casino night, and the NFL celebrity basketball game at the Austin Convention Center (12:30 p.m. Saturday). Among the participating celebrities: Tim Crowder, Denver Broncos; Michael Griffin, Tennessee Titans; Antoine Harris, Atlanta Falcons; Chris Houston, Atlanta Falcons; Chris Johnson, Oakland Raiders; Derrick Johnson, Kansas City Chiefs; Aaron Ross, New York Giants; Roy Williams, Dallas Cowboys; and more.
Tickets: $20 at participating H-E-B locations, both University Co-op locations and Mitchie’s Gallery. A limited number of $50 VIP tickets are also available. Children under 5 free.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Sports
March 28, 2009
Beyond the Lights swings at Hyatt Lost Pines
First it was stormy. Then balmy. Ultimately, it turned cold and windy.
Marvin Kanter, Irene Kanter
The Beyond the Lights Charity Golf Classic not only survived the March weather madness at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort, it thrived. Everything was incrementally delayed.
Bill Wendlandt, Kelly Rees
The impeccably landscaped resort suits the annual event, which raises money for paralysis causes, to a T. The hotel staff, however, did not appear sufficiently drilled about the presence of the parties, leading to several cases of forgivable confusion.
Manuel Oblitas, Debbie Oblitas
Right away, Statesman executive features editor Kathy Blackwell and I were taken under the wing of a charismatic couple, Marvin and Irene Kanter. Parents of celebrity wrangler Shelly Kanter, this pair have stored up two lifetimes of perfectly polished stories.
Andy Reese, Quan Cosby
Marvin was, for decades, a football referee for college and high school games. He knows sports cold. Irene served as a high school teacher and administrator. She once put together a triumphant quiz bowl team by astutely guessing the members’ intellectual strengths.
Brad Sham, Paul Sham
They’ve been married 60 years, and, one of their late-life pleasures has been appearing in movies and television shows as extras — “the sophisticated elderly couple” was their speciality — they once dance all night for their silent role. They’ve also traveled from Rome to Tasmania and their delightful anecdotes could fill a dozen blogs at least.
Ed Goble, Caroline Boudreaux
Here’s one that I can’t wait to share: They were taking an older friend — in his 90s — out to dinner at Austin Land and Cattle Company. When they requested the check, they discovered that the gentleman at the next table had already picked it up. Astonished, Irene was determined to track him down. She squeezed out of the waiter a name — Robert Diaz. But Irene couldn’t contact anyone by that name to thank. Ideas, anyone?
Glen Powell, Jr., Glen Powell, Cyndy Powell, Leslie Powell
I talked with Texas basketball great Bill Wendlandt, who filled me in on the coach Abe Lemons’s years of the late 1970s, early ’80s. (The things you learn while waiting to eat!)
Sean Teegarten, Aimee Teegarten (Sean is Amiee’s artist brother)
I met UT football star Quan Cosby and “Voice of the Dallas Cowboys” Brad Sham. After catching up with the always newsworthy Turk Pipkin, I met Caroline Boudreaux, whose Miracle Foundation applies an entrepreneurial approach to helping the world’s neediest people.
Jesse Plemons, Courtney Peterson
Turning a corner, I ran into that fabulously talented family, the Powells, including hard-working actor Glen Jr. and his sister, “Endurance” competitor Leslie.
Drew Waters, Tim Doty
Dinner, served cowboy style, was actually quite sophisticated and yummy. After the auction, I ran into, at various tables, “Friday Night Lights” actors Aimee Teegarten, Jesse Plemons, Kyle Chandler and Brad Leland, each with their own take on the weather and the event. (I congratulated them on the report that “FNL” has been extended for two more seasons.)
The shot I waited patiently for all evening: Kathy Blackwell, Kyle Chandler
We didn’t stick around for Stonehoney, as the wind whipped up the Colorado River valley, and guests huddled under blankets at the resort’s hillside amphitheater. Yet our evening was already memorable without the musical cherry on top.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Media & Books, Out, Sports
March 25, 2009
Heisman, Olympic winners among additional stars for Beyond the Lights Celebrity Golf Classic
On Friday at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort, “Friday Night Lights” stars Kyle Chandler and Brad Leland will top the bill (we also singled out Kyle’s wife, screenwriter Katherine, and “FNL” regular Dana Wheeler-Nicholson.
Well, that’s not all. Also in the tournament will be Heisman Trophy winners Ty Detmer and Chris Weinke (above), Greenbay Packer placekicker Mason Crosby and Austin musician Bob Schneider.
KVUE sports director Mike Barnes, sports doctor Andy Cappucino, radio host Ed Clements, actor Blue Deckert (Mac McGill on “FNL”), college football great Koy Detmer, actor Richard Dillard (Frank Pickford in “Dazed and Confused”), former NFL-er Gale Gilbert and actor Burton Gilliam (“Blazing Saddles”) will play along.
All-around personality Turk Pipkin actor Jesse Plemons (Landry on “FNL”), actor Glen Powell Jr. (“The Great Debators”), actor Steve Prince (“FNL”), baseball pro Bruce Ruffin, KXAN sports director Roger Wallace, actor and model Drew Waters, former UT golfer Susan Watkins, and football/baseball player Chris Weinke are also slated to play golf.
Others, including “FNL” actors Aimee Teegarden and Liz Mikel, won’t be out on the course, but will be part of the evening activities.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Media & Books, Sports
March 20, 2009
Beyond the Lights with Kyle Chandler+ 3
For Parts 1 & 2, see posts below…
It might surprise some that Kyle Chandler arrived in Austin with few preconceptions about his new, temporary home.
“I didn’t have a fixed impression before I got here,” Chandler says. “I traveled a lot between Los Angeles and Atlanta, where my mother lived, but never stopped here. When I flew in for the show the first time, I saw the ‘Keep Austin Weird’ bumper stickers. I’m from DeKalb County in Georgia, and that just grew too fast, and I realized that could happen here. I think I understood the bumper sticker before I understood the town.”
“It doesn’t feel like a big city,” he says, praising the pace of life here. “It’s like an old friend. It felt that way when we started shooting here, and it’s felt that way ever since.” How did the family decide to move here permanently?
“It just happened real quick,” says Katherine Chandler, originally from Los Angeles. “We drove out here — we hadn’t been in the car together for so long in a while — and by the time we got here, we said ‘We’re moving to Texas.’”
The Chandlers realized the Hill Country might be a good place to raise children.
“They are going to become little cowgirls,” she says of her girls, 7 and 13. “We going to do the goats and horses and dogs. They’ve never had that. You’ve got to do it before they get too old and they think it’s boring.”
Both are looking forward to spending more time diving into Austin’s social scene.
“I love this stretch of road,” Katherine Chandler says of South Congress Avenue.
She hasn’t sampled much of the music community so far, because she usually has the children with her, but she’s looking forward to more of that. “It’s great. It makes you feel young again.”“This town has everything,” Kyle Chandler says. “Sports. The arts. It’s an amazing town. It’s full of life.”
Perhaps that’s why the Chandlers decided to live here — and give here.
Beyond the Lights Celebrity Golf Tournament Friday, Hyatt Lost Pines Resort www.beyondthelights.org
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Media & Books
Beyond the Lights with Kyle Chandler+ 2
For Part 1, see post below …
“I gotta tell you that the show has changed me in a lot of different ways because of the people I’ve been introduced to (including people who deal with paralysis),” Kyle Chandler says, taking a break from a magazine photo shoot at Hotel St. Cecilia off South Congress Avenue. “I’ve got a chance now, with this show, to do some good in the world. I’m not trying to make a big statement.”
Getting involved in the paralysis movement has taken Chandler around the country, including a recent fundraiser in Miami, where he was starstruck by the football hall of famers in attendance. Yet he saved his ongoing admiration for the people trying to help the paralyzed youngsters.
“They are changing people’s lives,” he says. “There’s no doubt about it. Little deeds can change the world. It’s true”
The idea of a local charity golf tournament did not play into his natural strengths. “I’m not a great player,” he says. “If I break a hundred, I’m happy. if I’m breaking 90, I’m having a really good day. If I’m down near 80, I’m getting really nervous. Eighty was my best ever.”
More to come …
Beyond the Lights Celebrity Golf Tournament Friday, Hyatt Lost Pines Resort www.beyondthelights.org
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Media & Books
Beyond the Lights with Kyle Chandler+ 1
Three years into a possible five-year Austin residency, and the cast of “Friday Night Lights,” once just celebrated — if well-behaved — visitors, are evolving into Central Texas citizens.
Brad Leland, who plays the key role of Dillon team backer Buddy Garrity, is finding more ways to spend time away from his North Texas base (he attends so many local events, one could be forgiven for thinking Leland’s already moved here).
Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, a standout in the comparatively small role of Angela Collette, already lives here full-time, not just during the shooting season.
And as NBC and DirectTV negotiate a two-year pick-up deal — an announcement is expected within days — the “Lights” cast has deepened its social investment here with the second annual Beyond the Lights Charity Golf Tournament, scheduled for Friday.
The event, which benefits organizations for paralyzed high-school football players, includes an evening of musical entertainment with country rock stand-outs Stonehoney, “Lights” cast member Liz Mikel (Smash’s imposing mom) and former cast member Chis Mulkey and his band (he also played a coach).
More to come…
Beyond the Lights Celebrity Golf Tournament Friday, Hyatt Lost Pines Resort www.beyondthelights.org
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Media & Books
March 12, 2009
Magic Johnson, Jennifer Holliday at HT Masked Ball
Last year, I attended the President’s Masked Ball for Huston-Tillotson University.
It was one of those multi-event evenings, so I didn’t stay too long. Yet I got the distinct impression, however, I had met some of the event’s leading lights, gathered the news and looked forward to the possibility of a 2009 edition with more generous time to report.
Well, a combination of missed invitations and medical issues on my part forced me to skip the ball this year. Not a year to miss: Jennifer Holliday and Earvin “Magic” Johnson were two of the surprise guests.
Parade of Masks winner Machere Gibson, with judge Jennifer Holliday
Let me repeat: Jennifer and Magic. Two of the biggest stars in the firmament. Drat!
Johnson made a $25,000 donation. Holliday judged the Parade of Masks competition and offered an encore performance of “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going.” (Looks like I’m the last person to sing it in public. Just give me time.) The event raised $200,000.
Well, we’re not going to be caught flat-footed again. A big name is coming to the HT graduation ceremonies at the end of the semester. We’ll drop just about anything to be there.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
March 8, 2009
Faceted Jewel: Hogg/Garza House, 2
For Part 1, see post below …
The doctor is related to, but not directly descended from, Jim Hogg, the state’s first native governor, and his daughter, the Houston arts-and-parks patron Ima Hogg. He grew up mostly in Gilmer, along with other East Texas relatives in the Hogg family. A natural host, Hogg speaks with a Deep South lilt rarely heard in Austin.
Garza and Hogg met here — they were driving identical white Ford trucks, which started their first conversation — and while the doctor came with a family history of art collection, Garza also shares a love of Latino art, including Mexican painter Ruben Herrera, a distant relation, whose work will be exhibited at Mexic-Arte Museum soon.
The Mexic-Arte connection is not coincidental. In fact, for Garza and Hogg, it’s the main point for opening their home in April. The up-from-grassroots museum will hold its annual gala — a 25th anniversary celebration — at the home, instead in one of the usual downtown institutional suspects.
“By saving some money that might go to a hotel, we’re giving more money to the community,” says Mexic-Arte board president-elect Carlos Martinez, who promises a big announcement at the gala. “We’re going to put that $20,000 or $40,000 back into museum operations.”
“It’s especially exciting for us when you consider that architecture is also an art” says museum director Silvia Orozco.
Timely belt-tightening is a fair reason to hold a more domestic gala this season (other groups, including Austin Lyric Opera, are going that route). Yet I can guarantee that most of the expected 150 couples will come away with infinitely more descriptive storiesfrom the Garza/Hogg jewel than they would from a hotel ballroom.
The People’s Community Clinic gathering there Thursday buzzed like few other parties in months. Guests peeked into every cranny, relaxed on every terrace, scrutinized every view. The couple, who’ve been together six years, also plan a fundraiser for the Hispanic Scholarship Consortium.
“I was raised to leave the world a better place,” Garza says of his multi-generational Austin family.
