Huge Crowd — Including Roller-Skating Divas — Brings Down the 'House' for Ronald McDonald
Daniel Ortiz and Jacob Power
Nov. 14, 2022
GALA SEASON IS now in its prime, and Houston socialites are as busy as they've been in years! More than 700 gathered at the Hilton Americas hotel to toast 40 years of the city's Ronald McDonald House at a gala chaired by Allison and Dan Connally.
Founded by Liz Kelley, the organization provides care and long-term support for families going through treatment in the Med Center. Her son, Sean Kelley, who suffered from childhood cancer, was her inspiration, and made an appearance at the big event. Longtime patrons, including Emily and Holcombe Crosswell, Peggy and Dick East, Flo McGee, Marilyn and Louis Mogas, and Diane and John Riley, were presented with an award thanking them for their decades of support.
The party had all the usual activities, including silent and live auctions — the latter of which gave away an impossibly cute Australian Labradoodle to the highest bidder.
Before the Dry Water Band took to the stage, Board President Larry Hanrahan had everyone raise a glass to the occasion — and then confetti canons shot into the air and roller-skating dancers appeared, gliding around the room to the tune of "Dancing Queen."
The evening raised a million dollars to further Ronald McDonald House's mission to provide families a home away from home during trying times.
Tara and William Nieves
Allen Crosswell and Amy Rozell
Ritu and Kunal Nadkarhi
Alvin Abraham and Beth Wolff
Cookie and Larry Hanrahan
Lesha and Tom Elsenbrook
Cristina Vetrano and Allison and Dan Connally
John and Diane Riley with the auction-prize pup
'Dancing Queen'
John and Bridget Brennan
Wells and April McGee
Peggy and Dick East
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Now in its 42nd season, the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series is still going strong, bringing award-winning writers from around the world to Houston to read from their work and engage in a lively, onstage discussion with Texas-based authors, journalists, and poets.
On Monday, Nov. 14, at Rice University’s Brockman Hall for Opera, the series brings U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo to the stage for a reading and discussion with Texas Poet Laureate Lupe Mendez, who was born in Jalisco, Mexico, in 1976, grew up in Galveston, and is one of the Houston’s best known poets and activists. (Mendez is one of several poets featured in our 2017 article about Houston’s thriving poetry scene.) Harjo, who lives in Tulsa, is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and is the first Native American to hold the position of U.S. Poet Laureate.
It’s a logical and inspired pairing, as Texas culture is so strongly rooted in that of indigenous tribes who have lived on the land going back thousands of years ago and on up to the present day. Harjo’s writing connects back to the legacies of her ancestors and displacement, drawing inspiration from Navajo horse songs and the rhythms of jazz, and is described by author Sandra Cisneros as “light and elixir, the very best prescription for us in wounded times.” She is the author of nine books of poetry, several plays and children’s books, and two memoirs. And if that weren’t enough, Harjo is also a talented performer, who also plays saxophone and has released seven albums of original music. Her new book, titled Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light, is an annotated compilation of poems written over the past 50 years, addressing such profound life events everyone can identify with, such as losing a parent, becoming a mother, and falling in love.
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