RSVP Magazine September 2013

September 2013

SportsBall Spirit of SRVS Wine and Dine Dreamgivers Gala Live at the Garden Blues on the Bluff速 Q&A with Dr. Stephen Edge

CONTENTS

Contents September 201 3

From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Signature Memphis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 John W. Moore invites RSVP to the Greater Memphis Chamber.

Dreamgivers Gala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 The Forever Young Senior Wish Organization invited Memphians to Hilton Memphis to raise funds for World War II veterans.

The Ambassador Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Gene Gill: A Model Citizen

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StreetSeens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 & 22 The president of West Tennessee Therapy Dogs says the dogs involved in this group are as diverse as the places they visit. She’s helping bring the local sugar arts scene to a broader audience. StreetSeens highlight Anne Weiss and Mariechen “RiRi” McGruder.

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DREAMGIVERS GALA Christopher Taylor and Ingrid Turner

This retired art teacher takes miniatures of historical landmarks to the next level.

Spirit of SRVS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 SRVS celebrated 15 years of its massive auction and wine tasting at Hilton

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Blues on the Bluff® . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 WEVL supporters rocked out on the grounds of the National Ornamental Metal

42 WINE AND DINE Michelle and Mark Barford

Memphis.

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Vox Popular . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 Q&A with the Baptist Cancer Center director, Dr. Stephen Edge.

Museum.

24 SPIRIT OF SRVS Pat and Donna Hoffman

RSVP Room View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 A carport gets transformed into a comfortable, classic outdoor room.

Wine and Dine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 Guests of this fund-raiser for Special Olympics Greater Memphis soaked in the view

50 SPORTSBALL Dave Evans and Toni Boland

from the Tower Center.

Onsites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48, 49, 58 & 59 Gatherings that have earned an honorable mention.

SportsBall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 Attire called for tennis shoes worn with ball gowns or tuxes at this benefit for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Memphis at Minglewood Hall.

Live at the Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Robert Plant fans descended on the Memphis Botanic Garden for its summer concert series.

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RSVPhillippi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 What Were We Talking About?

Dennis Phillippi assesses the cultures of medical and recreational marijuana users.

BLUES ON THE BLUFF® Shannon Whitfield and RJ Whitfield

54 LIVE AT THE GARDEN Kathy and Albert Carruthers

Cover Photo Emily Dickerson and Steve Hutton at SportsBall Photo by Don Perry

R SV P S TA F F Volume XVIII

Number XII

September 2013 PUBLISHER

Roy Haithcock EDITOR

Leah Fitzpatrick CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Kelly Cox Dennis Phillippi Eugene Pidgeon Suzanne Thompson Lesley Young ART DIRECTOR

Patrick Aker s

CHRIS PUGH, ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE 901.276.7787, EXT. 103 chris@rsvpmagazine.com

Chris has been exercising his talent in the advertising world since 1999. He joined the RSVP team in 2009 and brought with him a love for laughter and creativity.

Originally from New Albany, Mississippi, Chris has settled in Memphis and enjoys being active in the fashion community.

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Baxter Buck Don Perry Steve Roberts Chris Pugh Kristen Miller

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RSVP Memphis is published monthly by Haithcock Communications, Inc. First class subscriptions are available for $55.00 per year.

Send name and address with a check to: Haithcock Communications, Inc. 2282 Central Avenue Memphis, TN 38104

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ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

ACCOUNTING

Ruth Cassin

KRISTEN MILLER, ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE 901.276.7787, EXT. 104 kristen@rsvpmagazine.com

EDITORIAL INTERN

R achel Warren

Having worked in print advertising for nearly eight years, Kristen Miller felt it was a natural fit to join the RSVP team as an account executive. Kristen, who lives in Arlington with her husband and four children, loves to cook, fish, watch college and Arlington Tigers football, spend time with her family and advertising, of course.

For advertising information contact Roy Haithcock Phone (901) 276-7787, ext. 101 Fax (901) 276-7785 e-mail publisher@rsvpmagazine.com WEB

www.rsvpmagazine.com For editorial information or to request coverage of an event, please contact RSVP Magazine one month prior to the event.

Call 901-276-7787, ext. 105 or fax to 901-276-7785. e-mail editor@rsvpmagazine.com Follow us on

RSVP Memphis Magazine

Copyright 2013 Haithcock Communications, Inc.

RACHEL WARREN, EDITORIAL INTERN 901.276.7787, EXT. 108 rachel@rsvpmagazine.com

Rachel is passionate about print media and has covered many local events in Jackson, Mississippi in the past. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Millsaps College, and in 2011, she moved back to her hometown of Memphis.

She is delighted to be part of the RSVP team as an editorial intern. She loves writing about all the amazing people and places in Memphis, enjoying a great book and chasing a good story.

From the Editor

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here has the summer gone? It seems like just yesterday that I was planning for the Fourth of July and picking peaches, and now I’m getting caught in school zones in the morning and seeing advertisements for Halloween décor in the Pottery Barn catalog.

Maybe time has flown by because I’ve been having so much fun, but the reality is that in today’s world there are so many distractions, from the oversaturation of technological gadgets and social media to constant professional and personal engagements, that I must make it a priority to stop and smell the roses (or gardenias, since in my opinion they smell nicer) every once in a while.

For instance, when I came home from work the other night, I was met with an unusual sight that normally wouldn’t faze the average person, except for the fact that this sight doesn’t normally have time to happen at my house. The sight, or what I first thought was a mirage, was one of my husband sitting on the front porch reading, for pleasure mind you.

Most nights are spent hurriedly deciding who’s going to make dinner, then gobbling it down and finally going over either work or household matters before hitting the hay. He could tell I had a look of disbelief when I saw him from the end of the sidewalk, and just responded, “We never get to enjoy our porch anymore.” I agreed, and vowed then and there to slow down and carve out more time for relaxation and engaging in personal interests or hobbies.

One such interest I had as a teenager entailed making pastries and cakes with my sister. We quite enjoyed coming up with the best lemon square recipe and designing the most decadent cake our novice baker brains could muster, and our creations must have tasted and looked professional enough because we sold some of them at offices during the summer and to our mother’s friends at Christmas. As many things go as one gets older, I kind of put aside my hobby, but I have always yearned to get back to it, and even took a fondant class at Sweetwise in Germantown about a year ago with that same sister.

All of this leads me to this month’s StreetSeen feature of Mariechen “RiRi” McGruder on page 22. McGruder helped start the West Tennessee Sugar Artists Sugar Show and Competition—an event and organization I had no clue existed until recently. And ironically, the group’s meetings take place at Sweetwise, which I didn’t know until I interviewed McGruder. The sugar artists involved in this organization are truly gifted and passionate about their craft and are more than willing to share their know-how with others. Not only am I motivated by them, but who knows, maybe I’ve got my hobby back, and maybe you’ll be inspired to go out and get yours back, too.

Leah Fitzpatrick editor@rsvpmagazine.com Editor’s Corrections: *On page 54 of the July issue, the RSVPast picture should have read that the photo was taken at the Pink Palace, and not the Claridge House Condominiums. *On page 62 of the August issue, the Onsite III story entitled “ParTee with the Gurus” should have read that Stefan Smith is an owner of Lexus of Memphis, and not Rob Akins.

President & CEO, Greater Memphis Chamber

Hometown: Born on a U.S. Army base in Stuttgart, Germany, I spent a lot of time moving during my childhood as an Army brat. Even though I lived in St. Louis on four different occasions, I’ve lived in Memphis longer than any other place and proudly consider it to be my hometown.

Who Inspires You: My wife, Barbara. I’ve watched her struggle through breast cancer and then her spinal cord injury. She faces everything calmly and courageously and just keeps going.

Biggest Pet Peeve: I have no patience for people who say something can’t be done. To me that means they don’t want to try.

First Car You Drove: I worked hard to buy my first car, a $400 1967 Dodge Dart. It was white with a black top and red interior! I sacked a lot of groceries to pay for that car.

Best Memphis Hangout: That’s easy—home. I spent 28 years of my life in the airline industry, in jobs ranging from flight attendant to a senior executive at Northwest Airlines. When you’ve traveled as much as I have, slept in countless hotel rooms and gone out “on the town’” all over the world, there truly is no better place than home.

Coolest Thing About Memphis: Everything! When Elvis Presley came back from serving in the Army, he was asked what he missed most about Memphis, and that’s what he said, “everything.” I know just what he meant. The people, the food, the scenery, the trees, air, water!

Something You’ll Never Live Down: I think it would be my first year of college. I was the first in my family to have the opportunity to go to college, and when I look back on that, I always wish I could’ve done better.

One Goal You’d Still Like to Accomplish: I would like to be a part of helping create a future for Memphis–the future we all want and all know can be. I don’t mean this to sound too Pollyanna-ish, but all my experiences and all that’s happened in my life have brought me to Memphis; I know what needs to happen, and I’m hoping to spend the rest of my career helping to make it happen.

Photo by Steve Roberts

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John W. Moore

EVENT

Dreamgivers Gala Thanking World War II Veter ans

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Jean and Cecil Brunson

Eric and Lauren Ware

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hile June 6 may not hold great significance to some, it’s a day that veterans of World War II will never forget. From June 3-9, 2014, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day, a group of about 15 veterans who fought in Normandy, France will revisit the historic battleground. Funds raised at the fourth annual Dreamgivers Gala, held at Hilton Memphis by the Forever Young Senior Wish Organization, a nonprofit honoring senior veterans, will be used to cover expenses for the trip, which costs about $4,000 per veteran.