Time will tell, but this faceted beacon could one day be considered a major player — perhaps a major masterpiece? — among all those mid-centuries.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Style
March 6, 2009
First foray: People Community Clinic party at Hogg/Garza house
I left my home for less than an hour. First time in many days.
Laramie Gorbett, Chris Swanson
The party’s location lured me from the sickbed. The West Lake Hills home of Dr. John Hogg, radiologist, and David Garza, construction company owner, is simply that dazzling. (More on the Kevin Alter-altered home in a later post.)
David Alan, Lisa O’Neill, Joe Eifler
The cause was pure. People’s Community Clinic has been providing front-line health care for the uninsured for decades — it was my medical refuge of first resort between graduate school and full-time employment.
Norma Nuñez, Adds Canales
The guests circulated among the several wide-eyed rooms, terraces and decks on the steep, tree-secreted property. Despite their numbers, they never seemed cramped in the 7,000 square feet of art and entertainment.
Janell Chesnut, Tom Chesnut
I’m grateful to friend — we’ll call him KS — who not only sprung me from my home and drove me to the party, but also took these snappy pictures of guests during our short time there. To me, it was all a pleasant blur, except the channeled time spent with John and David, the subject of my next posting.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
February 26, 2009
CharityBash at Molotov
Kids today! Running around. Going to clubs. Raising money for charities. Wait. That’s a good thing, right?
Zach Gostout, Jen Ohlson
Charity, once the exclusive province of older generations, has been embraced with enthusiasm by twentysomethings who you might expect to be spending their club years in a whirl of frivolousness.
Andy Nguyen, Sherrie Nguyen
Oh sure, there were always the young, saintly types who gave up two or three years to help the needy. But where were the masses?
Alexandra Pineda, Charlotte Ice, Alex Winkelman
Thanks to Facebook — and trustworthy sources like Alex Winkelman and Matt Curtis — I discovered the latest CharityBash, meant to introduce giving opportunities to youngbies.
James Kinney, Derrick Boyb
The crowd did what crowds do — massed in certain places, split off for intimate conversations, but also asked questions at two tables — one explicitly devoted to the I Live Here, I Give Here program.
Jill Bauerlein, Blair Newberry
Met or re-met all sorts of young leaders, including the bursting-with-energy Winkelman, the forward-looking Jason Williams and somebody we’ve tracked from afar, Craig Saper, who skipped from the Austin stage to movies and TV in Los Angeles, and now back in Austin working in advertising.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
February 25, 2009
Mardi Gras from El Buen Samaritano at the Austin Music Hall
Mardi Gras is an easy choice for a party theme. El Buen Samaritano, the group that helps immigrants, chose it for its gala — not coincidentally, on Fat Tuesday.
Mallary Snodgrass, Sabina Palermo
I arrived way early. A Cajun band played on the stage of the Austin Music Hall. VIPs — including ubiquitous Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo — roamed the area upstairs.
Wesam Chtay, Chris Watters
People were ready to party, but I wasn’t going to make it.
Liliana Ary, Gabriela Garcia-Proctor
Interactions among my various heart medications felled me, causing my quads to lock up with pain. (A sweet lady, who had spent the day hanging the festive decorations, came over to minister to me as I collapsed on a chair in the lobby. Kindness of strangers…)
Leslie Quinnelli, Eric Quinelli
Was sorry to leave the good party and to miss the Austin Toros game, but sometimes your social critic must call it quits.
Vicki Salinas, Carlos Salinas
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
February 22, 2009
Viva Las Vegas! at the Austin Music Hall
OK, by the time this come out, all the Oscar commentary will be done. Well, most of it. I’ll share my few late thoughts tomorrow.
But first, a look back at the previous night. Viva Las Vegas! for AIDS Services of Austin: Our awards. Best Austin fashion show ever — precise, rhythmic, sexy, imaginative. Best use of venue: Austin Music Hall. Best six-ring circus for a charity gala with 700 guests.
And now, just images … you’ll see why.
Daniel Quick, Christopher Journey, Sean Barfield
Ben Solis, Stephen Rice, Trenton Grale
Maria Mastel, Babette Crowder
Laura Ritter, Brian Ritter
Thomas Wagner, Alexandra Romano
Scott Crews, Scott Cooper
Guatum Sarda, Sumita Sarda
Jason Sadeghbeigi, Kendall Hightower, Marco Vaccaro
Zach Miller, Courtney Maple, David Miessg
Zion, Lupe Valdez
Anthony Dominguez, Sonia Dominguez
Caitlyn Howe, Chris Marcus
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Links Town Lake Mardi Gras at Hilton Austin
As service organizations, go Links, Inc. has built an exemplary record over the course of more than 60 years. (It was founded in Philadelphia in 1946.)
Gerry Tucker, Gloria Williams
Along with good works, Links wove a crucial social network for African American women.
David Davenport, Chiquita Eugene
At times, it has flown below the general radar, but from the look of the crowd of 400 at the Mardi Gras-themed gala the Hilton Austin, it’s as crucial to the community as ever.
Gina Harris, Edra Anderson
Numbers were down this year — more than 500 attended the last gala — easily blamed on the economy, but I wonder if the conflicting CASA and ASA events made a dint.
Tondalaia Botts, Michael Botts
No matter. Raising tens of thousands of dollars, especially to support college education, is always uplifting.
Herb Dyer, Felicia Herring
I long ago vowed to find out more about Links every chance I get. Again, I wish I could have lingered for more of the Mardi Gras spirit, but it was off to the third gala of the evening.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
CASAblanca at the Four Seasons Hotel
Politicians, judges and Olympians mixed for the CASAblanca event at the Four Seasons Hotel. It was the first of three big galas I attended Saturday night. (Kip played my stand-in at a smaller Austin Lyric Opera affair at Joe and Tana Christie’s.) And to think, some people think there’s not enough occasions for dressing up in Austin! (Lots of metallic threads that night.)
Gerri Davis, Dale Davis
CASA of Travis County, of course, is Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children, the group that advocates for the young and the vulnerable.
Ben Sheppard, Jill Sheppard
To me CASA means that our children have a chance,” Judge W. Jeanne Meurer has said. “The children I see that have CASAs have a greater chance of leading normal, happy, healthy lives. CASAs make a difference in a way that words can never express. We hope as time progresses that we will have a CASA for every child and every family. That’s a dream right now, and hopefully it will become a reality.”
Greg Bobrek, Stephanie Brobek
I ran into Judge Meurer at the CASA event, a personal hero, who always put children, not politics first. Told her so.
Chris Eckerman, Kirsty Coventry
As the title suggests, this event was informed by the movie by that name, and so one room was reserved for charity gambling. Organizers expected 380 attendees and a take of approximately $200,000.
Yolanda Conyers, Denice Conway
The little casino actually helped out the pre-dinner guest flow, as it took some traffic volume off the Four Season’s shallow banquet lobby, set up with tempting silent auction items.
Stephanie Brobek, Leticia Marquez, Nancy Hill
Other heroes among the guests included Olympic swimmer Eric Shanteau, whom I had interviewed at the Hilton Austin before his cancer diagnosis. I’ve followed his recovery and ongoing competitions, but that’s no shock, coming from our swim-mad household.
Beth Stabile, Vance McMurry, Brandi McMurry
Given that household propensity, it was a thrill to ask a tall, willowy beauty her name, only to find out it was multiple-medal-winner Kirsty Coventry. Like a dolt, I asked why her name was familiar, only to gush like a tween at a Jonas brothers autograph session when she made the Olympic connection.
Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, Lee Copeland
I know personality-plus swimmer Garrett Weber-Gale was there, too, but couldn’t locate him. Wish I could have stuck around. But at least two more galas beckoned from other downtown hot spots.
Jeri Moss, Eric Shanteau
So, into the night. Along the way, I discovered Submerged, Niles Patel’s new watering hole at East Second and Trinity streets. Didn’t have time to explore, but it looks enticing — and Patel reports a Mexican restaurant will take the place of Tierra del Fuego and the accompanying building. So a little traffic could build across the street from Fleming’s, Roy’s, P.F. Chang’s and Fogo da Chao.
Stephanie Sobotik, Judge W. Jeanne Meurer
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
February 18, 2009
Galveston at the Bullock
The precarious nature of Texas barrier islands has been on my mind lately. Katrina and Rita set the stage for this reflection. Their smaller kin, Ike, wreaked even more havoc.
Still, we continue to return to the islands several times a year, especially to our cherished Surfside, one sandbar down from Galveston. The sea is a powerful draw.
Recently, I’ve concluded that the Texas isles are best left to temporary activities — tourism, fishing, eco-tourism.
I mean, a medical school with billions of dollars worth of sensitive equipment perched on a sandbar? Please.
Last night, Galveston returned to consciousness through a press preview of the Bullock Texas State History Museum’s upcoming exhibit, “Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America Through Galveston Island.”
Curator Suzanne Seriff has put together a thoughtful series of information stations about the surge of immigration through Galveston, and, to lesser extent, twice-hurricane-destroyed Indianola down the coast, in the late 19th Century.
It’s not a happy story. People were persecuted at home, so they came to Texas, where they were persecuted again. Lots of that.
So why did they come? And why did they stop?
Perhaps the exhibit’s most potent contributions are the sections on the intense marketing of Texas as a destination — and Galveston as a port of entry — and the anti-immigrant backlash of the early 20th Century that closed off the spigots. Americans in general — and Texans in particular — have always harbored ambiguous feelings about immigrants, our ongoing interior dialogue.
But what really shut Galveston down as a port of entry was the deadly hurricane of 1900. The exhibit acknowledges that fact, while hedging a bit on its continued sea-related activity in the 20th Century.
I don’t buy that. It was the hurricane. It’s always the hurricane. The Indians knew better. The Spanish knew better. When will we learn?
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
February 16, 2009
Servicing Pease Park on Heart Day
We don’t often snatch a chance to pat some do-gooders on the back, just for showing up to improve an Austin park. OK yes, Matthew McConaughey and Pres. Bill Clinton made national news sprucing up our Rosewood Park over the weekend. But other reporters covered that … and we wanted some service action represented in Out & About.
Snow White-Coe, Cody Coe, Clara Bush, Nicholas Martinez
On Saturday members of the Gamma Beta Phi service fraternity (UT) teamed with the board of directors for Eeyore’s Birthday Party to check erosion control on the park’s hills. The Eeyore’s group — known as Friends of the Forest — plan to make this an annual Valentine’s Day event.
Richard Craig, Scott Sexton, Snow White-Coe, Cody Coe
Nothing like a little reportorial competition to get some attention for a worthy group.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
February 15, 2009
Heart Ball at AT&T Center
Guests and hosts are still breaking in the AT&T Executive Education Conference Center at the University of Texas. The hotel, restaurant and meeting complex is meant to serve UT-sponsored business conclaves, primarily, but some of its services are available to the local public.
Maria Adame, Angela Curtis
Among those services are spruce banquet facilities. There’s something doubly tempting about attending a charity event — like the American Heart Association of Austin’s annual Heart Ball on Saturday — here because the digs are untried and therefore somewhat exotic to your slightly jaded social columnist.
Liz Ross, Melissa Shockly
Styled in the master-planned Spanish Renaissance manner to match the historical campus, the complex surrounds a contemplative courtyard, while various lobbies jig and jag around interior spaces, announced via the ubiquitous flat screens that signal a contemporary corporate culture. Approached through the lower lobby on University Boulevard, it’s a short sprint over to the west wing to access the banqueting area, manned along the way by alert center staff.
Brooke Liddell, Josh Liddell
The antechambers for the well-proportioned banquet room proved a bit narrow and cramped for the Heart Ball’s combination of silent and live auctions. Nobody seemed to mind, however, as striking couples in temperate formal wear — some adjusted to the sudden return of winter outside — mixed with medical and charity professionals.
Joanne Corum, Eric Corum
We spoke with some avid Out & About column readers, which is always a revelation for both parties — finding out who actually follows the social scene in print, for me, and discovering the man behind the bright little mug shot in the newspaper, for others.
Tama Williamson, Brooke Adair, Jodi Williamson
Still cedar-fevered, my voice rasped through the evening, while I met Miss Teen Austin 2009, who vowed I’d hear from her again when she is crowned Miss Teen Texas later this year.
