THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 8, 1996 TAG: 9609060195
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: AROUND TOWN
SOURCE: IDA KAY JORDAN
LENGTH: 92 lines
Around Town is a look at people and events special to the Portsmouth community.
MEMORIES: It was a three-day marathon of memories for members of the Woodrow Wilson High School classes of 1955 and 1956 with events scheduled over the Labor Day weekend.
On Saturday, classmates had lunch at the Commodore to hear jet-set artist Ralph Cowan talk about his adventure as a painter of the rich and famous around the world.
Cowan was a few years ahead of the classmates at the reunion. But he got a real surprise from Butch Cooke, a Richmond businessman who came home for the reunion.
Cooke was just a youngster when Cowan painted his portrait in a straw cowboy hat 47 years ago. Cooke came to the Commodore on Saturday wearing the hat and brought the painting for Cowan to see.
A slide of the painting was included in Cowan's talk, but he did not expect to see the original again.
The classmates who had trouble recognizing each other had good prompting. The yearbook pictures of each one had been blown up to life size with a handle on them. Members wore them around their necks for identification and, when a classmate faltered in recognition, they could put the 40-year-old pictures in front of their faces.
TRAGEDY STRIKES: Portsmouth native T. Edward Austin Jr. was seriously injured and his wife, Patricia, died in a one-vehicle accident Aug. 27 on Interstate 95 near St. Augustine, Fla.
Austin, 70, mayor of Jacksonville, Fla., from 1991 until 1995, sustained a head injury and a sprained neck. Although he is being watched closely by doctors because of the bruises on his brain, he is expected to recover.
A graduate of Cradock High School, Austin was a standout on the Duke University football team for four seasons from 1945 to '48. He received a bachelor's and a master's degree in school administration from Duke and a law degree from the University of Florida in 1958. He worked as a state attorney for 20 years before his election as mayor.
Patricia Austin, 61, was driving the couple's 1996 Ford Explorer, which went out of control and overturned four times. The couple was taken by helicopter to University Medical Center in Jacksonville. Patricia died of heart failure during surgery.
MORE TRAGEDY: Lewis and Margaret Warren, who have been living in Mobile, Ala., have moved back to Portsmouth to live in Mayfair House. Lewis Warren, 90, served as police chief of Portsmouth in the 1950s.
The Warrens moved to Mobile to be near their daughter, Bettie Hudgens, a prominent professor at Spring Hill College for 34 years. On June 16, Bettie Hudgens, 60, died when her car collided with a trailer-tractor rig. She was en route home from her daughter's wedding in Mississippi when the accident occurred. Her husband, Mobile attorney Neil Hudgens, was following his wife in another vehicle.
Bettie Hudgens established Spring Hill's Department of Communications, started two FM radio stations and Gulf Coast Public Broadcasting Inc. She had received numerous local and state awards and honors.
CLOWNING AROUND: Mike Maroney, a Portsmouth clown, is taking a vacation to go clowning.
He's leaving Sept. 18 for 10 days of performances at the Guillford County Fair near Hartford, Conn., and with circuses in Buffalo, N.Y., and in Ontario, Canada.
Although clowning is his first love, it's his second job. Most days he works full time as a manager for Ritz Camera.
Maroney is a graduate of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in Sarasota, Fla., and currently is working on a new act to enter the Sarasota Circus Festival competition in January.
After a performance this summer for a power squadron convention in Norfolk, Maroney was given stellar reviews in ``Circus Report,'' a national publication. Peyton Haywood praised Maroney as a ``classical clown.''
PHONE-A-THON: Those who haven't responded to invitations to the 1846 Courthouse Cotillion should expect a phone call on Sept. 10 from a friend on the Portsmouth Museum and Fine Arts Commission.
Members of the commission will gather at the Arts Center offices from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday to make the calls, urging people to support the sesquicentennial celebration of the courthouse on Sept. 28.
``This is our only fund-raiser this year, so we have to do all we can with it,'' said Linnea Whitlow, chairman of the commission's development committee.
Tickets for the event are $50 per person. A supper buffet and music by Walter Noona are planned.
William S. Hargroves, chairman of the 1846 Courthouse Committee, said the committee has received $13,000 from corporate sponsors of the events. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by IDA KAY JORDAN
Artist Ralph Cowan was surprised to see the subject of a portrait he
did 47 years ago, Butch Cooke, at a Wilson High reunion event. by CNB