During the cocktail hour, guests perused the silent auction items, which included Elvis memorabilia, handmade blanket and throws, as well as gift baskets galore. Dinner service began with a salad of mixed greens, followed by an entrée of steak and chicken, served with mashed potatoes and green beans almondine.

Guests enjoyed dessert, a choice of cheesecake or chocolate cake, as the program began. A YouTube video of veterans, ranging in age from 85-96, doing a dance called the “Harlem Shuffle” got the night started on a humorous note. Then, Dr. Rice Drewry, son of WWII veteran Bill Drewry, played the guitar and sang a song he wrote entitled “When They Were Young” while a video was shown which featured pictures of battle scenes and portraits of some of the soldiers during their time of service.

A new award, created in honor of Jack Taylor, a volunteer who helped raise more than $40,000, was presented to Dr. Luanne May Cox, when she was named Volunteer of the Year. Diane Hight, Forever Young’s founder, presented the award during a tearful speech. “I just couldn’t do this without her,” Hight said.

Emotions seem to run high for many who encounter this group of heroic Americans. Grant Short and his wife, Patricia, were among those in attendance at the event. Short works at Medtronic, where in addition to his duties as principal quality engineer he also serves as director of the company’s program called Veteran Employees Resource Group. Short says he has heard incredible tales from the veterans. “When you hear some of the stories they tell, it brings tears to your eyes,” he said.

Teachers from Lakeland and Arlington Elementary Schools were recognized during the event for their efforts in raising more than $10,000. That money also will be used to fund the trip—the third of its kind—because a medical team and family members must travel with the group of veterans. “These are not vacations, but trips of healing,” said Hight.

See all the party photos at rsvpmagazine.com Password: RSVP

Howard Lee and Diane Hight

Story by Suzanne Thompson Photos by Baxter Buck

Rosha Harris and Sandra Moak

Kathryn Green and Mollie Tatum

Morgan Furr and Chris Hibbs

Cliff and Sherri Rowell

Dwight Harned, Pat Isbell and Anita and Steve Burkett

Daniel and Sarah Hight

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Sandra and Roger Lewis

Roy and Sheliah Thrash

Jordan Ross and Mallie Dennis

Rob and Karen Jamison

Frank and Sheryl McPhail

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Dick and Suzi Jacob

Alex and Gail Duron

Phil and Florence Hollis

Byron and Cindy Phillips

Rodney and Judi Gray

Tom and Debby Stephens

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Jeff and Cyndee Ross with Beverly and Howard Carman

Vicki and Fred Stringer

Charles Ondo and Susan Hoover

Angela Brunson and Dave Slatinsky

Everette Bowie and Janis Risley

Pat Laughlin and Hayes Laughlin Jr.

Liz and Dr. Lloyd Thomas

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THE AMBASSADOR SERIES

The Ambassador Series

By Eugene Pidgeon

GENE GILL: A MODEL CITIZEN

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how me your garden, and I will tell you what you are.” This quote by Alfred Austin, a poet laureate of England in the 19th century, may do more to illuminate the relationship between human and nature than does the measure of his entire body of work. Metaphorically, it makes clear how the most aesthetically pleasing roses cannot be grown without first tending to the physics of soil and water.

Native Memphian Gene Gill applies these physics to make his garden flourish, however his isn’t one of flowers. The 80-year-old Gill, a retired high school art teacher who moved to California in 1958, tends to a garden of miniature historical landmark buildings, typically made of styrene, a type of moldable plastic, and anything from glass, wood and paper, from his Pasadena home.

(It is worth noting that history is a theme that carries over into Gill’s side endeavor, which is running a site called historic-memphis.com—first used as an outlet to talk about the former Memphis Tech High School, and now about everything pertaining to his hometown of long ago.)

The artist inside Gill emerged at an early age, but as he became an adult the evolution of his creative aspirations would be challenged. “I realized I wanted to be an artist when I was in junior high school at Fairview,” he says. “I wanted to go to the Art Institute of Chicago after graduating from Memphis State. But, there was no money. So out of frustration, I joined the Navy just so I could access the G.I. Bill and acquire the funds necessary to go to art school.”

Gill outlines the arc of his difficult journey by suggesting there was not much of an understanding of his desire to be an artist by his family. He shares, “My parents had almost no education. I had three brothers who dropped out of school.”

Pausing, Gill reflects, “I was the only one who liked and wanted an education. My family wasn’t equipped to understand what I was doing, so they could neither outwardly support nor criticize my choices. But, I think secretly they were proud.”

Gill found his way into art school at The Chouinard Art Institute, currently known as The California Institute of the Arts, and into a trajectory that would override any desire to cultivate a social life. He says, “I decided a long time ago that marriage was not for me because I knew my art was something I had to do, and would

require all of my attention. And, I have always been a loner. I really don’t think my decisions have cost me anything. In fact, I think I have been given so much more.”

Gill is as steadfast to his artistic disposition as is any fragile and tiny swallow that remains compelled by the very same instinct to return every year to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano (Gill’s model pictured below) in California. The only difference is the bird has no choice. It cannot say, “Look fellas, SJC is socked in and foggy…let’s turn and head back to Cabo.”

Gill can make the choice whether he will admit it or not.

With a surgeon’s tact and eye, Gill is a craftsman of intricately and precisely detailed miniature facsimiles of historic edifices and landmarks. Gill’s handmade recreations are Lilliputian and are not simply micro-representations of the larger structure. They are porous and breathing just as the homes and buildings were that punctuated the land and provinces of the “tiny people” encountered by Gulliver in his travels. Gulliver/Gilliver? Now, that’s a thought.

Here is a fact. Gill’s miniature recreations are on average not more than three and a half inches in size. He builds only one at a time and only one of a kind, and this according to his own whimsy. His first landmark miniature was constructed in 1992, and he thinks it might have been the Taj Mahal. It was inspired by a desire to create, as he explains it, “a personal 3-D scrapbook of my travels around the world.”

As a kid, Gill never had a model train. So a few years before fully committing to creating the miniatures, he had an idea. “I put a train under my Christmas tree and had it going around the world, and I built little models of the various

buildings I’ve seen around the world,” he says. “They were very crude because I wasn’t serious! But as I started building them, I thought this is fun, and no one else has done this before.”

In 1992, when he first began to model seriously, Gill relates how he spent a couple of weeks building his Taj Mahal. “I took my time on this one, and it looked great. But, I spent six months modeling the U.S. Capitol. I had a contact in Washington who sent me the actual revised modern blueprints to work from. I built the dome out of a rubber ball,” he chuckles in amazement. “And that was working almost every day, 10 hours a day from morning until night.” In 21 years, Gill has created over 250 miniatures!

For the Taj Mahal, Gill remembers having to construct it by photos and from memory. But for almost every building and landmark Gill recreates in miniature, he has traveled to the physical location and studied the structure from every angle. He knows the scientific difference between the composition matter found in the brick and mortar framework of the ancient ruins of the Marketplace in Leptis Magna, Libya and the Palace of Knossos in Crete.

Conversely, he has studied the artistic and religious differences that mark and identify—the pagan beliefs as well as the implications of early Christian folklore represented by the gargoyles adorning the parapets of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the first Hadrian Temple at Ephesus in Turkey.

Gill’s garden of miniatures unfolds as a cogent illustration of a universe that in itself is durable and large enough for all of us and small enough for each of us.

This is realized when you pair his miniatures of the Lincoln Memorial side by side with the Lenin Mausoleum, or the Jade Buddha Temple in Bangkok with the statue of Christ the Redeemer standing vigil over Rio de Janeiro.

And, if one wonders what Alfred Austin would say about the garden of Gene Gill today, it would probably be along the lines of “Well done my boy. Well done indeed!”

For information on how to view or even purchase his miniatures, go to genegillminiatures.com/index.html.

To make a suggestion or pitch a story idea to Eugene, feel free to e-mail him at eugenepidgeon@rsvpmagazine.com.

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STREETSEEN

Anne Weiss Dog Lover with Purpose

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hen leading her therapy dog, Teva, through Apple Grove Living, a residence for those with Alzheimer’s and dementia, Anne Weiss can’t help but be stopped by those wanting to interact with Teva, and that’s just the point. “Can I pet her?” and “Can I take her home with me?” they ask. Weiss happily obliges anyone who wants to rub Teva, but those who ask the second question only get a smile, as Weiss knows the tiny canine as soft as cotton will continue to be in her care so that it can bring joy to more people. See, Weiss and Teva are one of nearly 30 volunteer teams that visit the airport, hospitals, the Shelby County Juvenile Detention Center, libraries, nonprofits, retirement communities and schools under the auspices of West Tennessee Therapy Dogs (WTTD).

Now president of the soon-to-be nonprofit group, Weiss helped found it two and a half years ago, but she mentions that some members have more than 12 years of experience with therapy dogs. More importantly, she addresses the common confusion between service and therapy dogs by explaining that service dogs are trained to help an owner and his/her specific need, whereas a therapy dog goes everywhere to give happiness to people in many different situations.

Those benefits of a therapy dog include providing a sense of calmness and comfort to someone with anxiety or maybe who has a sick family member, offering companionship to a lonely or depressed individual and lowering people’s blood pressure, which Weiss says has been proven. As far as kids go, therapy dogs can be used to help educate them about non-aggressive behavior toward a dog, like during a visit to a juvenile detention facility, or maybe used to relax children who have difficulty reading, like at the one of the group’s R.E.A.D. program outings.

“We are out seven days a week at different places and have a waiting list to go to more,” the WTTD president points out.