Lucy, Ricky
A sweet 1950s sitcom theme pervaded the rooms, as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo impersonators joshed with guests (improvisational posing is something we’re seeing more often), and, later Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo and Fox 7’s Loriana Hernandez traded harmless jibs and jabs from the podium. (Watching his public ease, once again, I ask myself: Is Acevedo destined to become Austin’s second Latino mayor of the modern era?)
Police Chief Art Acevedo, Loriana Hernandez
Heart Association’s Glen Huschka estimated attendance at 300 and the early take at $300,000. No sign of recession here, although, as with other recent Austin galas, the decor and dress were tempered appropriately to the times.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
February 5, 2009
KIPP Dinner at the McDonald Residence 2
For Part 1, see post below …
After dessert, we assembled in the living room for an informal version of “Texas Monthly Talks,” as Smith interviewed KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg and Washington Post reporter Jay Matthews, who has written a book, “Work Hard. Be Nice,” about the “most promising schools in America.” We also heard from a KIPP grad Rocio Mendoza, who was lifted from the scarred Gulfton area of Houston to attend the Hotchkiss School, Stanford University and now University of Texas Law School.
Grant Thomas, Clayton Maebius, Andrew Maebius
The facts speak for themselves. Feinberg and co-pioneer Dave Levin revolutionized public schools by insisting that kids from ignored urban neighborhoods could attend college, if the emphasis on long, comprehensive study started early. No shortcuts. Students, including those at KIPP Austin, perform well on standardized tests, but they also appear prepared for the rigors of university life as well.
Our panel
KIPP was on every lip, as was the potential candidacy of host Jack McDonald, as a Democrat, for U.S. Congress. He’s gathering chits and plowing into demographics for a strongly possible run for the 10th District seat, should incumbent Michael McCaul gun, as expected, for Texas Attorney General when the statewide Republican leadership gets scrambled by a Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison gubernatorial run.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
KIPP Dinner at the McDonald Residence 1
If you want to sell an idea, do so over dinner, and preferably at the home of Carla and Jack McDonald.
To discuss the Knowledge is Power Program, the Perficient CEO and his supremely savvy wife gathered about 40 guests at their Lake Austin home, so polished one could eat off the walls, ceilings and floors. Instead, we sat at two long tables, glowing under candles, to dine on the labors of Andrew Francisco, formerly of Vespaio, now executive chef with Word of Mouth Catering. The menu included a stuffed quail so tender it vanished from the bone.
Nav Sooch, Carla McDonald, Jack McDonald
The McDonalds know their way around a guest list. Present were political heavies (Mayor Will Wynn), super-pundits (Texas Monthly’s Evan Smith), arts and education backers (Chris Mattsson, Jeanne and Mickey Klein), postmodern philanthropists (Nav Sooch), super-connectors (Eugene Sepulveda, Steven Tomlinson), proven educators (Grant Thomas, Jill Kolasinski, the latter leader of KIPP Austin) and even the author of “The Engine 2 Diet,” City of Austin fireman Rip Esseltyn.
Eugene Sepulveda, Jill Kolasinski, Rip Esselstyn
I sat next to Margot Thomas, long of Hyde Park, who regaled me with stories of growing up in a Jewish-Catholic household in New Orleans. (Both Gulf Coasters, we date events by the closest hurricane.)
More to come…
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
February 4, 2009
Leadership Austin Engage Breakfast: Cracking Austin's Glamour Scene 4
You already have my opening remarks for the Engage Breakfast held by Leadership Austin at Chez Zee yesterday. The group, which trains Austin’s next round of community leaders in business and nonprofits, is so well organized, my thoughts were solidified and published online — posted in three parts as “Cracking Austin’s Glamour Scene” (follow the “Style” category link below — well in advance and employed for my print column yesterday.
Jeanne Guy, Lulu Flores, Megan Spencer
So instead, I’ll focus on three subjects that came up in the discussion and will be explored for future columns.
Paul Jaquez, Anish Michael
First, economist Jon Hockenyos took my idea of the glamour scene and added the concept of a “glamour class,” which he defined as people who move to Austin without needing a job here. They either come with settled means or they can work long-distance. So you don’t attract this class with a semiconductor plant or a construction job because they are here, instead, because they could live anywhere, but prefer Austin’s physical, social and cultural attractions. (He reminded everyone that the Texas Hill Country was listed as the No. 1 destination listed in the New York Times travel story earlier this year.)
Maria Adame, Edward Kargo, Liz Craft
Asking a familiar, but always important question, theater producer Jason Neulander asked if all the new downtown density and development would price artists out of Austin. This is a claim that Hockenyos and I had heard for years, but when I ask artists fed up with the cost of living here, where they are headed, they usually say “New York” or “San Francisco” or someplace with double, triple or quadruple our cost of living. I threw out the unquantified supposition that Austin hangs happily onto the lowest rung of “destination cities” for America’s young and restless. You could probably name 12-15 other places people say they like to move to — cost of living is higher in all of them. Must explore.
Bill Noble, Jane Garrison
One last question, asked by moderator Jim Walker, choked me up. In documenting Austin’s new cafe society — clustered around movies, fine dining, arts, nightlife, music and fashion — am I finding this to be a “white” scene, leaving out the city’s minorities? I can truthfully respond that I expected that, but instead I’ve been deeply gratified to find it not the case. Granted, those on the lowest end of the economic spectrum cannot usually participate in the glamour scene, but the there is gorgeously heterogeneous when it comes to race, age and sexuality.
I credit a younger generation, which doesn’t appear to classify people the way my generation did. And I am so beholden to them.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Style
February 1, 2009
A long overdue apology
Today, I apologize sincerely to those whom I mocked (behind their backs) when they were debilitated by cedar fever.
During my 25 years in Austin, I had escaped the dreaded spawn of the mountain juniper. My low-level mold allergies consisted mostly of sniffles, sneezes and days when I sounded like Lauren Bacall in “Applause.”
On the advice of kind readers this windy, drought year, I’ve medicated the dasher with Zyrtec, Mucinex and aspirin. I’ve employed the humiliating netipot method and concocted exotic teas from herbs and spices. All this while trying to avoid contraindications with my heart meds.
I’m still a zombie.
Wednesday and Thursday were complete busts (six events missed all told). Friday, I made three early parties (obviously, not drinking), but lost all steam before the Bass Concert Hall “World of Sound.”
Saturday, I was well enough to circulate among the Austin and Houston bigwigs at the Blanton gala, but before I could make it to the other three events, I was hacking up my lungs in the parking lot of a convenience store on South First Street.
Luckily, that spot was convenient enough to home. So I called it an evening at 8:30 p.m. Today, I’ve barely moved from the couch. My body aches. My will is sapped.
Tomorrow morning, the doctor.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
January 29, 2009
Cedar fever waits for you
You either suffer from cedar fever. Or you will.
Until 2009. My first attack came out in West Texas, where junipers (called cedars) blot the land. Then, this week — oy!
Last night, barely able to move from the couch, I missed four social events. If any reader attended the Austin Technology Council’s predictions panel at the Four Seasons, Texas Monthly Live with state legislators at Scholz Garten, salute to former UT coach Fred Akers or the DJ spin-off at Qua and has some telling stories or pictures — send ‘em to mbarnes@statesman.com.
I’ll slap ‘em on the screen. Meanwhile, I’ll crawl through Thursday.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
January 28, 2009
Time for Science & Technology
We’ve got the perfect spot: The state-owned, block-sized surface parking lot at Congress Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, opposite the Bullock Texas History Museum and the Blanton Museum of Art. Perhaps the state could collaborate with private donors and the University of Texas to complement the sweet and graceful, but painfully undersized and inaccessible Texas Memorial Museum (right) by building on this prime and very public location.
In the past couple of years, we’ve visited the reconfigured science museums in New York and San Francisco. Both are huge attractions. In a city like Austin, where a good third of the economy is dependent on technology — and another thick slice on tourism — that we offer no charismatic center for saluting science, engineering, etc. is nigh on scandalous.
Recession? A good time for a public works project.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Biz & High Tech, Charity, Faith & Education
January 27, 2009
Catching up with Jeff Gray and Candlelight Ranch
Now, as you might assume, people talk to me about their abiding interests at parties seven nights a week. Yet the more I heard of their story, the more I wanted to know. Today, Jeff and I met for coffee at Dominican Joe at Congress and Riverside.
Three years ago, the Grays’ daughter, Reese, was diagnosed with a lymphatic disorder. Reese spent her entire life — under six months — in hospital rooms. That’s where the parents met Dr. David Breed, a neo-natal specialist.
He told them about an enchanted place on the lake where kids could be adventurous — no matter their disabilities.
“We felt an instant connection,” Jeff said.
What caught their imagination on the first visit — three months after their daughter’s death — was a 12-bed tree house 20 feet in the air that was wheelchair accessible. So the Grays, who have two other children, raised $50,000 to name the tree house after Reese.
Jeff, who works in IT, is already tendering fresh philanthropic opportunities. Yet the couple remains deeply invested in Candlelight Ranch, which has erected a new ropes course and a zip line with special harnesses for children in wheelchairs.
Every small charity should be so lucky to find a Tara and Jeff Gray.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
January 25, 2009
Prohibition Party at Caswell House
Most Austin costume parties are halfway affairs. Even the annual Carnival Brasileiro attracts revelers who are less interested in dressing up than in gaping at those who dress almost exclusively in body paint.
Karen Manroe, Kelly Sharp
Not so for the Prohibition Party for Lone Star Paralysis Foundation. The event, which has moved from a private residence to the atmospheric Caswell House, appeals to masses whose apparel would have looked appropriate during the late 1920s or early 1930s.
John O’Shaughnessy, Julie Spink
The men stuck mainly to tuxes and other formal wear, accessorized with period hats and ties, while the women favored feathers, fringe and furs (fake or not).
Chris Milano, Tracy Milano, Timothy Owen
The charity, by the way, searches for a cure to spinal chord injury. “Our mission is to work ourselves out of business,” Foundation President Doug English has been quoted as saying.
Rachel Tice, Chris Tice
Several of the foundation beneficiaries were present and in party mode, despite the difficulties of negotiating parts of the crowded Caswell House in a wheelchair.
Magda Prokopinksa, Carie Martin
The house on 15th Street and West Avenue filled fairly quickly, upstairs and down, although the crisp night kept the guests off the balconies during the early part of the evening.
Lori Latrell, Kelley Wilks, Will Portales
Oddly, the music roamed all over the 20th Century. Where are the White Ghost Shivers when you need them?
Jill Evans, Frank Harren
Another side note: When people take the trouble to don costumes, they don’t hesitate to allow social columnists to take their pictures. A little costume and make-up liberates even the most camera-shy (see my Mother Ginger gallery).
Ali Cooper, Kirsten Klindworth
I would have stuck around, but I promised to check out a new lounge downtown, so I headed on foot toward West Sixth Street, through the historic neighborhood, which, sadly, is now reserved mostly for offices, silent at night.
Jackie Kenyon, Donna Piazza
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
January 19, 2009
The Big Squeeze for Texas Folklife at Lowell Lebermann's
Located a block off ultra-exclusive Niles Road, Lowell Lebermann’s renovated manse is stately unto baronial. Though located on a modest slip of land, the formal brick exterior and gardens announce “East Coast” if not “Europe,” while the interior decor and tile-work pull the viewer back “West” with hints of “Mexico.”
Anthony Ortiz Jr., Guadalupe Ortiz
It’s a suitable residence for the beverage distributor and political influencer, who started his business empire with little more than small-town grit and determination. It’s also ideal for small-to-medium fund-raisers, like Texas Folklife Resource’s Big Squeeze event on Sunday.
Leslie Jaffe, David Jaffe
“The Big Squeeze” is the name of the nonprofit’s accordion throwdown and also of Hector Galan’s documentary film, which was previewed in Lebermann’s pool house/guest house.
Ana Madrigal, Sheree Scarborough, Cristina Balli
The actual throwdown/festival is slated for Houston’s Miller Outdoor Theater on June 6. Accordion hopefuls have until March 1 to enter the competition.
Chris Gebhard, Susan Morehead
The fundraiser was low-key, classy. I caught up word-spreader extraordinaire Sheree Scarborough, who, in the past, landed gargantuan coverage for UT’s Blanton Musem of Art and Ransom Center. She’s on the verge of expanding her oral history of civil rights pioneer Ada Anderson into a book-length project.
