Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

Comment
on this story

Gloria Sequitur

God love Gloria Ray. Who else would have the cojones to twirl her baton all over the stage of the Bijou Theatre in order to raise funds for its continued success? And who else would have the guts to do it while wearing a sequined tube top? No one.

But there were plenty of other notables strutting their stuff at the Inaugural Bijou Benefit Variety Show, including Bill Baxter singing (quite well, we might add) the Beatles' "I Will," Bob Kesling and Bill Williams playing a low-key and terribly funny duet on piano and cello, Jim Clayton and Sue Atchley going the George and Tammy route with a country medley, and the wonderful Courtney Zirkle giving her all—in a Dolly-style dress—with "Wildflowers." Hosts Bret Dark and Michele Silva kept the evening flowing. But it was really Mme. Ray (and her top) who stole the show.

Ta Doo Ron-Ron

Ron McMahan's old boss, Howard Baker, was there for the festivities when his former press secretary was the honoree at last week's Front Page Follies, an annual benefit put on by the Society of Professional Journalists. Baker talked about being the beneficiary of McMahan's sage political advice, and recounted a Watergate-era strategy session the two of them had over lunch one day. Hearings were about to begin, and Baker told McMahan he was going to ask "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"

"Oh, that doesn't have any zip," McMahan responded.

Baker attended with his wife, Nancy Kassebaum. Also present was another friend from Watergate days, Sen. Fred Thompson.

After his D.C. days were over, McMahan became the last local editor/owner of the daily Knoxville Journal. A video of former Knoxville Journal managing editor Larry Aldridge and editorial cartoonist Charlie Daniel shed light on a typical McMahan work day. Aldridge remembered it this way: Check in at the office around 10 a.m., go play tennis, Regas for lunch, come back to the office and "say about 150 goddamns."

"And that," Daniel said, "was a busy day."

One prized invitee, former Ronald Reagan press secretary Jim Brady, wasn't able to make it to the event. McMahan forever linked himself to Brady after McMahan announced that Brady had died as a result of the shooting that also injured President Reagan.

Dunking Sarah

If Sarah Siegel was fazed by the requirement that new converts to Judaism must go through the conversion ceremony naked, she didn't let on. Of course, the fact that the ravishing redhead is just 8 months old may have had something to do with her aplomb when her father, attorney Mark Siegel, immersed her in the waters of Melton Hill Lake at the home of Wendy and Ted Besmann. The Bessmann home is the site of many local conversion ceremonies, since the nearest mikvah (ritual bath) is in Chattanooga. Looking on were her mother, Betty Siegel, her grandmother, Zelda Siegel, rabbi Shlomo Levine and a host of aunts, uncles and friends.

It was Grandma Zelda's 75th birthday, and relatives came from all over for the dual festivities, which included a dinner in Sarah's honor at the Tomato Head and a Hebrew naming ceremony at Heska Amuna Synagogue.

There were three other conversion ceremonies at the Besmanns' that day, and Mark Siegel said there was much speculation about what the neighbors must think about the goings on:

"There were many jokes being made among our group about what they were probably saying in the house on the other side of the cove—'Yeah, they're dunking another Jew over there...' "

The May 17 Metro Pulse mention of Mayor Victor Ashe's declaration of a Tina Wesson Day in Knoxville to honor the Survivor survivor prompted another "survivor" sort of story, and a similar declaration. Knox County Commissioners Howard Pinkston and Larry Clark, the South Knox duo, decreed May 30 as Trudy Miller Monaco Day in honor of her efforts in organizing and presenting the first South Knoxville Heritage "Vestival" in the old Candora Marble Factory in Vestal on May 12. Pinkston says the event drew a couple of thousand souls and that Monaco "worked her buns off" to make it a success. "And she survived it, too."