With four new teams to be added to the WTTD roster by the end of August, one would think the number of sites on the waiting list could be reduced, but Weiss acknowledges that people come and go because their dogs get old and retire. In fact, she has had three therapy dogs of her own prior to finding and training Teva, a member of the Coton de Tuléar breed—just one example of many that can be successfully trained as a therapy dog. A dog of almost any breed can actually be used in animal assisted therapy, as long as it exhibits friendliness toward dogs and people, obeys commands and shows neutrality toward commotion or objects including wheelchairs and walkers, to name a few qualifications. After a year old, a dog can start training, and afterward, all WTTD dogs must be registered by one of three national organizations: Pet Partners, Therapy Dogs International or Therapy Dogs Inc. “The dogs in WTTD are diverse, which makes for a nice group,” Weiss shares. “For example, we have a rare breed called a puli, a cane corso, a pug, a labradoodle [pictured at right with Teva] and we had the number one and number two lapphunds in the country for a while.”

Weiss tries to place each team, which consists of an owner and one therapy dog, in a setting both enjoy, and soon enough, owners find out if a dog likes to be around toddlers and children, seniors or any age group. No matter where a team goes, Weiss knows firsthand that the experience can be a life-changing one and welcomes anyone interested in learning more about WTTD to go to westtntherapydogs.org to begin leading a dog on a purposeful path.

Story by Leah Fitzpatrick Photo by Steve Roberts

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STREETSEEN

Mariechen “RiRi” McGruder Encouraging Sugar Artists

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ariechen “RiRi” McGruder enjoyed baking ever since she was a child, but it wasn’t until a friend urged her to decorate cakes 10 years ago that the sugar artist inside McGruder emerged. With that encouragement, McGruder signed up at Hobby Lobby for cake decorating classes using the renowned Wilton Method, which has helped novices learn how to fashion cakes for 85 years, and today she is the one versed in everything from creating a gelatin Cinderella slipper to making gumpaste parrot tulips, such as the ones atop the cake pictured at far right. But, most of all, she’s happy to share her talent and promote that of new and seasoned sugar artists at the West Tennessee Sugar Artists (WTSA) Sugar Show and Competition, scheduled for September 5-7 during the Delta Fair & Music Festival at Agricenter International; see westtnsugarartists.org for info on the show and the group’s regular meetings at Sweetwise.

This will mark the second year of the show, which came about after McGruder saw the Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show in Tulsa. Highly inspired, she set out to coordinate a program in Memphis to showcase the incredible, not to mention tasty, art form that is the sugar arts—a term used to describe anything done with or in sugar—by initiating talks with someone at the Delta Fair almost when the fair began. Two years ago she started discussing it in more depth with her fair contact, knowing that a sugar show could bring in a whole other crowd and add depth. Given the go for a two-day show last year, McGruder, with the help of fellow WTSA members, dove into the endeavor with gusto, but she’s even more excited about this go-round, as the group has been given three days to hold the show (on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday instead of a Tuesday and Wednesday like last year) and a more desirable location in Exhibit Wing A. “We’re going to be in the center of where everyone is going by,” McGruder says with a smile, “and I’m happy that Jay Qualls out of Nashville, who was just named by Brides Magazine as one of the top 100 cake designers in America, tenatively plans to be one of the judges of the cake decorating competition.”

Boasting a theme of “Pin It to Cake,” the competition will kick off the festivities with youth, novice, skilled, professional and extreme decorators having their turn at designing the best original cake, using elements from three photos from a personal Pinterest account, for the chance to win cash and cake-related prizes. For instance, McGruder says if someone has a wine and cheese board on Pinterest, he or she could utilize wine bottles as pillars and decorate the rest of the cake as a certain type of cheese, whether by texture, color or modeling a type of cheese and putting it on the cake. McGruder will enter the contest herself and plans to embrace the judges’ feedback.

“You get a chance to talk to the judge, and it’s not that they’re criticizing your work, but they can show you how to do something better—I learned more in 15 minutes last year than in all my years of baking,” she tells.

The other two days entail adult classes and demos by vendors and WTSA members, of which president Harriet Cobb, who did the cake in the middle of the pic at right, will conduct a youth basic cake decorating class. Speaking of youth, McGruder maintains a particular fondness for the show’s beneficiary.

“Our charity last year and this year is Shelby County 4-H, and I chose them mainly because I’ve seen what they have done for kids in Shelby County with public speaking and learning how to set goals and evaluate them,” McGruder says, as she ponders the steps she’ll take to execute her cake design and prepare for her demo on gelatin slippers.

Story by Leah Fitzpatrick Photo by Steve Roberts

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EVENT

Spirit of SRVS

SPIRIT OF SRVS

Benefiting SRVS and People with Disabilities

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Fran and Denise Glasco

Bernard Farber and Natalie Boyatt

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hough many declare the 16th birthday a sweet one, for Shelby Residential and Vocational Services it seemed like the same could be said for the organization’s 15th year of Spirit of SRVS, judging by the number of attendees standing wall-to-wall at Hilton Memphis.

Guest Memphis City Councilman Bill Boyd even went so far as to say he thought that the crowd was the largest ever for Spirit of SRVS, which has come to be known for its abundance of quality auction items and wine and food tasting stations.

Chaired by couples Jeany and Anthony Dionne and Cindy and Russ Mire, the benefit had a welcoming committee that consisted of some of those engaged in SRVS’ services, which include SRVS Industries, Inc., a learning center and community living, to name a few. These amazing individuals handed out colorful programs featuring a copy of the seventh annual commemorative artwork, a painting executed by artist David Lynch that happened to be auctioned off during the live auction later that night. With the silent/live auction procedures and schedule of events in hand, guests made their way into the Tennessee Ballroom to peruse the extensive goodies up for grabs, which included everything from gift certificates to popular local eateries and two club level tickets for the Grizzlies and Chicago Bulls matchup to a “Girls Night Out” experience at More Therapy and a French wine collection.

Speaking of wine, partygoers could chip in $20 for a wine pull or for a one-of-a-kind wine glass hand-painted by an SRVS participant before entering the ballroom, a space chock full of vino and the connoisseurs who promoted the different varietals. WKQK-FM’s Steve Conley, who shared emcee and auctioneer duties alongside WMC-TV 5’s Joe Birch and Ron Childers, happily sipped on vino from California’s Morgan Winery as he mingled, while event volunteer Kelli Polatty poured up Opici wines out of Italy. Having volunteered at Spirit of SRVS last year, Polatty had so much fun that she wanted to do it again, and she admits that this year’s experience was made even more meaningful by the fact that her employer, Entira Inc., is an event sponsor that works with SRVS for fulfillment of the company’s products.

Beer was also on the menu, with sips from Ghost River Brewing, as was food, which included fare such as pulled pork tacos and bleu cheese stuffed dates from Hog Wild Catering and soup in mini bread bowls from Panera Bread. Entertainment rounded out the festivities with dance performances by Andre Thomas of SRVS Industries and Company d, not to mention musical numbers by pianist/singer Eddie Harrison and saxophonist Dr. Bill Hurd. All this excitement helped get everyone in the giving mood, with more than $150,000 raised for SRVS to continue enhancing the lives of people with disabilities in Shelby County.

Ree Liverance and Jack Connell

Sherry Brooks and Greg Rhodes

Story by Leah Fitzpatrick Photos by Don Perry See all the party photos at rsvpmagazine.com Password: RSVP Lester Brown and Ann Dandridge

Alyson and Aaron Edwards

Gary Smith and Betty Hays

Keva Robbins, Deanna Jones, Susan Springfield and Janice Ray

Henry and Cynthia Ware

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Joyce Peterson, Joy Bateman and Karen Perrin

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Micky Clippard, Carol Duffy and Patty Anderson

Whitney Jo, Lynn Phillips and Michael Detroit

EVENT SPIRIT OF SRVS

Joe and Robin Birch

Zach and Katie Pearson

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Bobby and Melissa Taylor

Kevin and Katie Higdon

Lindsey McGrew Hammond and Josh Hammond

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Pam Davis and Mark Hatgas

Heather Lawrence and Becky Haberberger

Patty Brigance, Christy Yarbro and Jeany Dionne

Sarkis and Jenny Kish

Kathy Myers and Chris Hayes

Donna Lillard and Cindy McKnight

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Vox Popular Q&A with Dr. Stephen Edge

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RSVP: Why were you interested in becoming the director of the Baptist Cancer Center?

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Dr. Edge: Well, for the past 14 years, I’ve been working in the area of evaluating the quality of cancer care. And, I’ve been working from an academic standpoint on understanding how care is delivered across the community. I wanted the opportunity to develop a community-wide program, and actually a regional-wide program. So, another way of saying it is I was doing what we call health services research— understanding how health services are delivered and how we are going to apply health services research. In other words, we’re going to be putting into place models across a large region to enhance the quality of cancer care, and therefore, the outcomes of people with cancer. The Baptist program offers a really unique model to do it because not only does it have a campus here in Memphis, but what many people in Memphis really don’t recognize or know is that the Baptist system has hospitals, physicians, nurses and other professionals in facilities across a 250-mile radius, extending from northeastern Arkansas through the Golden Triangle in Mississippi. Of course, the populations of people it serves are very different from the people of Memphis.

Anyway, what attracted me about here was the ability to take on the challenge of developing a regional cancer care network, not just a cancer center or building in Memphis.

RSVP: What are some ways you prepared for this position?