Hector Galan, Arturo Lomas Garza
I also spoke with David and Leslie Jaffe, he from New York, she Chicago-via-New York. They arrived in the mid-1980s to work on Sematech and embarked on a romance with the city. We exchanged views on several topics, but I was completely taken aback when Leslie thanked me for mentioning my partner Kip so often in my column. Well, it is called “Out & About” for a reason.
Daphny Dominguez, Rico Ainslie
Along the way, I was delighted to greet two humble but accomplished cooks — Doyal Nelms, board chief for TFR and a nimble caterer, and Donald Wertz, Lebermann’s private chef of longstanding and one of the sweetest guys around. (Although, for some reason, I kept calling him David.) He showed me the gleanings from his herb garden, which is an excellent way to utilize the old Pease plantation land.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
January 16, 2009
Michael Huff Celebrity Weekend set for April 2-4
Then there’s that other category: The celebrity visitor. Former Longhorn and current Oakland Raider Michael Huff fits that bill. He’s planning a second annual charity event, April 2-4, timed to the socially rambunctious Texas Relays. Playful Huff’s efforts will benefit Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas and the Women Called Moses Coalition and Outreach Center in Dallas.
The highlight of the weekend is a basketball game pitting NFL players against one another. Some, like Roy Williams, are actually built something like basketball players.
Invited celebrities include: Tim Crowder, Denver Broncos; Cedric Griffin, Minnesota Vikings; Derrick Johnson, Kansas City Chiefs; Dominic Rhodes, Indianapolis Colts; Shaun Rogers, Cleveland Browns; Stanford Routt, Oakland Raiders; Bo Scaife, Tennessee Titans; and Kasey Studdard, Houston Texans.
We tried to slip in an interview or two last year, but the sports reporters were far better at nailing down their
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Sports
Coffee with Dick Rathgeber 3
For Parts 1 & 2, see posts below
Early on, Dick Rathgeber mastered the art of working with journalists, too. He’d give key reporters the whole story, off the record, before a big announcement or vote. That way, the print and broadcast reports reflected checked facts and more than just the sound bites dropped at press conferences.
“Most people don’t trust journalists,” he says. “But they don’t know the rules of engagement. They don’t know that you guys have a pretty strong moral ethic. You’re not going to burn a source. Not if you pick up the phone and ask one person ‘What’s the real story here?’ Not in a million years.”
“The other night you saw me at that Austin Community Foundation event with a drink in my hand,” he says. “If you had gone and smelled that drink, you would have smelled it was a 7-Up or a Sprite with a twist of lime. People are very uncomfortable if they are drinking and you are not. So you have to have a drink in your hand.
“You can go to a party, then, and a guy’ll have two or three drinks, and you’ll hear he’s sold a piece of dirt and you ask a very innocuous question: ‘What’s land out there bring?’ ‘Well, I got $10,000 an acre.’ If you’d called and asked him, he wouldn’t give you the answer. But in a social setting, he’ll tell you anything.”
Rathegeber shared situation after situation when he’d recall one factoid that turned around a project. To him it’s all a big jigsaw puzzle, which he describes as resembling wartime intelligence.
“If you wanted to describe me in a word, it’s probably, ‘relentless,’” he says. “You keep knocking. You just keep knocking.”
Everything in “Dealmaking” relates money to faith.
“If you accept the idea that it’s really not yours, you’re just here managing it for a while, you can give a lot of it away,” he says.
Why a book?
“I really wanted to replicate myself,” he says. “There are so many things I learned the hard way. I had to pay tuition for what I learned. I’m hoping there’ll be those who’ll read this and say, ‘Hey, I can do that.’”
Rathgeber emphasizes that his method could work for anybody with a charitable mindset, not just the wealthy.
“A lot of these stories involved very little money or no money” he says. “It’s something that just about anybody can do.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
Coffee with Dick Rathgeber 2
For Part 1, see post below…
Dick Rathgeber is best known for his charitable work. Years ago, he cut a crucial land-swap deal that made possible the Salvation Army headquarters downtown. He set up a model for building hospital hospitality houses and helped provide the planning framework for the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas project at the former Mueller Airport.
Along the way, Rathgeber (pictured with Pauline Lewis, board member with the Austin Childrens Shelter) pioneered the practice — at least in Austin — of insisting that business partners and philanthropists pool their interests to achieve multiple goals.
In one example, he talked about a prisoner-reform program that turned around only 2 or 3 per hundred clients, when perhaps it would be better to invest in childhood development programs that nipped criminality in the bud.
“You have to ask, ‘Is there a sustainability factor?’” Rathgeber takes care of that, in part, by teaming with groups such as the Junior League. He always offers matching funds — and strictly insists they are matched — and finds “meaningful placements,” or opportunities for continued volunteering.
If Rathgeber intended “Deal-Making” as a handbook for aspiring philanthropists, he also wrote a valuable, if non-chronological history of post-war Austin. One can follow the behind-the-scenes negotiations that led to certain subdivisions, charitable facilities and, especially, the web of relationships among Rathgeber’s generation of leaders. (Not much hint, however, about the projects that Rathgeber famously opposed. He’s not out to settle scores here.)
“People say when they read the book, ‘I had no idea how that happened.’ he says.
More to come …
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
Coffee with Dick Rathgeber 1
“Whatcha doing, Dick, holding court?”
Granted, Austin businessman and philanthropist Dick Rathgeber held his audience of one in thrall, but no, he was not speaking in monarchical mode at the Exposition Road Starbucks, as a passerby suggested.
Instead, the round-faced man with the perpetually round eyes was putting finer points on observations from his semi-autobiographical, semi-inspirational book, “Deal-Making for Good: Smart Giving = Significant Living.”
“Your deal is always made from the other side of the table,” Rathgeber says. “You ask: ‘What do they want from this deal?’ Then you find out, ‘How can I let them have my way?’” Rathgeber has been doing that for decades.
As many who follow the Austin business community know, Rathgeber built up a demolition company, because, according to his practiced line, “I met a guy in the wrecking business who couldn’t read or write, and he was making money hand over fist. I thought: How hard could it be?”
Later, college-educated Rathgeber moved from destruction to construction, developing neighborhoods all over Austin, including parts of Lost Creek and Avery Ranch. He did so by scrutinizing development ordinances, tax laws and regional plans. Also, a good deal about human psychology.
For instance, he helped the Avery family part with their land by ensuring their name would be enshrined on road signs and neighborhoods, securing its place in popular history.
More to come…
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
December 17, 2008
All Called & What's Your Response at Annie's West
Leaving Mother Egan’s, suddenly chilled, I spied Annie’s West across Sixth Street. I’d heard good things about the new bar through the industry grapevine, though I had initially left it off the XL Bar Guide. Here was a chance to check it out.
Lahoma Dade, Angie Gatewood
It’s a handsome spot, feeling a bit wider, roomier than J. Black’s next door. (Probably the same dimensions of The Ranch, which sits above it.) Dark wood and clean lines give it a touch of class. A large bar — but not fully stocked, where was the Knob’s Creek and Woodford Reserve? — was well tended as a DJ expertly spun a mix of holiday and retro tunes.
Evelina Solis, Shelton Green
Then I noticed the patrons. They were handing out fliers on subjects like generational faith leadership and human trafficking. I got to know some of these pleasant activists, identified as part of All Called and What’s Your Response. Swell of Annie’s West to host them this wintry eve.
Shawn Swain, Emily Tillerson
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Any Baby Can at Thistle Cafe
The early-childhood development charity, Any Baby Can, holds its big annual fundraiser at the TDS Exotic Game Ranch and Pavilion. Yet Tuesday the group thanked its longtime donors and new board members with a low-key affair at the classy Thistle Cafe, which deserves more business like this.
Susan Bohn, Bill Bohn
Recently, the organization merged with Candelighters, which provides outpatient care for needy children with cancer, among other services.
Matt Lyons, Julianne Lyons
I talked with volunteers, doctors, accountants, managers and just plain people devoted to good works. I was particularly interested in how the economy is affecting such nonprofits. One veteran adviser said the groups benefited mightily from the merger, which trimmed duplicate positions and activities.
Lauren Lockhart, Dr. Sharon Lockhart
That made sense. Yet I think one reason Austin has so many overlapping charities is that so many people want to get involved. While efficiencies of scale are reasonable, one thing a city like Austin offers — unlike older, more established places — is the opportunity to contribute to good causes, even without excessive means or social hegemony.
Nancy Marroquin, Betty Meyer, Laura Payne
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
December 8, 2008
Dancing with the Stars-Austin, Part 2
See Part 1 in a post below
After previous contestants husband-and-wife team Venus and Bill Strawn cha-cha-ed their way into the hearts of the crowd, the real competition began. Cha cha was the preferred form — besides Acevedo, Meghan Danahey and Mitch Jacobson chose that style, while Larry Connelly mixed it in with foxtrot and the hustle. Former “Apprentice” competitor Roxanne Wilson executed a cunning paso doble, a strategy second-runner up Wally DeRoeck blended with tango after a recent trip to Argentina.
Sam Santmyer, Tim Sittler
Amy Simmons of Amy’s Ice Cream attempted the deceptively difficult quickstep, while slinky Karen Hawkins paired mambo with quickstep. In easily the best outfit of the evening, Maria Groten hustled as the white fringe on her tiny athletic figure shimmied. Plastic surgeon to the Austin stars, Dr. Robert Clement, went regional with a two-step swing combo.
Raquel Hill, Brandon Coleman III
The winner was Ronda Gray, a former middle-school teacher and camp leader, who was cheered by a gang of begowned young women. Gray could teach dancing, not just follow her professional partner in the swing mode.
Vaughn Brock, Mark Williams
Congratulations to her and to event organizers Mary Tally, Stacee Bell, and professional ballroom dancer Sabrina Barker-Truscott. What a dinner and show at the Hilton Austin — 900 people bidding on auction items and helping the center even in tough economic times.
Blake Byram, Monica Byram
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Dancing with the Stars-Austin swings to the top
Austin hosts some 120 galas a year. That’s one every third day.
Some, like the Ballet Austin Fete, have earned a reputation for enduring glamor. Others, such as the Nobelity Project benefit, attracted unprecedented numbers of celebrities earlier this year. The Long Center opening weekend staged unmatched grandeur in 2008, partly because of pent-up expectations for the new performing arts center.
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, philanthropist and planner Bobbi Topfer, and former Mayor Roy Butler
Add a newcomer to the gala big leagues. In only its second year, Dancing with the Stars-Austin not only grossed well over $400,000 — results and net are still being tallied — to benefit the Center for Child Protection, it attracted an unusual mix of socialites and the rarely social. Among the attending politicians who are not seen out that often — Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul.
Texas A&M System Board of Regents Chairman Bill Jones and his wife Johnita
Law enforcement and education were well represented. Chairman of the UT System Board of Regents and banker James Huffines, with his wife Patty, one of last year’s contestants, sat at our table. Chairman of the A&M System Board Bill Jones and his wife Johnita sat nearby (Chairman Jones, also partner with the law firm of Vinson & Elkins, L.L.P., competed last year and joked his way through judging this time). Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo not only performed the cha cha briskly with a professional dancer, he won second place in the audience vote (the judges agreed to give all 11 competitors perfect 10s).
UT System Board of Regents Chairman James Huffines and his wife Patty
More to come in Part 2.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
December 5, 2008
The A-Gays fly at The Monarch
A sometime party game: Name Austin’s A-Gays. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Back during my Houston youth, a gang of bankers, doctors, executives and retailers were easily pegged as occupying a separate social plane. (My invitation to the Diana Awards must have been lost somewhere in my bare efficiency apartment.)
Grayson Parrish + “OutCast” host Heath Riddles
Not so in open, sentient, engaged Austin. Here, the list is permeable and mostly defined by those who give their time or treasure to worthy causes. Thus, the several hundred who flocked to The Monarch’s mod, ground-floor public rooms on Friday for an Equality Texas benefit were rewarded with an outstanding selection of men and women, singles and couples, straight and gay, old and young.
Zoe King, Heidi Bloch
I’m a bit squeamish about recording the cocktails served at parties like this, but my goodness, the bartenders were working up a storm. My champagne with vinegar-soaked sugar cube was divine, then another drink was invented before my eyes — magnificently bitter. Restaurants provided food stations and the crowd migrated from the jazz band to quieter corners, such as the terrace, where the Stephens — Moser and Rice — acted out the Gillian Girl montage from “Valley of the Dolls.” (Had I stayed any longer, I might have done the Shubert Alley scene, my speciality.)
