Shelby: Cancer center snags big ones
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has reeled in big ones at Kennebunkport, Maine, for a two-day social/seminar honoring $100,000 donors to the center’s 60th anniversary gala set for November.
The itinerary for 100 includes cocktails tonight with former President George Bush and Barbara at their Walker’s Point home, dinner at the venerable River Club, a sunset powwow on Mica and Bob Mosbacher’s 75-foot sailboat The Rhapsody, and a brunch presentation on M.D. Anderson research projects.
Among guests are Houstonians June and Virgil Waggoner, Shahla and Hushang Ansary, Sally and Forrest Hoglund, Betty and Sylvan Miori, Kay and Bob Onstead, and gala chairs Marie and Bill Wise and Lynn and Pete Coneway. Also in the gathering — Jeri and Marc Shapiro of New York and Placido Arrango of Madrid.
This is the third year that the Bushes have hosted a donor appreciation event for M.D. Anderson.
In September, the former president becomes chairman of the University Cancer Foundation Board of Visitors at M.D. Anderson.
Gladiator cow
Artist Beverly Hill Smith is a huge Russell Crowe fan, a regular visitor to his Web site www.MaximumCrowe.com. It makes sense then that when she cast about for design ideas for an entry in the Houston Cow Parade, she struck on “Gladiator: Russell Cow.”
But she needed $7,500, the sponsor fee, to get her creation in the parade, which benefits Texas Children’s Hospital.
She turned to the Web site for help.
With the go-ahead from Texas Children’s Hospital, Cow Parade organizers and Web site overseers, Smith had her design and the request for sponsor funding posted on MaximumCrowe.com.
Within three days Crowe fans had contributed more than enough. To date, $18,900 has been raised for the charity.
Photos of the step-by-step work on the gladiator cow are posted on the Web site.
Booked for fun
Speaking of Russell Crowe, while the star was consoling fellow Australian Nicole Kidman on the island of Fiji earlier this month, Joe Hudson and Lynne James were in Malta bunking in the digs that Crowe called home during filming of Gladiator.
The Houston couple rented the villa with a view of the Mediterranean while James attended a South Texas College of Law summer seminar. She was among 46 students attending the six-week course on comparative criminal law.
Dean Catherine Burnett and professor Susan Crump conducted classes for the program, which is in its sixth year.
Thread bare
No longer the popular playground of social figures such as Mary Lee Merrett, Betty Shindler, Susanne Dawley and Mary Ellen Gordon, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston‘s Textiles and Costume Institute has become a full-fledged collection area within the museum.
Letters announcing the Textiles and Costume Department‘s (note the subtle name change) graduation to curatorial level were sent out recently by museum director Peter Marzio.
Textiles and Costume will now be governed by a subcommittee of MFAH trustees rather than the Ladies Who Lunch. Fund raising, policy decisions, exhibitions and the like will be made in the same manner as with other MFAH subcommittees.
Fate of Silver Slipper, the annual designer award evening that has brought in the likes of Oscar de la Renta, Emanuel Ungaro and Donna Karan, remains undecided.
Brew masters
It was a merger of major brew families recently when Elizabeth Nau, daughter of Silver Eagle Distributors owners Bobbie and John Nau, exchanged vows with Andrew Stepanian, son of Linda and Leon Stepanian Jr., owners of Loveland Distributing Co. in Richmond, Va.
The wedding was total sophistication save for the playful nod to the beer business. In River Oaks Country Club‘s main dining room Budweiser in the bottle was served along with champagne, wine and other libations. In the ballroom foyer, Miller Lite reigned at the bar. Neon signs for both brews hung from the walls. Flower-filled beer steins and bowls of beer nuts topped cocktail tables. Red coozies to keep beer bottles chilled were printed with “Friend of the Bride.”
Among guests — Anheuser-Busch scion Adolphus Busch of St. Louis.
Grapes of joy
Cesar Chavez unionists not, the crowd of grape-pickers spotted in the heart of Fulshear Saturday morning were friends and family of Carole and Dr. Michael McCann, a Houston veterinarian.
More than 100 men, women and children joined the ultimate Tom Sawyer experience by sharing in the labor of picking grapes at Union Chappel Vineyards, the McCann’s 5-acre spread.
The second annual grape-pick began with a blessing of the harvest by the Rev. Charles Teykl of Rosenberg and a feast of kolaches prepared by Carole’s mother, 80-year-old Ella Owens.
Norman Rockwell, where were you?
By mid-morning the fruit of the vine, destined for fermenting and bottling, had been picked and packaged for Haak Vineyards in Sante Fe, Texas.
The reward for the volunteer laborers? A country music serenade and barbecue lunch in the shade of the McCanns’ oak trees.