Dr. Edge: When you take on a new position, it’s always about a new challenge from a personal standpoint, and I feel like I’ve been preparing for this kind of position for a number of years. I feel like I’m a fairly good authority in my particular area, which is breast cancer, but I’ve also become an authority in understanding quality

Photos by Don Perry

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ccording to the American Cancer Society’s Memphis chapter, 35,610 new cancer cases were diagnosed in Tennessee in 2012, and that number is expected to increase in coming years. After hearing figures like those, it seems that Baptist Memorial Health Care’s decision to break ground on a new cancer center building near the Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis campus this past July is all the more relevant, and to boot, a new cancer center will open in Jonesboro, Arkansas in November. To lead this next phase, Dr. Stephen Edge has been selected as the director of the Baptist Cancer Center—part of the not-for-profit Baptist health care system that boasts 14 affiliate hospitals across West Tennessee, East Arkansas and North Mississippi. Dr. Edge comes to Baptist having most recently served as the chair in breast oncology in the department of surgical oncology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, and has experience in cancer care research and national policy development also. Though the new cancer center building in Memphis won’t open until sometime in 2014, Dr. Edge, who met with RSVP editor Leah Fitzpatrick just four days after he took on this role, stressed that the Baptist Cancer Center is up and running today and remains committed to being transparent and to continually improving the efficiency and quality of care to patients of all backgrounds.

of care. My interpersonal skills have improved through the years so that I understand that really developing this program is just as much about helping people achieve their visions, and not about making people help me achieve mine. Each person who works in the Baptist system understands the need to work with others to achieve the greater good, but if you simply tell them to make their dreams secondary to your dreams or ambitions, it doesn’t work.

RSVP: What are some immediate concerns you have since coming on board?

Dr. Edge: I think bringing together groups of excellent physicians, who have worked independently, to work together more as a team, and improving that team and working on its coordination. I think it’s not just true at Baptist in Memphis, but it’s true all across the medical community here. Certainly, many people have recognized the need to go to integrated systems so you don’t have to repeat many steps and actually get lost in the cracks and have things delayed because you’re having to go to many different places. The Baptist Cancer Center program will be looking to integrate services across the whole spectrum of cancer care from the time when someone is being screened for cancer—a mammography screening, a colonoscopy screening, a cervical cancer screening, a lung cancer screening—to the time when someone is diagnosed and actually treated, and even all through treatment and the survivorship phase. Baptist has made an enormous organizational and financial commitment to building those kinds of programs. The organization is committed to having a unified medical record across all of its sites, so there will be one medical record whether you go to Baptist in Arkansas, Mississippi or a private office in Cordova. Your doctor, your nurse, your staff will open the same electronic medical record; it’s not that they’ll have to ask for your records to be shifted around. Baptist has also made the organi-

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zational commitment to standardizing care across the whole network. We have made a commitment to providing information to patients through patient portals, where patients will have access to electronic information. I’ve only been here for four days, so I don’t know the exact extent to which that’s being done now, but moving forward, there will be an increasing amount of information that people will have available to them. There’s been a big commitment to report to the public what we’ve been doing, how we’re doing it, how well we’re doing it and what we’re doing to continuously make things better.

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Dr. Edge: We’re hoping to bring together the different cancer or oncology disciplines to work together to make care higher quality, transparent, patient-centered—give the patient more control, more information and more comfort about the care they’re receiving—by having the physicians of different disciplines all work together in the same location.

We use the term multi-disciplinary care. So, we hope to enhance that within many different areas in that system. At the moment, that will be primarily organized around individual organ sites: a breast multi-disciplinary cancer program, a colorectal cancer program, a gynecologic oncology program, a thoracic oncology program or a leukemia lymphoma program. There are two or three of those functioning well already. The most notable is the lung cancer thoracic oncology program that has a very well formed team that sees patients together and is conducting clinical search trials and providing very coordinated care for those patients with lung cancer; that group has a major national research grant to look at how they can improve quality not just here at Baptist East, but across the whole region of West

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RSVP: What are some different cancer programs you’re hoping to implement?

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Tennessee and not just in the Baptist system. We’re looking at understanding some of the factors around how to improve lung cancer surgery. There’s a major federal grant to study that, and there’s another major grant under review right now to look at patient-centered outcomes research—to look at research to understand patients and how we can improve our customer relations. That program is probably the most mature, but the breast cancer program is really forming up nicely right now with some new recruits.

RSVP: What might our readers be surprised to know about working in cancer care in general?

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Dr. Edge: What I’ve learned is that people who work in a cancer center tend to be pretty special people. Most people say, “Oh, you work in a cancer center…that must be so depressing,” but I tell them they’re wrong. Actually, working in a cancer center is one of the most uplifting things you can do, and the people who come to work in a cancer center tend to recognize that. Everybody says you’ve got to be there to support the cancer patients, but what you actually learn is that almost the reverse is true—the cancer patients end up supporting us. They want people to treat them honestly, professionally and with empathy for what’s happened to them, but we’ll also treat them like people. What people find when they want walk into a cancer center is that they’re surrounded by people who understand cancer on a daily basis.

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RSVP: How many cancer patients does the Baptist network currently treat, and how many will it be able to treat when the new cancer center building opens in Memphis and the new one opens in Jonesboro, Arkansas?

Dr. Edge: Across the network, it’s almost hard to say exactly what

number of cancer patients there are because you have to define what you mean—who’s a new cancer patient, etc. The very best way to measure it is by how many people the center treats with newly diagnosed cancers each year and people who have had cancer before and now have a recurrence of cancer. I can’t say off the top of my head how many visits we’ve had by individuals with cancer, but we treat about 4,500 individuals newly diagnosed with cancer. To put that into context, the very large cancer center [the Roswell Park Cancer Institute] that I came from treated 3,500, but it was only one physical place. To put that into further context, one of the very biggest cancer centers in the U.S., MD Anderson, treats something like 10,000. So, we’re pretty big in that regard. By doing this [building new cancer center buildings], we will certainly enhance our capacity and also enhance the efficiency for those people who do have cancer.

RSVP: Is there any type of cancer on the rise that you’ve noticed?

Dr. Edge: Certainly lung cancer is increasing, and this area, unfortunately, is a real focal area for lung cancer, both because of the prevalence of smoking and the disparities in access to care. In the populations that have trouble with access to good care, they tend to present the later stages [of cancer]. Breast cancer is a common problem everywhere.

RSVP: Doesn’t Baptist now have an academic affiliation with Vanderbilt University?

Dr. Edge: Yes, we do, and now let’s get to what’s really happening in oncology. One of the things that’s really happening in oncology is the ability to really understand the basic biologic mechanisms, or things happening in cancer cells that make them cancer cells.

Throughout the last 14 or 15 years, there’s just been an explosion of

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waste. There has been a number of teams from Vanderbilt that have come here for full-day visits, and a number of teams from here who have gone to Vanderbilt. This collaboration will bring to the people of West Tennessee really exciting, new approaches to cancer treatment—approaches that will be more specific to the cancer they have so they’re more likely to have treatments that are less toxic to them with less side effects than they’re currently facing, and hopefully provide real hope for the future.

Dr. Edge: I think we’ll have a public outreach program and educational program that will probably disproportionately try to focus on people who are more socioeconomically disadvantaged and their specific needs. Baptist has always had a commitment for that and wants to promote the newly proven effectiveness of lung cancer screenings and assure that people have access to them.

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RSVP: I heard that Baptist wants to educate the community more about cancer risks and prevention. What are some ways it plans to do so?

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understanding of what drives cancer cells, and particularly, in the last five to 10 years, it’s been really based on the work of the Human Genome Project. That is now leading to very specific treatments for very specific alterations in cancer cells. The world’s leading institution in the area of genomics based treatments is Vanderbilt University. If people want to read more about it, they should go to mycancergenome.org. Vanderbilt recognizes the need to provide broader based access to exciting, new therapies that it is developing and that its collaborators around the world are developing, and recognized in the Baptist system the ability to make those treatments available to a broader network of patients. Baptist recognized that to be able to have high quality oncology care that it needs to provide these new therapies, so the two organizations see a synergism there and a partnership for bringing clinical research studies with these new therapies to a broad population. It’s a very strong collaboration, and a meaningful collaboration. The leader of that program has spent two full days in Memphis in the last two months, and that’s someone who does not have a lot of time to

EVENT

Blues on the Bluff

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Rockin’ on the River

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BLUES ON THE BLUFF

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resh watermelon and cold beer kept WEVL (“WE VoLunteer”) 89.9 FM fans from noticing the heat so much at this year’s Blues on the Bluff®, an annual live concert held on the National

Ornamental Metal Museum grounds overlooking the Mississippi River. Always timed to start about an hour before sunset, everything and everyone was on cue for the benefit’s 25th anniversary.

Music included the Eric Deaton Trio, Elmo & the Shades, Shannon McNally and The Bo-Keys, featuring Percy Wiggins and

Allen and Kay Leathers

John Gary Williams. Barbecue was provided by Central BBQ, beer by

Jay Clevenger and Ann Cash

St. Louis’ Schlafly brewery and donations for the silent auction from all kinds of local businesses. “We have a Lamar Sorrento painted on the back of an old fence complete with a little dried Virginia Creeper vine,” said station manager and event co-producer Judy Dorsey. Flatscreen TVs, his and her matching cruiser bicycles and, of course, music were some of the other items available for supporters to bid S E P T E M B E R 2 013

on to take home.

Longtime WEVL listener Nicki Newburger wouldn’t have missed the concert. A Midtowner, Newburger said, “I can’t live without WEVL. I never miss a ‘FlowRadio’ show on Monday nights [from 6-8 p.m.], and I love what Adam Hohenberg is doing with music from films. I have my car radio tuned into WEVL pretty much George Wheeler and Debbie Coy

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Bennet Slater and Meghan Watermeier

all the time.”