Haylie Rudy, Alex Rudy
If I started a list of names, I’d be in big trouble, because everybody there was somebody worth noting. My favorites, however, were sisters Haylie and Alex Rudy, who complained of the teasing they received at school every time their famous, handsome parents, Amy and Kirk Rudy, appeared in the newspaper. Well, Haylie and Alex, it’s your turn…
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
December 4, 2008
Scaling back holiday socializing, Part 1
Event planner Marcy Hoen felt Nov. 13 was the ideal date for an augmented Austin State Hospital benefit.
“We postponed it because of the economic crash,” Hoen says of the pre-holiday affair, which was meant to “class up” the annual event and double the take to as high as $70,000. “I’ve spoken with many other fundraising friends in Austin and they are massively scaling back their financial goals”
The council decided to wait until 2009. They join a long line of party-givers and party-goers cutting back this holiday season because of the economy. Nobody says socializing will stop — or even slow down that much — but costs will be cut and expectations trimmed.
Don’t even think about a holiday replay of the year’s most lavish bash, the weekend-long opening of the Long Center in March, for which donors coughed up more than $1 million by some estimates.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
December 3, 2008
Invigorated Austin Community Foundation gala
New faces air-kissed old at the Tuesday gala for the venerable Austin Community Foundation. The charitable group, which manages numerous funds, has opened up its leadership in recent years. Not unlike the similarly esteemed Austin Area Research Organization, whose leadership I met earlier in the day.
ACF bigwigs: JoLynn Free, Max Sherman, MariBen Ramsey, Ken Gladish
Civic do-gooders of all stripes streamed into the Four Seasons banquet rooms. I talked briefly with developer and philanthropist Dick Rathgeber about his book on maximizing one’s giving (it’s undergoing a title change). Community leader Lynn Meredith told me about a flight out of Cuba during the first days of the Iraq War and how a few hours in an airport sparked a discussion about “changing the world.” (Also about her writer/editor daughter.) Classy Nancy Scanlan reported on the multiple weddings of her eccentric Houston kin (one between two hunters with a shotgun-shell-shaped cake).
Lynn Meredith, Linda Benge
The group just seemed reinvigorated by the collision of ages, backgrounds and interests in the room. The event proved a sterling example of a trend I heartily endorse: Old Austin socializing with New Austin for the greater good.
Sam Bryant, Carol Burdette, Milo Burdette
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
December 2, 2008
On Austin culture's of social sentience
Gathering thoughts for a brief conversation with the leadership committee of the Austin Area Research Organization, which I’m meeting in less than an hour.
I think the group was struck by some lines in a recent Out & About column, which went something like this: “I’m not one of those who celebrate Austin’s weirdness. I celebrate the culture that nurtures weirdness. And by that I mean the city’s openness, engagement and social sentience.”
Those who want to “Keep Austin Weird” often mean “keep Austin funky.” They believe that’s somehow integral to Austin’s character. Hence their opposition to downtown high-rises, the Domain, the Long Center, the city’s burgeoning glamor industries (movies, nightlife, fashion, fine dining, etc.) and any form of gentrification. They associate these changes with snobbery, exclusiveness and, worst sin of all, inauthenticity.
Sentient Austin, on the other hand, embraces the funkiness of the past, as well as the small-town qualities that antedate the Armadillo Age. Yet they also are open to modernity, urbanity and, for want of a better word, classiness. They recognize the value of the suburbs, while emphasizing the overwhelmingly aggregate values of urban living.
The larger, Sentient culture is, in fact, more inclusive than the Weird=Funky cultural subset.
More to come on statewide parallels, friendliness vs. openness, local examples of sentient socializing and why I just like the word “sentience.”
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
November 24, 2008
Benolds Holiday Spree for Legacy of Giving
We usually publish our own party pictures. Yet connector Lisa O’Neill was gracious enough to forgive my absence from the Benold’s holiday party for the Austin Community Foundation’s Legacy of Giving program that I thought a few snaps from the event would help salve the wound. Looks like some social heavy hitters attended the jewelry and charity event.
Judi Knotts, Milton Doolittle (owner of Benold’s), Lynn Meredith, Linda Brucker (executive director, Legacy of Giving) and Kenneth Gladish, (president/CEO of Austin Community Foundation)
Sally Rivero, Valerie Lyng, Joy Selak
Lauren Peters, Linda Brucker, Renee Francese
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
November 21, 2008
Flag football for a cause during the Sugar Free Bowl
The Sugar Free Bowl is a city-wide tournament featuring men’s and coed teams. Delta Epsilon Psi organizes the event, now in its sixth year, to benefit juvenile diabetes causes. The donation ceremony can be viewed 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the University of Texas Intramural Fields at Guadalupe and 51st Street.
Honoring Vishal Bhagat, who struggled with juvenile diabetes and died in a swimming accident, the fundraiser has spread across the nation to 20 campuses. Wish we were going to be in town for this one, but my quick trip to East Texas intervenes. Hope to have earlier notice next year.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Sports
November 15, 2008
Help Clifford Help Kids at Austin Music Hall
What recession? Sure, some charities have postponed their fundraising events, hoping for healed financial prospects by spring. Yet it seems some causes are worth supporting no matter how far the economy plunges into the tank.
John Paul DeJoria, Susan Antone, Mayor Will Wynn, Olga Campos, Eloise DeJoria
Help Clifford Help Kids, which started as a community service project by the great music promoter, Clifford Antone, has grown exponentially, thanks in part to his surviving sister Susan Antone. She’s an enthusiastic backer of American Youthworks, the alternative education group that benefits from this annual party.
Abe Zimmerman, Evonne Atlas
Jack McDonald, who, along with wife Carla, won a huge crystal vase to commemorate their “Cliffy Award,” reported that the event grossed $250,000, which is all the more remarkable because the organizers keep costs low at the Austin Music Hall. Net will probably come out to $200,000, a substantial chunk of the downtown school’s budget.
Blake Rocap, Nisha Rocap
It helps when billionaire John Paul DeJoria is on stage playing auctioneer, spicing the bids with extra goodies. He and wife Eloise have more than proven their commitment to their adopted community. Add a hot set by Delbert McClinton and the Music Hall’s tailoring for such events, and you have, once again, one of the year’s best galas. Even in a recession.
Bill Shands, Megan Breitenwischer
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
November 13, 2008
Update: Oscar Brockett
Brock, as he is known, now retired, is 85. For the past year, he’s been in and out of the hospital. I caught up with him last night in his condo overlooking downtown Austin. And Brock proved as lively as ever, his color good and his mood upbeat. He’s about to complete another book, this one on theater design, always a time of relief for the prolific author.
I can tell he misses going out. For years, he’d accompany me to movies or theater once every week or so. Brock also socialized graciously, helping out with the annual Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner events staged by the Spice Boys for Project Transitions, for instance. Let’s hope his health improves enough, so that he can partake in his beloved Austin more fully soon.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Charity, Faith & Education
November 10, 2008
Strake Jesuit never goes away
Do you receive mailings from your high school? I do. Every week.
Let me explain. I attended Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston. Highest intellectual standards. But also part of an oligarchical strategy for sweeping the elite into the arms of the Catholic Church.
So how do the Jesuits manage a $12 million annual operating budget and continue to build as if Strake was a red-hot MBA program? I’m curious because I cover scores of charitable groups as social columnist, and many of them could learn from this fundraising juggernaut.
They turn to donors. Lots. Most of those come from alumni who graduated in small classes since 1965. The overwhelming majority live in Texas, and those mostly in the Houston area.
And the school tracks alumni like bounty hunters. I receive more slick, sophisticated mailers from Strake Jesuit than from all my other associations combined. And, sadly, I’ve still not given them a dime.
Well, they’re always building more athletic facilities for winning teams — Strake and its Dallas counterpart were among the first private schools admitted into the University Interscholastic League. They play with the big boys.
Not that I mind, but the ex-jocks who run the alumni groups already know how to appeal to school spirit. (I don’t donate to UT’s athletic foundation either — and I’m a dyed-in-orange fan. They print money.)
Jesuits never seem to honor teachers who I admired or fund programs I’d love to see encouraged. (On the other hand, congrats to national champion debater Todd Lupfert (‘09) and his coach Jerry Crist. Jesuits were always good at debate.)
Michael Barnes (‘72) admires the school’s gumption and Barack Ombama-level organizational skills, but no sale. Yet.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education
October 29, 2008
Watching and being watched, Part 4
Continued from previous posts …
If his slim book could be compared with any other, it would be Peter Brook’s elegant and immensely influential 1968 contemplation, “The Empty Space,” which identified four types of theater: “Deadly, Holy, Rough and Immediate.”
“He was among those who first opened my mind to what is possible in theater,” he says. “I should have recognized that I internalized so much from Brook.”
What, then, are we looking for, ultimately, as humans, in theater or socializing? Emotional connection, Woodruff says.
“We praise emotions in the theory in our culture but we don’t represent them,” he says. “We may be nervous about getting too close to them.”
So why are emotions so important?
“Understanding is something we do with our emotions,” Woodruff says. “Theater draws that out of you. And a good theater watcher can understand with his emotions. And it feels good to exercise the emotions. And we feel enormous pleasure in being connected to other people. In theater, the connection can be at the deepest and most raw level.”
The connection can also be made out there on the party circuit.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Charity, Faith & Education, Media & Books
Watching and being watched, Part 3
Continued from previous posts …
“A good audience understands what it watches, through an emotional attunement that is governed by ethical virtue,” he writes. On the largest theatrical scale, football games fascinate him, even if he’s not a close follower of the sport. (Ironically, he holds the Darrell K. Royal Professorship in Ethics.)
“How can you connect with people more directly than at a UT football game these days?” he asks. “It’s the most powerful form of theater, especially on a college campus.”
“I’m fascinated by emotion and the role of emotions in our lives,” says Woodruff, who wrote plays before he saw his first one onstage, and imagined the enacted dramas of his father’s opera recordings growing up in rural western Pennsylvania. “Opera brings out the big emotions like no other art form does. The Greeks in theory didn’t believe in emotion. The teaching was that a virtuous man would not betray grief or anger. And yet the Greek tragedies are overwhelmed with huge emotions.”
Woodruff faults those around him who don’t watch carefully. “I overhear my colleagues talking about students,” he says. “Even the professors best at paying attention can fail to see (students) as fully developed characters, in theatrical terms. ‘That little obnoxious student,’ they say. It might help to know that, say, the student’s mother loves him, or maybe it would help more to know his mother hates him. There’s always a back story.”
To be continued …
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Charity, Faith & Education, Media & Books
October 28, 2008
Watching and being watched, Part 2
Continued from previous post …
Woodruff’s ideas come in clustered thought-bursts: Watching people encourages a capacity for caring through emotional connection. Virtue comes easier to those who pay attention to the conditions of others. Certain kinds of human experiences depend on witnesses, especially witnesses whose imaginations enable cognitive empathy.
“Humans don’t exist as independent, lonely trees on the veldt,” he says. “We are who we are through our interactions. A large part of that interaction is paying attention to each other in more theatrical ways.”
I’d add to the theatrical mix more social events: Backyard barbecues and glittering galas, book signings and movie premieres, musical concerts and club gatherings, intimate dinner parties and vast outdoor festivals. In other words, everything Out & About covers.
After all, while socializing, we also seek emotional connection by giving and taking attention. An intimate dinner party entails as much ritual, spectacle, choreography and improvisation as does the small theatrical presentation.
Given his rigorous training, Woodruff subdivides theater into categories and separates the functions of plot, character, action, choice, mimesis and sacred space. He delves into the dialogue in “Hamlet,” “Antigone” and other seminal dramas.
Yet his breakthrough conclusion is that theater leads to, not escape from the self, as entertainment so often promises, but “human wisdom — knowing ourselves.”
Photo courtesy of AdTechBlog.com
To be continued …
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Charity, Faith & Education
Watching and being watched, Part 1
Theater is people watching people doing something worth watching.
So concludes Paul Woodruff, philosopher, classicist and University of Texas dean of undergraduate studies.
Socializing also is people watching people doing something worth watching. So concludes your Out & About social columnist.
The difference: In the latter activity, the watcher engages the watched more directly. As a former theater critic, I was drawn to the logic of Woodruff’s argument in “The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching and Being Watched,” which will be discussed at the Texas Book Festival on Sunday.
