Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240085
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Please. No wagering.
This year the Best Party Band around is definitely Key West. They provided the music at Mill Mountain Zoo's Tropical Rainforest-themed ZooDo, which tied as one of 1994's Very Best Parties. Not only does Key West play some great calypso Caribbean music - including the only version of ``I Shot the Sheriff'' you can actually dance to - but they'll let you pick up the island percussion stuff and have some fun yourself.
``An Evening With the Animals'' - sponsored by E.I. Randle to raise funds for the Roanoke Valley SPCA - shares the Very Best Party award with the ZooDo. Both events featured great food and beautiful animals. Kudos to E.I. Randle for providing the clothes for the fashion show and the well-behaved dogs who accompanied the models down the runway.
You meet a lot of men doing what I do. But last year there was no competition for the Two Most Charming Men award. Men just don't get any classier than Charlie Clatterbuck and Emanuel Levy, two handicapped veterans I met on an annual golf outing sponsored by the Veterans Administration Hospital. Charlie's smile is so infectious let's hope they never find a vaccine for it. And Mr. Levy, a veteran of WWI, was a hoot when - at 99 - he took control of the golf cart with me in it and waved goodbye to the rest of our team pretending to kidnap me into the woods of Salem's Municipal Golf Course.
Sadly, Mr. Levy passed away in September, just short of his 100th. ``If he could have had it his way, he would have died on a golf course,'' his daughter told me recently.
The award for last year's Biggest Disappointment? The 45-second Roanoke City St. Patrick's Day parade. I'm still crying in my Guinness.
What's the big deal? You get every Irishman in town to wear a bowler, a green carnation and march around town, while every high school marching band plays Irish music. Throw a grand marshall of Irish descent onto the top of the back seat of a convertible, round up some bagpipes, hand every kid a green balloon and dye the Roanoke river green.
Instant St. Pat's mayhem will ensue!
The Most Impressive Fund-raiser wasn't any ritzy, glitzy black tie thing. It was a car wash, sponsored tirelessly by the Roanoke County Police Department. Weekend after weekend this grassroots crew gathered outside of Salem Bank and Trust near Oak Grove Plaza on Virginia 419 to raise funds for 3-year-old Andrew Braford, the son of one of their own. On the Saturday afternoon I joined this group, they raised more than $730.
I went. I tried to have a good time. And I certainly seemed to be the only one who didn't. But, gee, the I Wish The Fat Lady Would Sing award has to go to that darned Hooker's Ball, where all the women are supposed to dress like prostitutes, and the men like pimps. (This amounts to women running around in their underwear while men wear suits, a gold chain and a feather in their hats.) They're doing it again next month.
But thanks ever so much to Tom Branch for the Best Unintentional Compliment I've ever received. When I ran into him on New Year's Eve, he reminded me we'd met at last year's Hooker's Ball. ``You were the one that wasn't dressed like everyone else,'' he recalled.
The Best-Planned and Best-Executed Party was the retirement affair thrown for the Honorable Edward S. Kidd Jr., chief judge of the Roanoke Valley's General District Court. Most of those who participated in the mock trial should have been considered for Tony Awards.
Mildred Crawford, 71, of New Castle, left every other bride in her dust, easily garnering 1994's Most Beautiful Bride Award.
The Coolest School around has to be Lord Botetourt High. First, they throw the most entertaining talent show I've ever attended - and most of these are no picnic - then they earned a concert by ``Beverly Hills 90210'' heartthrob Jamie Walters (who plays Ray Pruitt) by gathering more toys than any other local school for K92's Toys for Tots campaign.
Guess I oughta credit K92 with being a Darned Cool Radio Station for coming up with the contest and delivering the hunk to boot.
There was No Better Place to Watch the Tour DuPont than Main Street in Buchanan. What a slice of Americana! Forget the commercialism of Campbell Avenue in downtown Roanoke for the time trials, with vendors selling anything you can imagine on every street corner.
In Buchanan, there wasn't a soul who wasn't waving a little American flag. (The local drug store was giving them away). Pinwheels planted by the Brownies or the Girl Scouts whirled in a line in the front of a big church.
The Three Biggest Giggles of the year go to the following:
The woman in Buchanan before the Tour DuPont who, upon hearing the rescue squad alarm go off - delivered some good-humored commentary on the average age of those who live in her town when she said, ``Someone must have fallen.''
The 18-ish girl sitting in front of me the first time I saw ``Pulp Fiction'' who, during the scene where John Travolta and Samuel Jackson were driving around L.A., turned to her boyfriend and whispered, ``Which one is John Travolta?''
Finally, to the Roanoke College coed who with wide eyes asked, ``You mean Paul McCartney was with another band before Wings?''
The Bill Gates Award for Creative Business Wizardry goes to 20-year-old Roanoke College business major Matt Bullington for coming up for a dynamite solution for the supply-and-demand taxi problem on New Year's Eve.
Matt suggests Valley Metro run their regular schedule from midnight till around 4 a.m. while the Texas Tavern supplies a tub of chili to serve to the passengers.
The cost per passenger? Matt figures $5 oughta get everyone home safely.
And, finally, the We Knew Her When Award goes to former WDBJ-Channel 7 news reporter Meg O'Conor, who, during her tenure at WDBJ, covered her share of murders. Yesterday morning Meg flew out of Seattle, where she now works for KSTW-TV, to Los Angeles to cover O.J. Simpson's trial of the century.
Keywords:
YEAR 1994
by CNB