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Despite the typical Memphis summer humidity, Dorsey said folks in the know realize the shade and breeze offered by the benefit’s location. “We have these giant shade trees, which are at least 150 to 200 years old, and the breeze from the river,” she added.

“People don’t realize until they come down here that it’s 10 degrees cooler than anywhere else in Memphis. It’s a quintessential Memphis event, and we’ve got a nice crowd of people.”

See all the party photos at rsvpmagazine.com Password: RSVP

Story by Lesley Young Photos by Baxter Buck

Marie and John Stevens

Debbie and Sid Byrd

Nancy and Murphy Appling

Cliff Dunkum and Lacy Jones with Elizabeth and Michael Spinola

Audra and Ryan Watt

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Ken and Ruth Blackburn

Morgan Grow and Jody Moyt

Espi Ralston and Louisa Madero

Matt and Andrea Lum

Sarah Long and Jonathan Cushman

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Marie Snyder and Ava Middleton

Carly Knight and Lewis Lyons

Andrea and Johnny Weaver with Megan Weaver

Nicki Newburger and Lesley Young

Linda Orton and Margie Armour

James Mertzluff and Carol McCrudden

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Whitney Joy with Russell and Brenda Joy

Tim Taylor and Megan Hanna

Scott and Kim Jenkins

Greg and Haylie Geske

Jean and Travis Smith

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Angela and Joe Fox

Kathy Story and Maury Ballenger

John Paul Stevens and Emma Whitley

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BLUES ON THE BLUFF Gloria Dodds, Meghan Brown and Robbie Britt

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AJ Northrop, Lynn Beegle and Walker Stahnke

Judith Rutschman and Bill Runyan

Brenda and Jim Pruett

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RSVP ROOM VIEW Interview by Suzanne Thompson | Photos by Steve Roberts

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Top: The rattan sofa is one of 10 items made from wood that Simpson used to decorate the quaint space. Above: A bowl of fresh limes provides a splash of color while items such as the bronze golfer and books add character and give the outdoor room an indoor feel.

usan Simpson’s outdoor room, located in front of the swimming pool in her backyard, has a casual elegance that makes you want to sit down and settle in as soon as you walk into it. When Simpson was shopping for a new home in East Memphis, she immediately saw the potential that the unattached carport had, and it was one of the reasons she decided to purchase the house. A designer herself, it was easy for her to transform the space, which started out with four support beams and a slab of concrete, into a fabulous open family room. Her love of the outdoors also inspired the project. “If I could live in a tent with a hammock and air conditioning, I would,” she adds.

After painting the concrete floor, she got down to business creating the room where she and her children, Edward and Carol, and her husband, Alan Purdie, spend much of their time and often take meals. “With several different tables, everyone has their favorite place to sit,” Simpson says. She purchased the pillows on the porch swing at Crate and Barrel and has bought some things from a few select retail stores, but she got the majority of the room’s contents in other ways. From an old tree trunk, given to her while shopping at Goodwins Nursery, that now serves as an occasional table to things she noticed discarded by the side of the road and repurposed, she has found pieces that create a homey atmosphere. She calls herself a “hunter-gatherer” and has an eye for items that individually may seem quirky, but at Simpson’s hand come together beautifully for her family’s shabby-chic retreat.

Simpson: The light. Briefly we thought about closing it in, but there’s nothing better–even when it rains–than to sit comfy out here. I take my computer out here and work during the summer.

I’m a sucker for the outdoors. And, the Internet works better out here than anywhere in the house.

RSVP: How did you decide what direction to go in when you selected décor for this room?

have lived for 40 years. Most of my projects are not showrooms. I lean much more toward things that are comfortable and unexpected–curious objects.

RSVP: Where else did you find the things that you put in the room?

Simpson: I’m a total collector of vintage–anything really–and I found the flag at a place in Taylor, Mississippi, and it covered one wall, so I thought, “Okay, we’ve got to get neutrals.” So, I started looking for the biggest sofa I could find, and started layering after that. I love things with a story, and the more layers I have, the richer the stories.

Simpson: The bamboo poles that hold the curtains, I cut down in South Carolina and dried them and brought them back. That was an experience. The birdcage I also found in Taylor, Mississippi, and I had planned to turn it into a lamp, but I changed my mind. Now, it lives its life as a candleholder. The bamboo chair came from T.J. Maxx believe it or not, a couple of the chairs came from Ikea and some things came from Sheffield Antiques in Collierville. I love to shop there.

RSVP: Why did you build the room around the flag?

RSVP: What do you do with the room in the winter?

Simpson: It’s graphic and bold. It’s from the ’20s, and someone mended it at some time. I think a section of it was torn off, and a section was added to it. It’s my most favorite thing, and I respect it and love it. I love tradition and history.

Simpson: For three months, the room is covered, and most of the things come inside–the flag first. Even the plants come inside, and they love it out here. By February, we are itching to get back out there. The concrete table with the glass top belonged to my parents and is so heavy it takes five people to move, so it stays out here and probably will go to the next lucky homeowner.

RSVP: Did you assemble the décor all at one time?

Simpson: No. We keep adding pieces. My husband painted the porch swing and gave it to me last year for Christmas, and I picked up the pillows at Crate and Barrel. I had a big teak table that I knew would go out there. I found the sofa and the chairs in North Carolina and started thinking about things to cover the open areas between the support beams with, so I used outdoor fabric to create an enclosure. Two indoor/outdoor navy rugs soften the painted concrete and encourage bare feet, dripping from the pool even.

RSVP: Do you put everything back in the same place when you open the room in the spring?

Simpson: Oh, no. Every closet in my home is a prop closet. And, I have a warehouse full of stuff. I am constantly moving and styling things. My real calling, I think, is to be a stylist. It’s the vignettes of the glasses and the bottles and the fruit that I love.

RSVP: How do you decide what pieces to pick up or purchase?

RSVP: The chandelier–it seems incongruent with an outdoor room.

Simpson: I know, but I use the room like it’s an indoor room. So, I thought why not have a nice chandelier? It’s a reproduction of a historic chandelier in Charleston, South Carolina, where my parents

Simpson: Some people have an inner voice that says, “No, you shouldn’t be doing that.” I have one that says, “You need to get that. You’re going to find a spot for that.” If you really love something, you’ll find a spot for it.

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RSVP: Why did you decide to keep the space open instead of building walls?

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Far Left: A bamboo chair and tree stump table reflect Simpson's love of wood and provide a comfortable spot to read and relax by the pool. Left: One of several tables scattered around the room is set for al fresco dining and is accented with objects like the green bottle that came from Market Central. Below: Pillows with bright colors and bold patterns cover the porch swing that gives a relaxed feel to one of the seating areas.

EVENT

Wine and Dine

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WINE AND DINE

Benefiting Special Olympics Greater Memphis

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Lisa Taylor and Sloane Taylor

Valerie and Jeff Morris

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uests gathered at the Tower Center in July, bringing with them large appetites and high foodie expectations for the third annual Wine and Dine fund-raiser for Special Olympics Greater Memphis.

Presented by Kirby Wines & Liquors and Chef Chair Ryan Trimm of Sweet Grass, 250 guests clamored at the chance to taste food prepared by some of the most talented chefs in Memphis while enjoying fine wine handpicked to compliment each dish.

Upon arrival, each attendee was greeted with a flute of champagne and directed to the 33rd floor, where chefs from all throughout the city were already serving up delicious signature fare. Ed Finney set the mood, playing smooth jazz as guests bounced from one table to another, trying more than 13 different dishes from rising local chefs and restaurants. Representing ACRE was Chef Andrew Adams, whose mouthwatering hamachi poke with pickled watermelon, shisowhite soy and lotus root had everyone coming back for more. Chef Jody Moyt of Owen Brennan’s kept things interesting with a refreshing twist on seared scallops, serving perfectly pan-seared scallops on top of spicy watermelon relish alongside crisp microgreens. Other favorites included the hot smoked salmon with a kimchi slaw and sweet potato puree from Chef Jeff Dunham of The Grove Grill and a hearty and bright Cioppino made by Chef Sabine Bachmann of Fratelli’s.

Lisa Taylor, the Special Olympics Greater Memphis director, said that the idea for the affair was conceived out of her love for all the chefs present and Kirby Wines & Liquors. The local chapter of the organization strives to provide athletic training and competition in a variety of year-round Olympic style sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Special Olympics athletes presented all chefs and sponsors of Wine and Dine with individual plaques thanking them for their participation as Taylor proudly reminded everyone “that all the money you are raising is going back to them.”

The evening came to a close as people raised more money for this spectacular group by trying their luck in the raffle for several different themed package baskets like the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun basket, which included, among several things, a one-night stay at Harrah’s Tunica, Dolce & Gabbana perfume, a bottle of Francis Ford Coppola Sofia Blanc de Blancs and a box of Godiva chocolates. By night’s end, this fabulous fund-raiser raised some $20,000 for the wonderful athletes of Special Olympics Greater Memphis.

See all the party photos at rsvpmagazine.com Password: RSVP

Lori Tucker and Linda Sparks

Story by Rachel Warren Photos by Baxter Buck

Jackson Kramer and Carrie McPeters

Clarke Carr and Anna Beth Studdard

Lee Lakey and Shaina Guttman

Ben Franklin and Joyce Goodwyn

Arlie Walters, Will Sater and Ryan Trimm

Tracie, Maurice, Ashley and Derrick Earle

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EVENT WINE AND DINE

Ellen Faust and Rachel Sumner

Bernard Farber and Natalie Boyatt

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Mike and Ashley Hinton

Don and Jill Brown

Masha Van Bambost and Katelyn Dagen

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Chip and Noel Brown

Terri Walker and Suzie Bowen

Cobb and Rachel Andrews

Emily and Andrew Adams

Anna Cox and JT Thompson

Carmen A. Jones and Krista Miller

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Be Seen!

