Posts Tagged ‘Clarence Harmon’

Rev. Earl Nance, Clifton Davis, Dan McFadden, Anna Maria Horsford and Sherman Hemsley

If Martin Mathews hadn’t existed, it would have been necessary to invent him. The leader of the Mathews-Dickey Boys & Girls Club rallied entertainment headliners, high-powered corporate blue bloods and supporters to the “Say Amen Banquet” Saturday night at the St. Louis Airport Marriott Hotel, raising $150,000 for the club.  With hefty assists by the club’s former CEO chairpersons Ron Fromm of Brown Shoe, Mike Neidorf of Centene, KSDK, the Post-Dispatch and KMOX, the event marked the 50th anniversary of the club, that has remained a cornerstone of our community. Ameren UE’s Tom Voss, with his wife, Carol, said the club “is a treasure for St. Louis.”  The Vosses hail from Eureka, Mo., where he said, “We can see as far as seven miles and the stars at night from our deck.”  He hailed Martin Mathews as, “Our own Mother Teresa.”  Channel 5′s 31-year vet Art Holliday, who served as emcee, said his wife, Linda, didn’t attend. “She doesn’t want to hear me talk anymore,” he joshed.  The Post-Dispatch editorial page editor Gilbert Bailon fielded positive comments about his page and admitted, “With so few resources.”  Then, he flattered the columnist and noted, “Everyone reads your column.” (Blush-blush.)

Had a great reunion with former singer/dancer Clifton Davis, whom the columnist knew as a press agent at The Muny in the 1968 production of “Hello, Dolly!,” in which Davis was a chorus boy in the Pearl Bailey headlined production. Davis, who is now a minister, continues his foray on the stage.  He pointed out, “I’m now negotiating to perform in a play, bound for Washington, D.C., about church folk heading to hell.”  Sherman Hemsley, who portrayed George Jefferson in the teleseries, The Jeffersons”, for 11 years, joined in the chorus of “Amen”, with Davis, Anna Marie Horsford, Barbara Montgomery and Roz Ryan.  Rev. Earl Nance, chairman of Mathews-Dickey and spiritual leader of the Greater Mt. Carmel Church, said the money raised would be used for educational purposes. Catherine and former St. Louis Fire Chief Sherman George were toasted on their 39th wedding anniversary.  Meanwhile, Sherman lashed out at the city’s administration. (Remember, he was demoted for refusing to promote firefighters based on testing, that he claimed was faulty?)  George claimed, “There’s no question, that the administration is racist. The mayor, the board of aldermen and its president are on the same page. We need to have a debate on what’s right and what’s wrong with the city.”  He added, that both he and former mayor Clarence Harmon are now on the board of the ACLU.

Faces in the crowd included those of: Good News Baptist Church Rev. Byron Crawford and his wife, Shirley; Maritz veep Dan McFadden; former Miss Black USA Kyria Virshelle with Eyekon Records’ Steve Hart and Eddie Hasan. Ida Goodwin Woolfolk received the Bill Maritz Memorial Award and Judge Richard Webber was recipient of the Benjamin F. Edwards Memorial Award.

The office of Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan has begun asking local governments to quantify the economic consequences of a series of Rex Sinquefeld-sponsored petitions to abolish the earnings tax collected by St. Louis and Kansas City (and, beyond Rex’s current reach, by most major cities in the country.) In St. Louis , the earnings taxes paid by city residents and by others who work within the city limits amount to one-third of the entire city budget (or the cost of operating the entire police dept)… The two trains of Charlie Dooley, county exec and candidate, brushed each other on the tracks this week.  While Dooley campaign exec John Temporiti was dousing Republican challenger Bill Corrigan‘s No-Tax announcement with proof of Dooley’s own tax-cutting chops, county officials were telling reporters that Dooley was supporting a half-cent sales tax increase for public transportation… Yes, that was former St. Louis mayor Clarence Harmon sitting back-to-back with former St. Louis mayor Vince Schoemehl over lunch at low-profile Beffa’s.  Unrelated meetings and polite handshakes, reported bemused observers.  Meanwhile, Fredbird – the unlikely club next door to St. Louis’s most hidden restaurant – will host a fundraiser Dec. 5 to promote the 2010 season of the Arch Rival Roller Girls… From my booth at the McDonald’s across the street from the Post-Dispatch, it looks like on-line editor Kurt Greenbaum (a true gentleman, by the way) has managed to do exactly what his bosses wanted him to do: get readers.  A P-D story – more accurately, stories about the newspaper – spent the past week near the top of the Google International search list.  Greenbaum, who oversees most of the paper’s social media efforts, drew worldwide attention for telling a local school that someone using its computers had posted and reposted a naughty comment on a P-D website… Erstwhile P-D commentary page editor Eric Mink was beckoned by The New York Times as freelancer to pen a review of a new production of “The Card Game” in the long-running “Frontline” documentary series on PBS. Published Nov. 23, the review is headlined “In Love with Credit, It’s Business as Usual”… Betsy Taylor, super-reporter in the Associated Press’s St. Louis bureau, is job hunting.