“People need theater,” Woodruff writes. “They need it the way they need each other — the way they need to gather, to talk things over, to have stories in common, to share friends and enemies. They need to watch, together, something human.”
Woodruff ranks theater alongside religion and language as essential distinguishing human characteristics. I’d add socializing to the list, for many of the same reasons.
Both kinds of watching and being watched, social and theatrical, start early in life. “We hardly take ourselves very seriously unless we can get others’ attention,” the slender, hesitant Woodruff says at rain-splashed Mozart’s Coffee Roasters on Lake Austin Boulevard. “The first thing we know as an infant, after finding a mother’s breast, is how to get her attention. And newborns are excellent at that.”
Yet the process doesn’t stop there.
“Learning how to give attention is a little harder,” he says. “We are naturally wired for getting it more than giving it.”
To be continued …
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Charity, Faith & Education, Media & Books
KLRU Block Party at Austin Music Hall
By the time I arrived at the KLRU block party, the Brad Paisley fans were already funneling out of the Austin Music Hall. Looked like the public television fundraiser was a success — with what was likely a rousing speech by general manager Bill Stotesbery; these are heady times for the ACL station — but what about those of us trying to spread the love around to multiple events on an October Friday?
Jose Navia, Erica Navia
We had DJ Chicken George. It never ceases to amaze me how Austin’s nimble spinners can keep a crowd — or what’s left of one — not only entertained, but writhing deliriously well into the night. DJs are prime social connectors, touching the soft pleasure spots in our deep brains, shedding mass inhibitions and uniting disparate individuals into emotional cohesion.
Mark Pedini, Sara Robertson
DJs — underpraised in a town of four-and-five-piece bands and singer-songwriters — help keep Austin Austin. I’m not one of those columnists who celebrate Austin weirdness — and plenty was on display at the Music Hall — for its own sake. What I salute are the forces that generate or nurture weirdness, those dedicated to the real defining qualities of Austin — openness, sentience and social connection.
Beau Armstrong, Tamara Mewis
Who’d have bet a block party would spark such “deep thoughts”?
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Media & Books, Out
October 27, 2008
Diamonds & Denim without Rona
Entertainment journalism pioneer Rona Barrett could not make the Diamonds & Denim affair because of illness, but the fundraiser for Family Eldercare was nonetheless frisky at the historic Caswell House. Besides the usual food, drink, music and auctions, guests copped little cowboy boots in their favorite team colors.
Pat Hunt, Betty Hegarty, Lynn Roberson
I spoke at some length with local Eldercare representatives and backers, such as Karen Langley and Julie Freeman, who explained that many of their clients are assigned to the nonprofit group by courts because of abuse or neglect. Ill treatment of vulnerable children receives a lot of attention in this community, but parallel crimes against the elderly are generally swept under the carpet by the media.
Karen Langley, Julie Freeman, Alyce Parsons, Janelle Parsons
Also spoke with Alyce and Janelle Parsons of the Parsons Group Inc., the for-profit operation that provides housing for elderly in need. I kept noticing connections to the Central California region I’d just visited (Rona lives in Santa Ynez; Fess Parker Wineries donated vintages; Santa Barbara inns donated rooms to the auction.) Turns out my detections were not far off — Parsons is based in Santa Barbara, as Alyce explained, and the company pays all the expenses for fundraisers like this.
Keith Brandon, Aleasha Brandon (they actually building the housing for the needy elderly)
If only all for-profit partners behaved that way! Check out the explanatory video on the Family Eldercare site.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
October 23, 2008
The Night Smiles at Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum
It doesn’t take much to draw a crowd to the Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum on a crystalline autumn evening. This week’s occasion was debut of the Kay and Hayes Pitts Family Pavilion. That’s a rather long name for a lovely niche in the gardens for weddings and other such formal occasions.
Colleen Briggs, Peggy Frary, Barbara Kelso
Already, the repository of Austin’s most celebrated — and sometimes misunderstood — sculptor hosts hundreds of weddings, parties and other social events each year. It’s the mainstay of the nonprofit arts group. This curled platform, defined partly by water and made formal by a metal overhang, feels organic, green, emotionally taut.
Ransom Baldasare, David Webber
Dignitaries were present: sculptor Charles Umlauf’s widow Angeline, modernist painter Michael Frary’s widow, Peggy, museum director Nelie Plourde.
Erin Rogers, Rachel Farris, Jessica Bourne
Also social luminaries, such as Nieman-dressed Karen Landa, Ohio-electioneering-bound Robert Nash, architect David Webber and his euphoniously partner Ransom Baldasare and salon owner Barbara Kelso. The catering, by Lyndie Clement, was elaborate and exquisite. Tunes by trumpeter Ephraim Owens made the night smile indulgently.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Charity, Faith & Education, Out
October 21, 2008
Links' Harlem Nights at Renaissance Austin
Links of Austin joined up with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure to sponsor “Harlem Nights” at the Renaissance Austin Hotel. I’ve never witnessed a snazzier-dressed gathering, as folks filtered between two jazz bands in outfits inspired by the Harlem Renaissance.
Chrystle Swain, Carmen Francis
Charitable gambling complemented dancing in two party rooms.
Jimmy Earl, Vanessa Earl
Links Inc. has so successfully pushed its “service through friendship” goals that it can share its good will on such an evening with the equally admired breast cancer association.
Carl Rounds, Sako Rounds
I ran into Bernadette Phifer, director of the Carver Museum and Cultural Center, who urged a full evening of enjoyment. But I had to move on to the next event. Perhaps next year.
Marjon Christopher, Damon Johnson, Kenya Johnson
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Save Austin Music at One World Theatre
Like certain other events on this busy weekend, the Save Austin Music fundraiser started slowly, but swung definitively upbeat once the artists started playing. Politicians rubbed shoulders with hard-core musicians on the plaza where Hartt and Nada Stearns plan a new amphitheater at One World Theatre.
Hartt Stearns, Paul Oveisi, Dan Dyer
That’s right—the former Iluminada is now Mrs. Stearns.The longtime couple and owners of One World got married in a surprise Nevada ceremony. They hid their wedding gear from their families in order to spring the happy event on them. So romantic.
Lea Koury, Michael Hale
Save Austin Music appears to have grown up alongside the Austin Music Task Force’s studies on the future of the city’s artistic infrastructure. The best explanation came from musician and budding entrepreneur Greg Vendetti, who talked about the kinds of changes in civic culture that would be needed to keep Austin musical.
Tracy Cook, Shannon Cook
Public request: Greg, send me three paragraphs so I can share with readers.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Music, Out
October 20, 2008
St. Jude's Benefit at GSD&M
Some social events appeared slow to start on this long weekend of receptions, galas and parties. The fundraiser for St. Jude’s Children’s Medical Center at GSD&M’s offices was lightly populated during the early hours. (At one point, there were more of us photographers than socialites in one room.)
Keli Sotelo, Creed Ford
The band “Lonestar” played its heart out to an empty dance floor. The food spread was sumptuous, though, and gala-goers began to filter in just before the announcements and honors. Eventually, the event took off, according to my sources. Good to hear. Worthy cause.
Maggie Bowman, Nigel Bowman, Terry Kuzmich
We talked for a while with Heather Page and Shelly Kanter, who work behind the scenes for the “Beyond the Lights” Golf Celebrity Golf Classic, which benefits the Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis and stars the stalwarts from “Friday Night Lights.” (We’ll give you a heads up about the dates for 2009, which will not compete with SXSW.)
Heather Page, Shelly Kanter
Nigel Bowman, a Brit transplant, emphasized the transformative experience of visiting St. Jude’s Memphis center. “You expect it to be depressing,” he said. “It isn’t.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
October 19, 2008
This post contains untrue reports
I split Tamara Bell’s PR & Entertainment class into seven groups for an exercise in pitching stories to a journalist. Each University of Texas six-member team chose a fictional marketing firm name and cooked up an item for my column. Then each member of the seven teams chose a method — texting, tweeting, Facebook, e-mail, phoning or face-to-face conversation — to pitch me directly in real time. This class was sizzling.
WARNING: SOME OF THESE ITEMS ARE FALSE. PATENTLY.
Insiders: We represent Will Smith and we would like to offer you a pass to the premiere of the screening of his newest film, “Seven Pounds.” After the screening we will provide with a face to face interview with Smith to discuss the movie. (Not likely that such a small firm would handle Smith, but these pitchers made me giggle helplessly with their improvisations.)
Medley 6: We represent Heisman hopeful Colt McCoy who will be making a special guest appearance on the hit television show “Friday Night Lights.” We are offering you an exclusive interview with McCoy on set to discuss his transition from the field to the studio. (Despite the obvious NCAA obstacles to this story, the team pitched it enthusiastically, convincingly.)
Blackbook PR: Our client Randy Jackson, will be attending Alpha Phi’s Red Dress Gala and Fundraiser this Saturday. Mr. Jackson is an avid supporter of cardiac disease research and we are offering you an exclusive interview, a ticket to the gala, and unlimited photo opportunities. (Nice pitch. And one that would be easy to deliver.)
The Big Picture: The curtain rises on the 15th annual Austin Film Festival tonight with Oliver Stone’s “W.” We have an exclusive interview with Mr. Stone for you. (This one might be better for the film critic than the social columnist, but the team pitched it well.)
6-Pack PR: Our client is Andy Roddick and we would like to extend to you an invitation to the wedding of Roddick and his fiance, Brooklyn Decker. You will also receive an exclusive interview with the newlyweds. Let us know if you are interested. (Bingo! I’d kill for this story.)
PrAd: Our client, Greg Daniels, is being honored by the Austin Film Festival as the 2008 Outstanding Television Writer. We would like to invite you to the award luncheon this Saturday honoring his work on “The Simpsons” and “The Office” and give you an exclusive interview concerning the new Office spin-off with Amy Poehler. (Another one perhaps better for the television writer, but well placed.)
Note: In a record for the opening exercise in this workshop, variations on which I’ve offered dozens of times, Tanya Schurr guessed in 4 seconds my coffee date two hours earlier — Brendan Hansen. (She had read my blog in advance.)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Entertainment Journalism
October 16, 2008
The Rise School Benefit with Donna Stockton-Hicks
“Which shoe store do you represent?” asked the doe-eyed young woman at the door. Excuse me? She explained that almost all the revelers at the stately Pemberton home that night were ladies, and most of the attendant men were shoe salesmen. Huh.
Donna Stockton-Hicks, Kristin Armstrong, Venus Strawn
The estate in question was none other than the home of radio magnate Steve Hicks and busy philanthropist Donna Stockton-Hicks. A 1920s Renaissance Revival creekside mansion has been adroitly renovated by Stockton-Hicks, who exposed the glowing wood and tiles and let the masterpiece speak for itself. (It far outstrips its better-known sibling, Laguna Gloria.) Everything, including the garden’s belvedere, has been rendered in the utmost taste. The Hicks plan to reconfigure the sumptuous gardens and expand the south lawn for even more social space.
Kathy Taylor, Mike Genug (the close friends swear they didn’t coordinate outfits. And yes, her name is Mike.)
Stockton-Hicks, looking supremely comfortable in this Old World atmosphere, explained why the Rise School of Austin has attracted so many influential friends. Designed for children with Down syndrome, it has quickly become a savior for parents unsure of where to find the appropriate early childhood education. Sally Brown, wife to everybody’s hero — this week — UT coach Mack Brown, is a prime force behind the school, which is expected to expand to all the Big 12 campuses.
Garden’s Patty Hoffpauir with Vicki Howard, Nikki Mackenzie
Stockton-Hicks is a generous hostess, but she sticks to causes in which the Hicks family participates personally. This week’s event was immaculately organized (save the valet parking snafus) and climaxed with a shoe-related performance by Austin Cabaret Theatre’s Stuart Moulton doing his best Cher drag. You just never know when and where Cher will turn up.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out, Style
September 29, 2008
Titling the blogs
Only one student in the Entertainment Journalism class at St. Edward’s University maintained a blog previous to Aug. 25. Now all 16 are posting daily (with some gaps).