Attract an Affluent clientele to your business!

Advertise in RSVP Magazine For information call 276-7787

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EVENT WINE AND DINE

Aubrey and Pat Payne

Kay Rylee and Freddie Young

Mike Fredi and Tomi Beckemeyer

Frank and Judy Strong

Joanna Brown and Robert Miller

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Dottie Moore and Angela Fulton

Dana McWherter, Ginger Honshell, Leigh Anne Brewer and Lorri Tenny RSVP

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Elizabeth and John Sumner

David and Patti Bradford

Jeff and Melissa Goggans

Danny and Cheryl Kingsley

Jessica Lambert, Erling Jensen and Jimmy Gentry

Jody Moyt, Nicholas Rice and Katee Hopper

Melody Martin and Joe Short

ONSITE

Onsite I Dixon Garden Party with Anthropologie The Great Mississippi Whale Watch

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The Dixon Garden Party with Anthropologie showcased the latest in spring and summer ensembles this May at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens’ Hughes Pavilion.

Though the skies were gray outside, inside the pavilion all the fashions, modeled by Anthropologie staff members and their mothers, were sunny and bright. After the show, models like Dena Benjamin, Raven Icaza and Molly Washatka mingled with attendees, who continued to savor delicious noshes from A Catered Affair while listening to the sultry sounds of the Misty Rae Trio and the announcement for the winners of raffle prizes, which included two tickets to the Dixon’s Symphony in the Gardens and an Anthropologie private shopping experience, to name a few.

Story and Photos By Leah Fitzpatrick

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Though no actual whales surfaced on the Mississippi River the night of the Great Mississippi Whale Watch, that didn’t discourage plenty of patrons from declaring, “I saw one!” What they actually saw was an inflatable whale being pulled by a riverboat across the fast-moving current as the sun set on the horizon—still a pretty cool experience to be had by those gathered at this first-time fund-raiser for the National Ornamental Metal Museum.

Several partygoers even got in on the fun by dressing as sailors or pirates, with an inflatable Shamu hanging out in the fountain. Catering For U provided nibbles like “First Mate’s” flank steak sliders, and beer, wine and rum punch were available to help wash the fare down. A colorful fish and seahorse mobile over the dance floor solidified the theme, making this an under-the-sea dance party.

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Story and Photos By Leah Fitzpatrick

John Rich and Friends Entertainment Event

RiverArtsFest Poster Launch Party

Country superstar John Rich pulled off another spectacular night of entertainment when he enlisted the help of artists Wynonna Judd and Big Kenny (the other half of Big & Rich), as well as comedian Larry the Cable Guy, to participate in the second annual John Rich and Friends, sponsored by Window World.

Held at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, the sold-out benefit for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital kicked off with a live action conducted by celebrity auctioneer Letitia Frye, who quickly rallied up a healthy outpouring of financial support for big-ticket items inclusive of a Gibson guitar autographed by the performers, a Masters golf tournament package and an Eric Trump Foundation Golf Invitational and Auction Dinner package, which Eric Trump himself upped to two packages as he witnessed bidders’ response from his seat in the auditorium. St. Jude patient Ethan, who finished his treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia at St. Jude last year, also appeared on stage with his family to share their story about why events like these matter, and after their inspiring words, the show went on for another successful year.

Well in advance of October’s RiverArtsFest, the RiverArtsFest Poster Launch Party was held in the South Main Historic District, which was already bustling on that occasion with both Trolley Night and the Zombie Walk.

Annabelle Meacham, an MCA graduate known for her “happy Surrealist style,” is this year’s poster artist. Meacham describes herself as “seriously inspired by volunteerism in Memphis.” Every year, the founders of RiverArtsFest tweak the schematics of the street fair for better flow, optimal enjoyment and minimal negative impact on South Main residents.

With that in mind, there’s every reason to believe that this RiverArtsFest, scheduled for October 25-27, will be the best yet!

Carolyn Fly and Sarah Lorenz

Story and Photos By Kelly Cox

Annabelle Meacham

Story By Leah Fitzpatrick Photos By St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Leah Fitzpatrick

Pat Mitchell Worley, Elizabeth Rouse and Tanya Naylor May Walker and Rebecca Stine

Win Bonner and Beth Price Camille Sarrouf, John Rich and Rick Shadyac

Belinda, Sam and Gary Fleming Nichole Brooks and Tiffany Brimhall

Robin Salant and Kelley Morice Wynonna Judd

Dena Benjamin, Raven Icaza and Molly Washatka

Cortney Cleveland, Jamie McCabe and Jaime Dietz

Trung and Ron Chung

Warren and Jimpsie Ayres with Lee Askew

Spirit of SRVS Kick-Off

Memphis to Moore Fund-raiser

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Though it wasn’t raining outside, inside Theatre Memphis it was a whole other story, as the Broadway favorite “Singin’ in the Rain” took over the Lohrey Stage for Theatre for Hope. A benefit for Hope House, a nonprofit that has the only facility in the state designed to meet the needs of HIV affected children, the event attracted a full house at more than 300 guests, who showed their support by bidding on 68 tempting silent auction items displayed around the lobby. One of the more unique items came from artist Ken Lecco, who enlisted the help of some Hope House kids for his “Hands of Hope” painting, which depicted daisies that seemed to melt over handprints to reflect the message that everyone is deserving of hope. In the Next Stage room, Heart & Soul Catering provided finger foods, and King’s Liquors served as the drink sponsor for the evening fund-raiser, one of many that helps bring awareness to the powerful work this organization does.

Check out Art for Hope on November 7 at the Clark Opera Memphis Center if you too would like to support Hope House.

This summer, Playhouse on the Square hosted a sold-out matinee show of “The Color Purple” for the Spirit of SRVS Kick-Off. A benefit for SRVS, the preview party began an hour and a half before the performance, giving patrons ample time to enjoy a wine tasting and fare courtesy of Automatic Slim’s, Patti Cakes and the Painted Cookie. DJ Kenny Bosak kept the mood upbeat as guests made their way upstairs, as did the unveiling of the Spirit of SRVS commemorative painting by local artist David Lynch, who entitled his work “The Community.” Of the piece, he said, “I was inspired by my walk through the SRVS facility and seeing what they do.” And, some of the good work SRVS does was made evident this afternoon being that members of the SRVS Ambassadors Club, a group created by SRVS service recipients to take on volunteer projects in the community, gave freely of their time to hand out programs at the door. Several of those smiling greeters from the club included Michael Scott, Patricia Hicks and James Savell.

When Memphians learned that Moore, Oklahoma had been ravaged by an F-5 tornado, they stepped up to the plate to help Moore’s residents by putting on the Memphis to Moore Fund-raiser. The Westin Memphis, the RedRover Company and Angela Copeland, who is originally from Moore, sponsored the party at The Westin to specifically raise funds for the Moore Public Schools Tornado Relief Fund.

Lauren Squires of WMC-TV 5 emceed the affair that included a silent auction and live music by Grace Askew and The Super 5, in addition to touching comments from special guests Paul Morris, the president of the Downtown Memphis Commission, and Hether Little, a Moore public school teacher. By night’s end, the fund-raiser had raised $34,000, an impressive amount considering that the goal was to raise $25,000 for the tornado relief fund.

Story and Photos by Leah Fitzpatrick

Story and Photos by Leah Fitzpatrick

Declared “straight up fun for a good cause,” the second annual Literatini fund-raiser for Literacy Mid-South lived up to those very words. Held after work on a Thursday night in June at the Booksellers at Laurelwood, the siptastic affair served creative martinis crafted by area restaurants. There was the “Minty Melon” from Tsunami, the “Strawberry Fields” by The Grove Grill, the “Salted Caramel” courtesy of Celtic Crossing, “The Girl Next Door” from Alchemy Memphis, the “Flirtini” by Automatic Slim’s and South of Beale’s “The Color Purple.”

Literacy Mid-South also poured some of its own concoctions, which had names like “The Gatsby Green Light” and “The Oliver Twist.” Awards were given to Alchemy for the Fan Favorite Martini, to Tsunami for the Most Creative Drink and to Celtic Crossing for the Staff Pick.

Literacy Mid-South’s training services manager, Vernetta Anderson, also manned a $50 wine pull, which had prizes that accompanied each bottle, and the executive director, Kevin Dean, made it easy to want to chip in some more change to help the organization when he announced that Literacy Mid-South needed $3,000 in 17 days to meet a $100,000 challenge grant.

Story by Leah Fitzpatrick Photos by Chris Pugh

Story and Photos by Leah Fitzpatrick

Betty Dupont and Randon Dupont

Cindy and Tyler Hampton

Mandy Gootzeit and Grace Askew Stacy Early, Kevin Dean and Vernetta Anderson

Frieda Mullins, Robert Mickey, Melinda Weeden and Jerome Greene

Katie Dubose, Craig Locke and Grace Weil

Michael Scott, Patricia Hicks and James Savell

Anthony and Jeany Dionne, Mandy and David Lynch and Cindy and Russ Mire

Patrick Jordan, Angela Copeland, Hether Little and Lori Turner-Wilson

Paul and Mary Morris

Erin Harmon and David Pritchard

Sarah DiNicolantonio, Kathleen Boyd, Margo Germany and Hillery Efkeman

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t was all fun and games at SportsBall, the flagship fund-raiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Memphis where guests come dressed in black tie and tennis shoes. Grown-ups got a chance to play like children in an array of games ranging from basketball arcade machines and shooting video games to race car simulators into which the ladies and gents strapped themselves and revved their engines.

