Bellbrook graduation 2012
Fairfield Senior 2012 graduation
Kroger Aquatic Center opens
Compiled by "Smart Mouth" columnist Amelia Robinson, Seen and Overheard is fueled by juicy tidbits, oddball tales and strange sightings.
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November 2009
Rachael Ray’s show on Wilmington airs Wednesday
Celebrity chef Rachael Ray will feature stories from the Wilmington on her talk show Wednesday, Nov. 25.
The show called “Thanksgiving on Main Street” includes footage of Ray’s visit earlier this month to Sugartree Ministry Center soup kitchen as well as the community Thanksgiving dinner she and her team held at Roberts Convention Centre.
The episode airs locally on WKEF 22 at noon.
The show calls Wilmington “a small town that refuses to lose faith.”Carter Oosterhouse of HGTV’s “Carter Can” Cincinnati native and former 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey and Kahi Lee of HGTV’s “Design on a Dime” also visited the community.
Ray invited Wilmington residents who faced economic hardship due in part to the closure of DHL to the dinner.
This isn’t the first time the plight of Wilmington workers has gained the attention of a national celebrity.
Comedian Jay Leno in May preformed two free shows there as part of Jay’s Comedy Stimulus Plan.
What do you think?
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TweetKettering garbage man retiring after 43 years, 4.3 million collections
Waste Management garbage truck driver Elmer Harris has done a lot more than collect waste in Kettering.
The father of five has become a fixture in the lives of the people he has serviced, according to Waste Management spokeswoman Beth Schmucker.
The Xenia resident officially retires Saturday, Nov. 28.
He serviced 400 homes a day on his route. That’s 4.3 million trash collections during his for 43 year career, Schmucker noted. It was no easy accomplishment.
“It’s been backbreaking, physically hard work,” Schmucker said.
Harris said he loves the people on his route. “All my customers have been extra nice to me - they’ve even given me the nickname Whitey,” he said.
Harris has been invited to birthday parties and wedding and even received high-praised from former Kettering Mayor Marilou Smith.
She sung his praises in a recommendation letter for a Waste Management award.
What do you think?
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TweetDayton’s ‘Project Runway’ runner up preparing to sell collection
What do you do after “Project Runway”?
If you are Oakwood High School graduate Althea Harper you continue to work hard.
Harper is preparing to sell her spring/summer collection.
“Everything is going to start being for sale in February on my website,” said Harper, who placed second on the Lifetime fashion design reality show. “I have a lot on my plate.”
The University of Cincinnati School of Design grad said she is still happy with the collection she showed in Bryant Park during the 2008 Fall New York Fashion Week.
The season finale with her 13 piece collection air Thursday, Nov. 19.
The futuristic collection reflected the economic times, said Harper.
Harper says she was also happy with how she was depicted, but regrets seeming a little bratty at one point when she criticized another designer.
She said the tension between her and season winner Irina Shabayeva was also played up during the show’s editing process.
“I really wasn’t trying to get into a girl fight with this girl,” Harper said. “I was trying to stick up for myself.”
Seen & Overheard runs daily in the Dayton Daily News. Twitter with me at DDNSmartmouth.
Seen & Overheard runs daily in the Dayton Daily News. Twitter with me at DDNSmartmouth.
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TweetBall, Game Boy, and Big Wheel make hall of fame. What’s your favorite toy?
The ball has finally got its due.
The bouncy, round wonder has been inducted into The National Toy Hall of Fame at Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, according to a press release.
The ball out dribbled nine other classic toys, including Cabbage Patch Kids, Game of Life, Hot Wheels, paper airplane, playing cards, the Rubik’s Cube, sidewalk chalk, toy tea set, and the Transformers.
It was joined by the Big Wheel and Nintendo Game Boy.
Forty four toys are in the National Toy Hall of Fame, including G.I. Joe, the baby doll, Barbie, Candy Land, the Easy-Bake Oven, roller skates, the jump rope, Frisbee, Atari 2600 Game System, checkers, alphabet blocks and the bicycle.
How was the ball not inducted years ago?
Balls and halls of fames go hand-in-hand - there’s the Football Hall of Fame, Baseball Hall of Fame, etc.
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Tweet50-year Thanksgiving weekend tradition canceled
The elegant flair that is the Ebony Fashion Fair will not transform the Dayton Convention Center into a fashion lover’s paradise this Thanksgiving weekend as was planned.
Johnson Publishing canceled the traveling fashion show’s 2009 national stops for the first time in 51 years, local organizers learned recently.
See photos of last year’s Ebony Fashion Fair here.
“The company is reorganizing,” said Jean Redden, second vice president of the Dayton section of the National Council of Negro Women, noting that cancellation came as a shock.
“Its been very well-attended for the last 50 years,” she added.
The Dayton council was among the first organizations to host Ebony Fashion Fair, a division of Johnson Publishing Co.
The company has been hit hard by declines in advertising sales.
“In light of the overall economic challenges that are affecting many, including our potential corporate sponsors, we have arrived at a most difficult decision to cancel Ebony Fashion Fair’s fall 2009 season,” a message on the Ebony Fashion Fair website says. “In the coming months, we will develop a new business model to ensure that the show is a mutually beneficial endeavor. Our primary goal is to build Ebony Fashion Fair and our other brands in ways that will continue delivering meaningful insight and inspiration to the African-American community.”
The show has become a Thanksgiving weekend tradition for many Miami Valley families, attracting as many as 3,000 spectators with its dazzling garments and over-the-top stage production.
