Trudy Backus

First Tee – The Lowcountry

151 Gumtree Rd.

Hilton Head Island, SC 29926

(843) 686-2680 firstteelowcountry.org

It’s a beautiful day at First Tee – The Lowcountry’s Gumtree Road facility, and a young man no older than seven is stepping up to the tee to address the ball. Keeping his instructor’s words in mind, he squares his shoulders, perfects his stance and keeps his head down. Then, with all the energy that only seven-year-olds possess, he whips his shoulders around in a wide arc that sends the ball flying but also sends him into a full 360-degree swing.

With saintlike patience, his instructor tells him, “You swing the club, don’t let the club swing you.”

“That little guy will be a stellar athlete, you can tell already,” said his instructor, Trudy Backus. “He will excel at a number of things, but he goes at things with abandon.”

As a volunteer coach at First Tee – The Lowcountry, Backus helps kids work on their putting and chipping, as by her own admission her full swing is “a little inconsistent.” It’s something she’s done since first volunteering with the organization in 2016. But if you ask her, the role of golf instructor is secondary to her role as life instructor.

“What’s good about First Tee is we also talk to them about life values— courtesy respect, responsibilities, sportsmanship, honesty, all of those kinds of things,” she said. “And there are opportunities during each session to recognize those being demonstrated by the kids.”

And sometimes, she gets to recognize excellence on and off the course, like the young lady who worked with Backus since her first day at First Tee. Seven years later, she was a standard bearer at the RBC Heritage presented by Boeing. “She kept with us for all those years, and I’m just very, very proud of her,” Backus said.

And there are countless other students Backus takes pride in, going back to when she hung up her 41-year career in insurance, retired to South Carolina and started coaching for First Tee. “One cannot go there with either performance or behavioral expectations. One must go there just prepared to cheer the students’ successes,” she said. “And you find they appreciate you giving them attention, giving attention for something they want to achieve.”

During the Champions Banquet this past April when she received the Mike Davis Award, the highest award for volunteering within the First Tee - The Lowcountry, Backus got a little recognition of her own for her achievements. Even though, for her, volunteering at First Tee has been reward enough.

“I consider moving here the best decision of my life,” she said, “but volunteering here has made that best decision 100 percent better.”

To volunteer, please contact Executive Director Pat Zuk at pzuk@ thefirstteelowcountry.org or call (843) 686-2680.

Priscila Ortiz

Hair Loft of Hilton Head

19 Dunnagans Alley, Suite H

Hilton Head Island, SC 29928

(843) 422-9152 // Hairlofthhi.com

When you combine beauty and brains, you get something spectacular. If you need to see what that looks like, just follow the crowd of people with flawless hair to Dunnagans Alley and check in at Hair Loft of Hilton Head. There you’ll find Priscila Ortiz changing lives with beauty secrets that go far more than skin deep. Growing up around salons in her native Argentina, Ortiz developed her eye for beautiful hair early on. “But once I got out there into the industry, it was a whole other world,” she said. “It was amazing.”

She quickly learned that beautiful hair is more than just an art; it’s

Blake Schmid

Coastal Bliss

38 Shelter Cove Ln, #126

Hilton Head Island, SC 29928

(843) 802-4050 a science. That informed the philosophy on display at The Hair Loft, one which emphasizes a more natural approach. “The environment here is very harsh, so you need something that isn’t going to work against that,” she said. “When you use a hair color that contains ammonia, it opens the cuticles of your hair and they’ll never fully seal.” www.coastalblisshiltonhead.com

That scientific approach to beauty became extra helpful after COVID sparked a puzzling secondary pandemic of thinning hair. Whether stress, hormones or medication, this has been vexing the entire beauty industry. And Ortiz has risen to the occasion to fight thinning hair, using a shampoo line that blocks potentially damaging hormones, giving clients medical vitamins that only doctors and hairdressers can carry to encourage hair growth and becoming certified by famed hair extension company Great Lengths.

“Most women’s hair thins around their faces, which ages you. Adding extension to fill in those areas is a life changer for women,” Ortiz said. And for her, all this art and science is ultimately in service of those life-changing moments.

Step inside Coastal Bliss, and immediately the world feels like a little sunnier place. From head to toe, it’s a place where bright colors and effortlessly beautiful looks are mixed and matched into something that truly stands out. But there is more to the appeal of Coastal Bliss than simply the brilliant fashion on display. Behind the shelves, there’s a story of a family tradition of fearless entrepreneurialism, one that Blake Schmid is carrying into a new generation.

“I come from a long line of people who owned their own businesses,” Schmid said. “So, when I started out, I already knew how hard you have to work.”

The hard work was ingrained in her from a lineage that includes her great grandfather’s butcher shop and her grandfather’s TV business back in New York as well as the famed island chiropractic firm owned by her father, Dr. Brad Fraum. What Schmid has built at Coastal Bliss has married that solid work ethic to a refined sartorial sensibility she cultivated through years working at legendary boutique, The Porcupine, under Avis Rollison.

“I like fashion that stands out,” Schmid said. “I’m drawn to the ‘wow’ pieces, but not so ‘wow’ that you only wear them once. I choose pieces that are wearable.”

Hard work and an eye for fashion have made Coastal Bliss a darling of the island for 10 years, but Schmid isn’t in this alone. The mother of two knows that it takes a village.

“I feel very fortunate to have such a great, supportive staff,” she said. “And I can’t imagine doing this without my husband Jimmy, my parents, and my in-laws.”