Without prompting from me, they chose evocative titles. Some examples: “I See” (Beth Sanchez); “Crowd Noise” (Geoff West); “Ipso Facto” (Christian Cabazos); “Shallow Thoughts” (Marc Sherman); ” Valletta (Celeste Diaz); “Kid in Austin” (Victoria Estrada); “What I’d Say” (Ian Gillespie); “Day by Day” (Mackenzie Jenkins); “Le Fou” (Jen Obenhaus); “Caroline Attack” (Caroline Wallace); What’s Good” (Danielle Bauman); “That’s Entertainment” (Claire Cella); and “A Sleepy Company” (Alison Willis). The others are well-written, but their titles are just direct, descriptive. Click on the hyperlink above for examples.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Entertainment Journalism, Media & Books
September 25, 2008
Darrell Royal at Barton Creek event for Longevity Foundation
Regal coach Darrell Royal could attract a decent crowd for a game of gin rummy. Give him a worthy cause and he’ll fill the pale-colored banquet rooms at the Barton Creek Resort to capacity.
Darrell Royal, Linda Cole, Bob Cole
The cause in question Wednesday was the Longevity Foundation. Inspired by Patrick Howard, a five-year-old boy who died of a degenerative genetic disorder called ataxia-telangiectasia, the foundation supports various kinds of biomedical research in such disorders, as well as diseases such as cancer.
Marc Labate, Teresa Labate
The event, however, was cheerful. The throng had gathered to hear the pickin’ of songwriters Paul Overstreet, Scotty Emerick and Dean Dillon. (I didn’t stay long enough to report whether coach used his famous “red-light” technique to hush the audience. Coach speaks, people obey.)
Lee Walker, Michelle Westling
We spent some time catching up with KVET’s Bob Cole, who shared (unprintable) stories about Austin celebrities. He also noted the evolution of Austin’s social scene during the past three decades, from a “party of five” mentality to a much more diverse and egalitarian brew.
Carl Orend, Claire Orend
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Austinites at the Clinton Global Initiative
“It’s been great to catch up with Wangari Maathai, with whom we worked with on Nobelity Project, and to talk with her about the school we sponsor in Kenya,” Turk Pipkin said. “We’ve committed to building an adjacent high school so that 800 kids in the area won’t have to quit school after eighth grade. We’re also launching a tree-planting initiative in early 2009 and are talking to Wangari and the greenbelt movement about being one of our key partners to plant large numbers of trees and remove millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Fame
September 22, 2008
Octo Tea Dance at the Long Center Plaza
Regular participants anticipate the Octo Tea Dance with relish. We understand why. More than 1,000 celebrants spread over the magical Long Center plaza for the charity event on Sunday, raising something in the order of $65,000, according to one organizer.
Ryan Sorrsek, Neal Sanchez
The event dovetails into the Octopus Club activities, which raise cash for AIDS Services of Austin year-round. Folks like Lew Aldridge, Mark Erwin and Oliver Everette spend a good deal of time making that magic happen.
Laura McQuary, Jose Minguell
Last year, it was held at the Oasis. In the prominently public plaza, the tone was a little more formal — fewer shirts whipped off during the hours of dancing. Still, no lack of playfulness from the crowd, who gravitated to the “disco floor” light show, permanently installed on the edge of the plaza.
Hector Gonzalez, Michael Escobedo
Some of the action spilled inside to various lobbies, including a jazz retreat in the Kodosky Donor Lounge. For the grown-ups.
Benson Kelsey, Tim Grondin, Ric de Barros
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Fall Fusion at Dell Jewish Community Campus
Two themes for the Fall Fusion Party at the Dell Jewish Community Campus: Endeavor and “Saturday Night Live.” The realty and development company, including principals Jeff Newberg, Andy Pastor and Kirk Rudy, were saluted. The sketch comedy show provided the characters and activities for the JCC gym.
Adam Ramirez, Lauren McKendall
The place was packed with food, drink and fun. The organizers predict the event will raise a good $200,000 which is well above average for a seasonal gala, even one with more than 500 guests dressed in mostly business casual.
Marcia Levy, Robyn Sperling, Tracy Solomon
A few things about attending an event at the JCC: The grounds are capacious, the parking generous and the place makes sense socially. The rooms feed into one another in a rational way. It’s also a pretty straight shot from downtown. We’re compiling a list of social venues for Glossy, and the JCC hadn’t yet come up, but after Fall Fusion, it went way up on my list. Sen. Kirk Watson, Suzanne Newberg
The organizers graciously urged me to stay for the presentations later in the evening, but I’d already made the round trip to Houston for one party, and had yet another social obligation in the wings. Next time, next time. Kirk Rudy, David Brenner, Karen Brenner
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Charity, Faith & Education, Out
I don’t think the power of the Heart Gallery sank in until this year. I mean, intellectually, I understood that the program improved Central Texas adoption rates by drafting top-notch photographers to produce portraits of the candidates. It seemed like a worthy cause, but I never paid close attention. Jackie, Tracy Eilers, Michele Golden Then I realized how lucky our godson, Alfie, who just entered first grade, was to be adopted as a newborn. The older kids don’t have that advantage. And think of going through life without parents to call about your latest news. (Or, in my case, to worry about when they won’t evacuate during hurricanes. BTW: They are fine. Got power and water before everybody else.) Dr. Ryan Burke, Dr. Prachi Midi Anyway, modishly dressed Lytle Pressley is kind enough to lend his modern furniture store on West Sixth Street to the Heart Gallery every year. And this year’s party brought out the warm-hearted and the longtime advocates, like Judge Rhonda Hurley, who I ran into earlier this week at the Kozmetsky Center opening. Carlos Gonzalez, Ana Lisa Garcia
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Charity, Faith & Education, Out
It’s hard not to be impressed by the Kozmetsky Center for Child Protection. One of the largest public-private projects to aid child protection services took almost a decade to build. It sits on former state school land — once called Vision Village — and it presents a reassuring, child-friendly environment for alleged victims of abuse. Lisa Wade, Judge Rhonda Hurley, District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg The buildings are set back on the tree-shaded East Austin campus. Millions of dollars were raised in the private sector to construct this safe environment, which would otherwise fall to law enforcement to provide. Joanie Bentzin, Ben Bentzin, Sheriff Greg Hamilton Current board president Ben Bentzin spoke eloquently on the subject before introducing donors, designers and staff, as well as a short, moving video.
Venus Strawn, Mary Herr We spoke with District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who spent years advocating for the project, also briefly with Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton (still not too comfortable in front of cameras, but that will come in time) and Judge Rhonda Hurley, who spent a good deal of time with Statesman reporter Chuck Lindell for his recent series on child protection.
Marcia Williams, Michelle Herrera Also dallied with the aptly named Venus Strawn and her friend, the lustrous Mary Herr, who is organizing the Center’s “Dancing with the Stars” benefit later this fall. She had tried to convince me to participate as a dancer. I refused. But if she goes for an “American Idol” theme …
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Charity, Faith & Education, Out
The studiously traditional Enfield house of business and political kingmaker Lowell Lebermann — it would look right in Virginia foxhunting country — was enough of a draw. But the more inspirational reason to attend the reception at Lebermann’s was the fundraising for the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders. Nancy Scanlan, Carla McDonald, Michelle Krejci Right away, we met these leaders-in-the-making, wearing plaid uniforms, directing traffic and serving excellent nibbles. Then we mixed with parents, who had nothing but praise for the AISD academy, which is expanding to include high school classes soon. Eddie Safady, John Thornton We also hung with a particular subset of the Fortunate 500 crowd who will appear familiar to readers — Linda Ball and Forrest Preece, Carla and Jack McDonald, Julie and John Thornton, Evan Smith, Nancy Scanlan, Lee Walker, Eddie Safady, Ellen Richards, Brenda Thompson and Karen Frost (who brought along her mother, evacuated from Houston). Parents Sonya Banda, Neva Price It was a particular honor to spend a few minutes with ARS teachers and the school’s supremely competent executive director, Michelle Krejci. Rest assured, these leaders will mold the next generation of leaders. Deborah Dodds, Lee Walker
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Continued from post below… Richard’s family, including stepmother Bobbi, already have made a huge impact on Austin. The Long Center for the Performing Arts is just one of their projects. Yet most of the family’s civic investments go to health care and related charitiets. (Another portion of the foundation’s magnanimity helps charities in the Chicago area, where Richard’s sisters live.) “We pay a lot of lip service to musicians, but we don’t do a lot to support them.” says Richard, who generally stays out of the spotlight himself. He’s delighted artists actually use the services. “They are so appreciative and so taken aback when we reach out to them. That’s huge for them. And for us. In fact, they pass along their slots to other musicians when they take jobs with benefits.” HAAM Benefit Day, Oct. 7, includes Austin City Hall festivities, a concert at Antone’s with Gary Clark Jr. and other local bands. More than 90 bands have pledged to play at restaurants, clubs and retail outlets that day. Meanwhile, area businesses pledge 5 percent of their profits or make cash donations. The Cain Foundation, represented by entertainment attorney Wofford Denius, will make a $10,000 matching grant that day.
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Charity, Faith & Education, Music
Some fundraising events are still finding their way. Paddlefest, which helps float the Texas River School’s efforts to bring outdoor living to kids without normal access to its wonders, is not one of the city’s biggest or most profitable affairs. But it’s got a lot of heart — and, now, a magical location. I’d never ventured out on the docks of the Texas Rowing Center, located across from Austin High School on upper Lady Bird Lake. At dusk, especially, it’s a bit of heaven, the sunset spiraling in reflections on the lake, a slight breeze passing across the waters and folks settling down for basic grub, local music and short ventures on the boats, including a non-boater-friendly raft. Duncan McLaurin, Linda Overton, Matt Ritchie Joe Kendall, one of the main men behind the school, told me that more than 4,000 children, normally terrified of the river because they don’t swim, have paddled up and down the lake, learning about its natural processes and, along the way, water safety. He’s planning campouts down below Longhorn dam, which should be even more challenging. Linda Firestone, Erin Flynn Anyway, the backers of Paddlefest, including board members Linda Firestone and Erin Flynn, expressed mild disappointment that the turnout was pretty thin on a September Saturday, but I assured them that their location was unmatched and that on a cooler Sunday later in the season, they’d likely draw more lake lovers. Mickey Filpi, Cloe Justice Then it was off to Antone’s to hear Jets Under Fire and, for starters, Beaux Loy, who has an amazing vocal instrument and made a bang-up starter for the Alpha Rev bill. Skipped the Rev this night to entertain brother Christopher and his wife Juliefrom Houston at Cru, where we shared a silky bottle of tempranillo and a very late supper. The Cru crew was extremely professional about staying open so late, too.
Permalink
| Comments (4)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Charity, Faith & Education, Out, Sports
In the course of an evening out, one fit athlete offered to get me out into the Hill Country on a bicycle, while another tried to lure me onto Lady Bird Lake in a kayak.
Joe Weismantel, Audrey Neville, Sarmed Rashid Did they think that, just because I walked to their separate fundraising events along a multi-mile stretch of the hike and bike trail, that I could actually join something like the Texas 4000, a cycling road ride from Texas to Alaska to raise money to fight cancer?
Luci Baines Johnson, Nancy Brown Hardly. Although the promise of adventure is tempting. The course is actually more than 4,500 miles and is billed the longest charity ride in the world. Hey, Alaska is my next intended road-trip frontier, so …
Stella Jang, Dane Edwards The tribute gala dinner for Texas 4000 at the Four Seasons Hotel resembled any other posh affair at the incessantly busy lakeside retreat. (Spied at a wedding next door: Texas basketball legend Jody Conradt.) Tempting silent auction items were lined up for the cocktail reception, then the revelers took their seats in the ballroom for the hotel’s usual creative banquet fare.
Pratish Kanani, Olege Esenkov, Anju Kanani We talked a some length with aspiring journalist Dane Edwards, also with Luci Baines Johnson, who sat with event chairwoman Nancy Brown and informed me about attempts to bring the world to the gradually more open-to-the-public LBJ Ranch, including a mass bike ride out there come spring. She’s been riding herself lately, by the way, and looks fit as a country fiddle and not a day over 40.
