Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 7, 1992 TAG: 9201070210
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Kathleen Wilson
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CRASHING PARTIES TAKES STYLE
Becky Hepler and Rick Teague of Newport defy all traditions with with their annual New Year's Eve on wheels. It's a whirlwind tour with many stops. And it's truly one-of-a-kind.See, each New Year's Becky and Rick and about a dozen of the couple's friends see just how much activity they can pack into those last few hours of the old year.
So here's New Year's Eve-O-Rama as Rick and Becky did it. Ready? Set. Go!
At a no-holds-barred dinner at The Mediterranean (formerly Norberto's) in downtown Roanoke, we meet the dozen players, including Gary Hunt, who is described as the MINGLING KATHLEEN WILSON head of the Society for the Prevention of Decklessness, because he built three decks last year. He introduces me to The Steven and his wife Jeanne. The rest are a blur.
Rick, dressed in a tuxedo with a red band bow tie and cummerbund, looks like a maitre d'.
"We figure that the better dressed you are, the less people will mind that you're crashing their party," Becky explained over dessert and coffee later at Mill Mountain Coffee & Tea.
After dessert, we headed on over to the First Night celebrations at the Virginia Museum of Transportation to find a tall blonde who is to join the group. We have absolutely no idea where we are to meet her, and we don't have buttons to get in. But Becky is confident. After preliminary attempts to talk her way in fail, she accosts Channel 7 news reporter Joe Dashiell. Still no luck.
"There's always the empty pizza box in the car," Gary said when all else failed, proposing a pizza-delivery ruse.
Though we've already hit three locations and are without the tall blonde, we head for our first party around 9 p.m., after a brief detour where I got lost following the wrong yuppie minivan and The Steven was dispatched in a Mazda to retrieve me. Eventually we catch up with Rick and Becky at the Raleigh Court home of Barbara and William Parsons, who is an assistant city attorney.
It's the second year the group has crashed the Parsons' party.
Becky brings Barbara a residual hostess gift: two bags of chips and a couple jars of dip. Within 15 minutes of their arrival, the front room is vibrating with music and dancing. When The Outsiders' "Time Won't Let Me" comes up, the group forms a conga line that snakes through the house interrupting virtually every conversation.
"Is that the same rowdy group from last year?" Joe Surace wanted to know.
It was.
In the kitchen, The Steven's wife has a question for the hostess, a woman she's known less than five minutes.
"Barbara, is there any more ice?" asks Jeanne Johnson who, by the way, looks just like C.J. on "LA Law."
Next, a brief sojourn to Kim Epperly's miniature Graceland in Southeast Roanoke. Rick consults with Epperly about the latest addition to her yard, Elvis' airport. A little Lisa Marie plane is tethered between the house and a tree, ready to land on the airstrip. Rick offers Epperly suggestions on just exactly how to light the airstrip so it will be just like that of Memphis.
Then huddled together in the yuppie van listening to "New York Rock and Soul Revue," which you've gotta get if you don't already have it, we head up Mill Mountain to visit the star and ring in the year.
Here we find Michael and Bernadette Sullivan prepared for a romantic evening.
Wrong.
They were good sports, though. Especially after Rick shared our champagne with them.
The fireworks were quite a sight from up there.
"We've rented bicycles to ride down the mountain," Rick announced as we headed back to that yuppie mobile.
Stopped us all dead in our tracks. Just a joke. Though with this group, you never know.
Eight people tagged along with Rick and Becky the first year. Twelve the second. It doesn't take a math genius to warn the Parsonses to make room for at least 16 uninvited guests next year.
It was a New Year's Eve of truly Olympic proportions. Next year, I think Rick and Becky ought to consider corporate sponsorship. First-time participants should begin training now.
\ Kathleen Wilson is a Roanoke free-lance writer. If you'd like to invite her to a party or social gathering, write her in care of the Features Dept., Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va. 24010-2491.