Dr. Oz Makes a Houston House Call, Promoting Mental Healthcare for Teens at Memorial Schmooze

Henry Clark
Dr. Oz Makes a Houston House Call, Promoting Mental Healthcare for Teens at Memorial Schmooze

MaryCharles Bennett, Dr. Oz & Jennifer Ducote

DR. OZ, ERSTWHILE U.S. Senate candidate and TV star, was the guest of honor at a cocktail party promoting HealthCorps’ mental health initiatives for teens, held at the home of CityBook Executive Publisher Lisa Holthouse and husband Michael.


A few dozen Holthouse friends gathered in the Memorial manse, readied for springtime with beautiful soft-colored florals, to rub shoulders with the good doctor, who was a renowned heart surgeon long before Oprah helped him become a household name.

As Lisa noted in her recent essay on HealthCorps, Mehmet Oz founded HealthCorps in 2003 to address health inequities in at-risk communities by empowering teens to take ownership of their health and well-being, “encouraging them to become change agents within their family, their school and their neighborhood.”

HealthCorps has programs in place in Houston at Jack Yates High School, Worthing High School, Wheatley High School, Welch Middle School, Wisdom High School, YES Prep Public Schools’ Eisenhower High School and Varnett Northeast.

Amy Braun and Lisa Holthouse

Kelli Weinzierl, Mary Kay Bowden, Andrea Eastham

Lyle Eastham

Dr. Nita White and Dr. Toron Wooldridge

John Weinzierl, Garry Tanner, Dr. Oz, Michael Holthouse

Charles & Tiffany Masterson

Dr. Oz, Martha & Richard Finger

Rosangela & David Capobianco

Dr. Oz, Aynesly & Palmer Letzerich, Amy Braun

Carolyn Tanner

Melissa Parigi, Dr. Oz, Palmer Letzerich

Tama & John Klosek, Amy Braun

Doug & Melissa Schnitzer

Palmer & Aynsley Letzerich, Jennifer & Doak Brown

Isabel Wallace-Green (photos by Kent Barker and Xavier Mack)

HOUSTON-BORN DANCER AND arts educator Isabel Wallace-Green vividly recalls seeing a performance of Alvin Ailey’s landmark 1960 dance work Revelations as a child, peering over a high balcony in Jones Hall. “The dancers were pretty small!” laughs Wallace-Green, who nevertheless was captivated, especially by a section in Revelations titled “Wade in the Water,” where translucent white, cobalt, and aquamarine cloths are stretched across the stage to evoke baptismal waters and — for African American slaves — the riverbed as a pathway to freedom. “I’d never seen anything like that.”

Keep Reading Show less
Art + Entertainment

FOR ANNA SWEET, the hunger for sugar, carbs, and fat is much like the art world’s hunger for art — especially art made by attractive, colorful, larger-than-life individuals.

Keep Reading Show less
Art + Entertainment