For those who preferred more adult-like play, one section of the main room at Minglewood Hall was turned into a casino, complete with roulette and blackjack tables surrounded by partiers who placed their wagers using play money. Young women carrying poles topped with signs displaying the word “Tickets” with flashing lights roved the room, seeking customers to purchase chances to win a set of David Yurman diamond earrings. Smirnoff provided three flavors of its new light vodka, used to make SportsBalltinis. Commemorative jerseys were slipped over every chair back, while tables were littered with drag racing tickets and reusable shopping bags provided by Caesars Entertainment covered each seat.

An airbrush artist offered temporary tattoos, and a massage therapist gave chair massages in an area near the entryway, where silent auction items lined the wall. FOX 13 news director Ken Job kept a keen eye on his bids throughout the evening to ensure BBBS got top dollar for the items that caught his fancy. In a separate room, several stations were arranged and loaded with food like chicken and waffles, hot dogs and mini Cuban sandwiches. One station contained the most fundamental sporting event fare–popcorn and peanuts. Elsewhere, a dessert station boasted a tower of miniature cupcakes, apple fritters and assorted pastries. Mini candy bars of all kinds were strewn on cocktail tables–the perfect spot for revelers to take a break from the games.

Game play of all kinds was suspended during a brief program, during which Adrienne Bailey, BBBS chief executive officer and president, introduced the board members and recognized special volunteer efforts and contributions to the organization. Anne Albrecht, a teacher, said she’s attended SportsBall for the last five years and always has a great time. “You get to act like a kid, and it’s for a good cause, plus you get to look nice and not hurt your feet,” she surmised.

See all the party photos at rsvpmagazine.com Password: RSVP

Chris and Shannon Wilhelm

Story by Suzanne Thompson Photos by Don Perry

Julia Pisoni and John Killoren

Michael Carr and Linnea Bahlinger

Kelly and Brian Athow

D’Angelo Brooks and Dedria Champman

Ronald and Carolyn Kent with Ron Worrell

D’Army and Adrienne Bailey with Larry Miller

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Stephanie and Jeremy Langston

Camille Jamssens and Juliea Goodman

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Lydia Yates and Veronica Kemp

Marian and Marcia Brown

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Morgan and Michelle Hamblen

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Denzel Johnson and Ciara Arrington

Charlie Nelson and James Nelson

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Celeste and Mike Longo

Patrick Simon and Sandra McCormack

Terrill Orton and Mary Elizabeth Roe

Angela Watson and Jessica Howe

Devonne Gibbs and Rich George

Valerie Calhoun and John Elkington

EVENT SPORTSBALL Brad and Jaimi Cornelsen

Emily Messer with Ryan and China Jenkins

Rod and Kristy Marter with Angie and Andy Goble

Anne Albrecht and Ben Hogan

Lisa Taylor and Kennedy Brown

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Darryl Denton and Janice Harper

Adam Owens and Brinson Hargraves with Joshua and Caley Spotts

Jessica Rifanburg, Allison Brigance and Diana Sager

Karen Dino and Cindy Ware

Angela Davis and Wanda Berry

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uests walked away with no doubt in their minds that Robert Plant has still got it. The former Led Zeppelin frontman performed the third concert in this year’s Memphis Botanic Garden’s Live at the Garden concert series, following Earth, Wind & Fire and Tony Bennett. Next on the bill includes the country group The Band Perry, while Foreigner will close out the season.

“We’re very pleased with this year’s results. It’s a very eclectic mix with lots of genres,” said the event co-director Sherry Misner. “We sold out Earth, Wind & Fire. The Band Perry is almost sold out, and I think Foreigner will as well. We’re very happy.”

In front of the sea of lawn chairs and general picnickers, VIP table holders and fans old and young, Plant crooned his way through the evening hitting Led Zeppelin classics as well as more obscure traditional blues songs with his band, the Sensational Space Shifters.

No concert at the garden comes without its share of Southern hospitality, as the VIP tables were covered with tablecloths, casseroles and even some with fine china. “The last concert we brought an ice sculpture, a candelabra and had the table set with chargers,” Memphian Angela Steffens said. “It looked like the Grove at Ole Miss.” Her husband, William, a local business owner and jazz DJ, wouldn’t have missed this concert. “I’ve been listening to Robert Plant since I was a kid,” he said.

Directors, board members and supporters anticipate having their own permanent stage for the concert series for its 14th season next year. “Right now we are in the middle of a capital campaign, and hopefully we are on target to break ground and be ready for our first show in June of 2014,” Misner said. For more information about the concerts or to find out how to join the capital campaign, visit liveatthegarden.com.

Jim and Elizabeth Duncan

Tracy Porch and Melinda Sanders

Story by Lesley Young Photos by Don Perry See all the party photos at rsvpmagazine.com Password: RSVP Ron Childers and Joyce Peterson

Heather and Brian Barry

Trey and Anne Jordan

Carey Paret, Jennifer Jennings and Karen Swolensky

Bron Eaton and Steve Conley

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Cookie and Mike Swain

Kathy and Bob Keeney

Fontaine Moore and Cindy Hawthorne

Clara Santana and Hope Clayburn

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Allison Sommers and Lauren Woods

Penny and Chris Budinsky

Krista and Bill Freeman

Pauline and Mike Vernon

Patrick and Holly Crump

Emily and Jeff McEvoy

AFTER HOURS

After Hours A photo collage of the latest business happenings

Carnival Memphis Ptah Mixer at Doris McLendon’s Fine Jewelry

Ronaldo Designer Jewelry Trunk Show at More Than Words

(Seated) Margaret Jambard, Cindy Udell, Barbara Schulz and Grace Weagner; (Standing): Allison Palmer, Ansleigh Morris, Caitlin Horton, Ronaldo, Lee Ann McGhee, Dedra Anderton, Denise Crawford, Melissa Thompson and Caroline Faquin

Trunk Show at Seriously FUN! Apparel

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Morgan Kimberlin, Karen Martin and Adrienne Huntsman

Carol Duffy and Betty Hays

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Susan G. Komen 2013 Celebration Luncheon

Agape Heartlight Gala

The Memphis-MidSouth Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure held its 2013 Celebration Luncheon at the U of M Holiday Inn. In sticking with the theme of the day, “Celebration with the Stars,” attendees were given the star treatment as the pink carpet was rolled out and guests were encouraged to strike a pose for the paparazzi in sunglasses as they entered the dining room.

Dressed in their best pink ensembles, more than 340 guests came together to celebrate each other and all the hard work the Memphis-MidSouth Komen does on a daily basis. Elaine Hare, executive director, says that this is the one time a year that the organization can bring together all of the volunteers, grantees and breast cancer survivors. She told, “Everyone fighting breast cancer is represented in this room.”

After recognizing the top team captains, survivors, sponsors and Pink Honor Roll, all of whom are the largest individual fund-raisers, everyone enjoyed a delicious lunch catered by the Holiday Inn. Zaneta Lowe of WREG-TV 5 emceed the luncheon, and the talented Kenny Lackey provided the musical entertainment. The Honorable Stan Joyner, Mayor of Collierville, also joined the luncheon and delivered a special proclamation. Memphis-MidSouth Komen presented a grant check of $680,000 to local hospitals, clinics and support groups, topping the day off in the best way possible.

Tim Tebow was the guest of honor at Agape Child and Family Services’ 15th annual Heartlight Gala. Speaking about his faith, life and career, the Heisman Trophy winner and New England Patriots quarterback teamed up with Mayors Mark Luttrell and A C Wharton at FedExForum to raise awareness and support for the ministry efforts of Agape.

Committed to providing children and families with stable and positive home environments, the Christian-based organization’s mission tied in closely to Tebow’s personal work with Uncle Dick’s Home, an orphanage in the Philippines.

Throughout the program, the theme of “Agape Means Love” was resonated multiple times as Tebow, along with David Jordan, Agape’s executive director, and pastor and emcee Dr. John Bryson, encouraged Memphians to support a program that brings love and hope to hundreds of people throughout the city.

Christian rock band RE:FUEL provided the entertainment for the night.

Story and Photos by Rachel Warren

Shaun Micheel Make-A-Wish Golf Classic Pairings Party Make-A-Wish® Mid-South kicked off its 10th annual Shaun Micheel Make-A-Wish® Golf Classic with a Pairings Party at Rendezvous. In preparation for the next day’s excitement at the Golf Classic at TPC Southwind, more than 220 people came out to show their support for Make-AWish. This year, Shaun Micheel and his wife, Stephanie, made 8year-old Finley Barger’s dream come true by giving her and her family a Disney Cruise in the Bahamas. Guests began the evening with, what else, barbecue. With messy fingers and happy faces, attendees gleefully dug into ribs, pulled pork sandwiches and sausage and cheese plates as Nick Vergos, Rendezvous’ owner, pleasantly served thirsty guests libations.

Gerry Finney and Doug Petty provided the entertainment for the night and kept everyone’s feet moving. Miranda Harbor, the community outreach manager of Make-A-Wish® Mid-South, said that the Pairings Party is a time to celebrate the children of MakeA-Wish and for the golfers to come together with their spouses and meet up. The fact that this year the Make-A-Wish® Foundation broke its $2 million goal to help make wishes come true was another reason to celebrate. Raising more than $60,000, the live auction will ensure that even more wishes come true.

Concord Academy’s Color Purple Fund-raiser Concord Academy held its Color Purple Fund-raiser at Playhouse on the Square. Guests enjoyed a cocktail hour that included a variety of spirits and a catered dinner by Italian eatery Coletta’s Restaurant. Concord Academy offers students a change of pace from the traditional school setting and provides them with an attentive learning environment.