Redden said the council hopes the fashion show returns to Dayton this spring and returns to a Thanksgiving weekend schedule in the years that follow.
It was the council’s major fundraiser, raising about $10,000 to $12,000 for college scholarships and other programs annually.
Twelve to 14 area girls typically receive college scholarships each years as a result of the event.
The service organization is planning a holiday gala 6 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 20, at Miami Valley Golf Club, 3311 Salem Ave., Dayton, to raise funds to assist seven girls, all high school seniors, and nursing homes. Gala tickets are $40. For tickets, call Fannie Moore at (937) 268-5500.
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TweetOakwood native in Cameron Diaz movie
Oakwood native Danielle Heaton is not the star of “The Box,” but sometimes the smallest roles are the biggest.
Heaton’s small speaking role and close ups in the Cameron Diaz lead horror-thriller were more than enough to make her family stand up and cheer.
“There were five people in the theater and four of us were family,”Linda Heaton, now of Kettering, said of seeing a late night screening of the film Thursday, Nov. 5, at Regal Hollywood 20 in Beavercreek.
Danielle Heaton, 23, now lives in New York, but began acting and singing locally, her mother said.
The 2005 Oakwood High School grad preformed with the Muse Machine and dragged her parents to countless early morning community theatre auditions.
She is a recent graduate of Boston’s Emerson College earning a degree in musical theater.
The Box is about an unhappily married couple that receives a deadly wooden box on their doorstep.
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TweetYou may be a redneck if you bank here
Yup, you may be a redneck if you deposit your money at Redneck Bank.
Nope, we aren’t joking.
Redneck Bank is the Internet banking division of Oklahoma-based Wichitas. That institution was established in 1913 and is insured by the FDIC.
The bank offering checking and money market accounts comes with the trademarked tag line “Where Bankin’s Funner.”
It promises no minimum balance “good old-fashioned service,” high interest, and no monthly maintenance fee.
One of the bank’s bright red debit cards features a picture of a smiling horse.
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TweetControversial activist to speak at UD Friday
A woman with one of the most recognizable faces from the 1970s will speak 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, at the University of Dayton’s Kennedy Union Ballroom.
Controversial political activist and history of consciousness professor Angela Davis will be the keynote speaker at the Annual Richard R. Baker Philosophy Colloquium hosted by the university’s philosophy department and The Concerned Philosophers for Peace.
The speech is free and open to the public.
Davis first gained national attention when then California Gov. Ronald Reagan removed her from a teaching post at the University of California-Berkley.
The feminist activist associated with the Black Panthers black power organization gained worldwide attention after being accused in the 1970 abduction and murder of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County, California.
Her arrest sparked the international “Free Angela Davis” campaign.
She was found innocent and has since rallied against racial injustice and been an advocate of abolition of the “prison-industrial complex.”
An author, Davis ran twice in the 1980s as vice president on the Communist ticket. She is reportedly no longer a member of the Communist Party.
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TweetLocal students to dance 12 straight hours for charity
More than 400 University of Dayton will make Athena proud Saturday, Nov. 7, as part of the 11th annual Dance Marathon at the university’s RecPlex Center.
The 12-hour event will raise funds to purchase equipment for The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton’s newborn intensive care unit.
Spectators are welcome.
Feet start to move at noon and will surely be exhausted by midnight.
The Marathon features , live music, contests, food, stories from Children Medical Center patient families and theme dance hours.
Ellen Bryan, Miss Miami Valley, will sing during the “oldies and one-hit wonder” hour and the Dayton Parrott Heads dance with students during the “vacation” hour.
The university’s dance and Irish dance teams will perform.
This year’s theme is “Be a HERO. Saving Lives One DANCE at a Time.” Each dancer will receive a bright blue T-shirt with a superhero design.
The UD’s Dance Marathon’s have raised more than $150,000 for Dayton Children’s since 1999.
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TweetDayton native to appear as ‘wrongly convicted man’ on CBS show tonight
You may recognized the wrongly convicted man on tonight’s episode of CBS’ “The Good Wife.”
He will be played by Dayton native and veteran actor Curtiss Cook.
Cook portrays Clarence, a death row inmate wrongly convicted of murdering a police officer.
Alicia (Julianna Margulies) and her associates will attempt to prove Clarence’s innocence. The episode airs at 10 p.m. on WHIO.
He will play Trey Washington in “Shutter Island,” a Martin Scorsese film starring Leonardo DiCaprio set to be released in February.
Cook, a 1987 graduate of Belmont High School, now lives in upstate New York with his wife.
While in Dayton, he performed with the Muse Machine and danced with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. Cook’s acting resume includes roles on “Law & Order” and “The Sopranos.”
Interestingly enough, Cook is the voice of Street Preacher in some of the “Grand Theft Auto” video games.
Although the scene was cut from the film, Cook kissed Nicole Kidman in the film “The Interpreter.”
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TweetMattel releases vampire Barbie
As expected, vampires like dream houses too.
Mattel has begun selling Barbie Dolls inspired by the “Twilight” movie franchise.
The Barbie-dized versions of vampire Edward Cullen and mortal girl Bella Swan (Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart) sell for about $25 each through Walmart, Walmart.com, Barbie Collector Dealers, Barbie Collector Catalog and www.barbiecollector.com, according to Mattel.
No word on whether or not the Edward doll shimmers in the sunlight or has a thing for human blood.
The next Twilight movie, “New Moon,” will be released Nov. 20.
What do you think?
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