Permalink
| Comments (1)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Charity, Faith & Education, Out, Sports
For decades, Concordia University Texas has slept quietly in the shadow of the University of Texas and other Central Texas institutions of higher learning. Then, two mammoth real estate deals transformed its former Central Austin campus into a construction zone, making way for an ambitious multi-use complex, while the students, teachers and staff moved to a wooded corporate campus in the fast-growing northwest corridor. Penny Cedel, Pres. Tom Cedel The deal forged ties between the Lutheran university and the business community, especially real estate interests, similar to the way St. Edward’s University has expanded rapidly based on the attractiveness of its South Austin campus. Similar claims could be made for other non-University of Texas schools that have benefited from region’s new-found wealth and sense of civic responsibility, and the gaps between their backing and UT’s vast statewide, even international resources. William F. Thomas, Joyce Thomas Among the tall-hats at Concordia’s gala at the Four Seasons on Thursday were real estate titans like Tom Stacy, business connectors like Charlie Betts and more traditional philanthropists like Jo Anne Christian. We also chatted with gracious college president Tom Cedel and his wife Penny, and suitably excited development officers like Amy Huth and Jackie Macha Faulkner. Nacole Thompson, Doris McDonald This was an early crowd — they arrived in throngs 30 minutes before the advertised cocktail hour and zoomed into the ballroom as soon as the doors opened. That added to the sense of occasion and anticipation for the first Concordia gala of the new era. Tom Stacy, Melinda Stacy And what better place to connect Old and New Concordia than the Four Seasons, which remains ideal for this particular scale (300+ diners), this kind of fund-raising goal ($100,000+) and this particular demographic (generally older, more comfortable than at other nonprofit events I attended this week). The hotel’s staff is trained to attend to the tiniest details, down to a glass of ice water retrieved from the in-house restaurant, Trio, because I couldn’t face the tropical walk home without adequate hydration. Amy Huth, U.S.M.C. Sgt. S.E. Irvin , Jackie Macha Faulkner
Permalink
| Comments (1)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Charity, Faith & Education, Out
So many social connections surged at J. Black’s on Tuesday, it was hard to keep track. First, Strata TX held a happy hour, which makes sense, because the young professionals club for the Texas Cultural Trust significantly brings down the average age for the trust’s statewide supporters and helps spread the word about what this trust does (primarily backs the Texas Commission on the Arts and educational programs about the arts, as well as some individual young artsts). Erin Ivey, Marc Fort Second, another group, Grounded in Music, held a simultaneous happy hour. This is another collection of twenty- and thirtysomethings putting their shoulders to the fundraising grindstone, this time for extracurricular music programs in schools not lucky enough to have well-heeled PTAs to pay for teachers. And they hire top musicians, too, keeping their operating budget to $40,000 by doing all the rest of the work with volunteers. Jacquelyn Sorcic, Jeff Kreinik But the best part was that the two groups met together in the narrow raised lounge behind the main U-shaped bar (where nightlife prince Brad Womack held court that dusk). Collaborating on the event meant their supporters cross-pollinated, something every charitable group in town should do. (I’ve seen it work for the Catalyst 8 folks on several occasions, for instance.) Huey Houston, Leah Smith Then it was off to dinner with the ever-gracious Stephen Rice and Mark Erwin and our instantaneous friends, Oliver Everette and Craig Rancourt at Eastside Cafe. We all left pleasantly stuffed and content.
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Arts, Charity, Faith & Education, Music, Out
Right away, at Angels on the Runway, I ran into Kelli and Keith Lawson. The newcomers from Washington D.C. — like newcomers sweetly do — asked about the event. They wanted to know everything. Kelli Lawson, Keith Lawson Well, it’s an annual fashion show. And one with some name designers — this time layer-lover Robert Comstock from Aspen and New York, courtesy of Keepers men’s wear on Congress Avenue — as well as promising locals, such as Joanna Ruley-Garza and Stephanie Jimenez. But not all the beauteous models are experienced, so the action on the runway can be a bit tentative. Mary Lee, Jenny Hoff, Maureen McCann, Catie Beck The venue is the Austin Music Hall, which needs explanation. A multi-use facility, rebuilt from the ground up, its main flat floor is well suited to fundraisers like this one, as well as to rock concerts. But not so much for other performing arts events. The acoustics have improved from near-catastrophic levels earlier this year and the hall fits neatly with its 360 Tower and Ballet Austin neighbors.
Bennett Pifer, George Heretakis The charity benefiting from this party is Heart House, which provides after-school educational services for the needy. I explained to Kelli and Keith that it was among several dozen young, fast-growing organizations built mostly with new money, not old, and therefore perfect for entry-level participation. Amy Holloway, Chris Engle Well, I hope Kelli and Keith liked the event. And yes, in Austin, unlike bigger, more established cities, you can make a difference right away.
Permalink
| Comments (1)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Charity, Faith & Education, Out
Pretty people get a bad rap. Shallow? Petty? Inaccessible? Not in my experience. At least not in Austin. Of course, my marital status lowers any potential sexual tension while interacting with pretty people on the job. Not being particularly pretty myself actually works my behalf, too. When I approach someone at a party or club for conversation, I’m clearly not making untoward advances. Sam Ryan, Tasha McCarter Austin Under 40 is not an organization for pretty people. In fact, it recognizes high achievement in multiple fields as well as unusual civic benevolence. Yet the happy hour held for its volunteers at Imperia on Thursday could easily be mistaken for a mixer for shiny young professionals. I must have met 50 of them in the space of an hour. Yann Curtis, Meredith Estes, Jorge Padilla At first, a hundred or so engineers, marketers and other high achievers clumped near the Warehouse District restaurant’s bar, ordering drinks spiked with Tito’s Homemade Vodka. But once a buffet opened back by the new sushi service area, the AU40 followers spread out, allowing more breathing room.
Brian Cheng, Victor Yu
We talked with one smiling gentleman, Brian Cheng, for some time. At first, he pretended to be among the AU40, but in fact, he was on a business trip from Chicago. Turns out he grew up with Imperia managing partner CK Chin in Southwest Houston. So lots of Houston connections to discuss. Jim Kaighin, David Landry “I’ve known him since he was just six feet tall,” Cheng joked about our towering host. “Back when he was 14 years old.”
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Biz & High Tech, Charity, Faith & Education, Out
One of the benefits of this job is meeting people who shape Austin. Only a few of them do so with sheer money or raw influence. Rather, they lubricate the social machinery that improves the region’s civic health, introducing the idea people to the practical types who can make good things happen.
Tiffany Allen, Kevin Cobourn At times, one can almost glimpse the future of the city in the faces of leaders in the making. I often experience this shivery foresight at functions for the Austin Under 40 Awards or Leadership Austin, two groups that encourage the blending of social sentience with enlightened self-interest. Shams Siddiqi, Sarah Siddiqi That feeling overwhelmed me at the opening of Acton School of Business’ new campus on East Riverside Drive on Saturday. Framed by the hilltop scenery, traditionalist architecture and tech-savvy classrooms, former, current and future students of the innovative MBA program for entrepreneurs mingled, nibbled breaded shrimp and sipped freshly squeezed margaritas. Joseph Koszusko, Laura Lee Kozusko I talked to several dozen of them, as well as to instructors, staff and family members, all eager to cheer the program that encourages a “life of meaning” alongside highly honed business skills. (Also some respectful A&M and TCU grads.) They ogled the video equipment that would record and place online every arched eyebrow in every classroom discussion among the next 30 students at the school. Rodrigo Rodas, Jeff Sandefer (At least one expressed apprehension about the thoroughness of the documentation. “We can’t kid around too much,” he said.) Suzi Sosa, Roy Sosa Jeff Sandefer, the unconventional oilman behind the program, spoke ever so briefly. Mostly people wanted to meet the Actonians from around the world, who might be changing it soon. Dave Chun, Sarah Stasney-Chun We also spoke with Georgia Thomsen, the hyper-competent Acton executive director, who glided from one circle to another, looking as much like a star athlete or model as a top administrator.
David Gian, Dori Eversmann, Jeff Eversmann We took an unusual number of pictures at this event, in part because the urge to document overcame any impulse to proceed to the evening’s next social commitment. After all, these images might tell the future.
Vince Lopresti, Danielle Lopresti, Georgia Thomsen
Permalink
| Comments (1)
| Post your comment
Categories:
Biz & High Tech, Charity, Faith & Education, Out
September 19, 2008
Heart Gallery Party at Spazio
September 18, 2008
Grand Opening of Kozmetsky Center
Ann Richards School Party at Lowell Lebermann's
September 17, 2008
Richard Topfer and HAAM Benefit Day, Part 2
September 8, 2008
Paddlefest at the Texas Rowing Center
September 7, 2008
Texas 4000 Tribute Gala at the Four Seasons
August 31, 2008
Concordia University Gala at the Four Seasons
August 27, 2008
Grounded in Music and Strata TX at J. Black's
August 26, 2008
Angels on the Runway at Austin Music Hall
August 22, 2008
Pretty People Can Be Nice, Part 1: AU40 at Imperia
August 17, 2008
Changing the world at Acton School of Business
August 12, 2008
Catching up with Alisa Weldon at Cissi's Market
Over mellow coffee at Cissi’s Market, we discussed the long-planned renovation of the shop, which will soon include a wine bar — much needed on South Congress Avenue — new edible offerings and rebranding of the market’s successful Kohana Coffee. (Weldon teamed up with Cissi’s Victoria Lynden after her magazine ran a profile of the entrepreneur.) We also talked about other intriguing personalities who have appeared on the L Style G Style cover — such as self-effacing philanthropist Lew Aldridge — and about the possibility of licensing the magazine’s concept to other cities, similar to the Santa Fe-based group whose nationwide cooperative eventually included Edible Austin.
To that end, Weldon has formed another strategic partnership, this time with Oliver Everette, recently of Portland, Maine. According to their plans, Everette will help take the magazine into its second year and develop the licensing concept. We hear Everette is another discreetly effective social connector, having helped with the upcoming Octo Tea 13 organized by the Octupus Club to benefit AIDS Services of Austin (the event at the Long Center features DJ Roland Belmares and DJ Seth Cooper.)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Fame, Food, Media & Books
August 10, 2008
Ice Ball at the Monarch Center
It never ceases to amaze me that, in Austin, a simple grassroots gathering at a private home or small business can blossom into a major fundraising event with just a little tender loving care. Amy Stanley and friends started Helping Austin with a get-together four years ago in her Keystaff Inc. headquarters on Anderson Lane. The money they raised went to Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Central Texas. People had fun. They did good.
Carol Cain, Eric Stumberg, Amy Stanley
Stanley’s gang moved downtown for the next parties, then chose the Monarch Event Center near Highland Mall for its Ice Ball on Saturday, partly for ready parking, a relatively central location and “good deal,” says Stanley. The former Lincoln Theater multiplex in what was once an upscale center has been lightly renovated to include a flat floor for a sizable banquet room.
Keri Anthony, Bryan Clark
What’s so neat about a group like Helping Austin is that almost nobody at the festive event, cooled with icy concoctions, was recognizable from the gala circuit. Dressed eclectically from frayed jeans and cowboy hats to metallic gowns, they had made their own community of socializing and benevolence, raising approximately $30,000 for Big Brothers, Big Sisters, while extending good will beyond the traditional Austin circle of philanthropy.
Rebecca Kan, Russell Lubojacky
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Out
August 7, 2008
The Acton School of Business model
An article in the Aug. 7 American-Statesman business section explains why the highly ranked Acton School of Business, which opens its new East Riverside Drive campus this week, is so effective. Classes are limited to a few dozen highly motivated students who spend 100 hours each week working on cases and projects. Their discussions — teachers speak only to ask questions — in comfortable, flexible classrooms are recorded in HD video and professors respond the verbalizations online.
A few Rules of Engagement for my 2008 class borrowed from Acton: 1) Arrive on time. 2) Be prepared to open the case. 3) Listen respectfully. 4) Build on previous points. 5) Direct your comments to your classmates. 6) Articulate your arguments systematically. 7) State your assumptions. 8) Give evidence to support your claims. 9) Participate wholeheartedly.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Charity, Faith & Education, Entertainment Journalism
August 1, 2008
2008 Fortunate 500: The Complete List
Remember, this is our annual list of Austin’s most social citizens. It honors those Central Texans who go Out & About for the good of the greater social fabric.
Almost all our picks were originally nominated by readers, then followed by our social spies during the subsequent year. (I chatted with most of them, too, at the 1,000 or so social events I attended in the past 12 months.) So now is a prime time to alert us to people who contribute above and beyond to the social scene, so they can be eligible for the 2009 list.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Biz & High Tech, Charity, Faith & Education, Fame, Food, Fortunate 500, Media & Books, Movies, Music, Out, Politics & Law, Sports, Style