Celebrating 30 years as a school for those with learning disabilities, parents and friends turned out to show their love for Concord Academy, but to also enjoy Playhouse on the Square’s first week’s showcase of its onstage performance of “The Color Purple.” This musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by the same name captivated the audience with its moving story of love, despair and rebirth. Paired with an excellent score that included jazz, ragtime, blues and gospel within the Playhouse on the Square building, everyone left with a great appreciation of the superb talent found within our own city.

Story and Photos by Rachel Warren

Story and Photos by Rachel Warren

Story and Photos by Rachel Warren

Carla Crocker and Selena Jones Kathy Graczyk and Nan Miller Stephanie and Shaun Micheel Nikki Spano, Carolyn Furlotte, Sara Thatcher and Michelle Epps

Mark and Courtney Brown Nick Vergos, Dean Carayinnis and Jack Dyson

Nancy and Carly Crawford

Angie Mitchell and Linda Mannerino

Connie and Rick Harlow, Mary Bertus and Loma and Skip Hyder

Dolores Brinson and Carolyn Herndon

Erika Wells, Brittney Guy, Tiesha Dortch, Martavious Hudson and Reginald Thomes

Gordon and Judy Lawrence

Lifeblood Donor Fest

YWCA Theater Benefit

Beale Street Caravan Blowout

Latin tunes played by Los Cantadores filled the courtyard at Askew Nixon Ferguson Architects during the ninth annual Taste of Caribe, benefiting the International Children’s Heart Foundation. Fittingly, the organization will use funds raised at this event for the BabyHeart Medical Mission in Latin America. Cigars and margaritas were readily available as people enjoyed the sound of the six-man band, and members of dance teams from the Rumba Room were available as salsa dancing partners. Bret Rodriguez, president of the Bacardi Family Foundation, manned an ice luge, pouring the company’s newest flavors of libations down the frigid slope into the mouths of eager guests.

It was a celebration of life at Audubon Park when family and friends of blood donors and recipients celebrated Lifeblood’s 50th anniversary at its annual Donor Fest. There were treats aplenty, as well as tee shirts for people to tie-dye and, of course, the mobile donor bus. The line was long, but in the glorious weather, no one minded the wait to give blood to help reach the goal of 1,963 donors—the number signifying the year in which the organization was founded.

Theatergoers who supported the YWCA at its fund-raiser at Playhouse on the Square were the first to see “The Color Purple.”

The event took place the evening prior to opening night, and VIPs enjoyed beer and wine along with a light appetizer buffet before showtime. The play had audience members holding their sides laughing during some parts and wiping away their tears during others. At the end of the sold-out show, the sound of clapping filled the theater as the audience leapt to its feet in appreciation of the actors’ stellar performances.

It was as if as many Memphians and local musicians as possible tried to show up for the Beale Street Caravan Blowout after the loss of the internationally syndicated show’s producer, Sid Selvidge, who passed away earlier this year. Mayor A C Wharton visited with Big Star drummer Jody Stephens, while Reba Russell picked up where the Bluff City Backsliders left off performing.

This year marks the show’s 17th, and it is heard by more than 2.4 million listeners through 400 radio stations around the world every week during its one-hour broadcast. The Thursday night party in June, held at A. Schwab on Beale Street, acted as a fundraiser for the donation-dependent show. “It’s a fund-raiser, but it’s a party,” said the show’s host Pat Mitchell Worley. “It gives people a chance to celebrate Memphis music.” For more information about the show, visit bealestreetcaravan.com.

Story and Photos by Suzanne Thompson Story and Photos by Suzanne Thompson

Story and Photos by Suzanne Thompson

Beth and Molly Okeon

Charles Carpenter and Danielle Rouseau

Story and Photos By Lesley Young

Bret Rodriguez and John Peterson

Mike, Ginny and Michelle Barganier Anita and David Wieduwilt

Naomi Spencer and Carol Miller

Paul Chandler, Pat Mitchell Worley and Jennifer Chandler

Gretchen McLennon and Shannon Dixon

Carol McCrudden and Jim Mertzlufft

Danny Garrick, Susan Berry-Buckley and Larry Hilbun

Karen Clawson and Dr. Sylvia Richey

Shaun Barber, Craig Davis and Natallia Yaletskaya

Lisa and Kaylor Stewart with Carrie Williams

Claudette Seymour, Anne Mitchell-Hinton and Joyce Johnson

Mac Edwards and Marcy Siebert

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By Dennis Phillippi

too self-conscious to ask their doctor for a weed prescription. And while I can speak from personal experience of being around them, pot smokers are a garrulous lot, but do we want more of them? Maybe shy people are shy for a reason. Maybe they’re boring. Is it a good idea to get them high so they’ll start actively boring everyone?

Recreational use of “weed” is a completely different matter. Although Attorney General Eric Holder seems to be heading toward officially making it policy to just simply not enforce a lot of the minor marijuana-related laws, that doesn’t mean we really need more people walking around red-eyed and standing at the drivethru at fast food restaurants. Personally, I

A 22 year old with yet another buzz on is grating enough, and the last thing I want is for my mom to call me all baked and wanting to ramble about how awesome “Breaking Bad” is. don’t care one way or the other what someone does at home, but I’d just as soon not be constantly button-holed by high people in public, trying to convince me that I should take in a Widespread Panic show. I get that enough as it is. I grew up in the ’70s and have been in show business my entire life, so I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t been around the stuff, but as I get older, the idea of being around stoned people has less and less appeal.

When I was 18, I may have been willing to have an hours long conversation about aliens visiting earth, or whether or not fish think, or how incredible a stuffed burrito would be about now, but these days it seems exhausting.

In the event that this sea change really is at hand, my worst fear is that people who never would’ve even considered smoking pot might feel the need to check it out. A 22 year old with yet another buzz on is grating enough, and the last thing I

want is for my mom to call me all baked and wanting to ramble about how awesome “Breaking Bad” is. People a generation ahead of me are already more than a little paranoid, mostly from spending a lifetime watching the local news, but just wait until they have the kind that can be caused by marijuana use. My friend Ronny Bullard used to have a joke in his act about getting high and going to a football game and being convinced every time the teams huddled up they were talking about him. Imagine watching a steady diet of the five o’clock news with that level of barely controlled panic.

This country is already plagued with bad drivers, but at least most of them are exceeding the speed limit. Stoned people drive very slowly, and spend a lot of time waiting for stop signs to change. I am one of those people who believe that most people could use a stiff drink, but I never, ever drive after drinking. It’s rude and stupid, and most people agree, but every pothead I know believes that they are better drivers when they’re stoned. Of course, they also think they’re better writers, cooks, mechanics and anything else they can think of, mainly so they have an excuse to stay high all the time.

Obviously, this is happening because a generation of Americans who grew up either routinely getting high, or being around people who do, think the idea of someone going to jail for doing so seems ludicrous. I’m not an advocate one way or the other, but it does seem like prison is a bad place for my friend John, who is always high, walking around with and talking to his dog. He’s a very gentle cat, and plopping him down in the Yard with guys who killed people or burned down an orphanage is, as he and his ilk would put it, harsh. There are better uses for law enforcement’s time than locking up guys who play video games for eight hours straight and then brag about it.

Plus, think of the boom in the fast food business.

Now, we know the real reason your articles are notoriously late: you’re either getting stuck behind stoned drivers at stop signs or watching your friend carry on a conversation with his dog. Oh the distractions that come your way!

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o, America’s Most Trusted Doctor, Sanjay Gupta, has reversed his position on medical marijuana, and decided that he’s cool with it now. Okay, for the moment. Let’s set aside the fact that he has been a very vocal opponent of medical marijuana for years, and now says that he was “misled” by the government’s information on the topic, mainly because anyone who is surprised by being misled by the government must not have been doing anything that would induce a healthy level of paranoia.

What struck me as the most bizarre aspect was news outlets suddenly treating the word “weed” as if it has somehow become an official term. Anchors on every channel have been saying that Gupta “changed his opinion on weed.” That just doesn’t sound like real reporting. That sounds like something one of my stoner friends would have excitedly told me. Not only did they repeatedly use the word “weed,” they neglected in the headline to mention that he had changed his opinion on medical “weed.” It’s not like CNN’s chief medical expert just advocated airline pilots having a bong in the cockpit.

These really are two different topics. Medical marijuana seems to be beneficial to a lot of ill people, although from what I can gather, once it becomes legal somewhere the number of ailments it can treat gets to be a pretty loose collection. I actually met a guy who works at a medical marijuana farm, and he seemed to be in perfect physical and emotional health, but he also seemed to have gotten a prescription fairly easily, judging from the amount of food I watched him eat. Not only, he told me, can you get a prescription for serious problems like weight loss, appetite issues, nausea from chemotherapy and such, but you can also get one for SAD, or Social Anxiety Disorder. In other words, shyness. That’s right, you can attain the legal right to get high if your doctor diagnoses you with shyness. That’s a little bit of a real Catch-22 because presumably a large percentage of these people would be

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Fishing For Them All

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lleyne Hutchison O’Brien sits on a 1937 Chevrolet Coupe as she shows off the day’s catch after fishing in Mississippi. O’Brien, who was a long-time Whitehaven resident (now deceased), had a love of fishing that she enjoyed throughout her life.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SALLY ALFONSO If you have a past photo you would like to share with RSVP readers, please contact Leah Fitzpatrick at 276-7787 ext. 105 or e-mail the photo and caption to editor@rsvpmagazine.com All photos will be returned promptly.