Smart Party honorees

The Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham will honor these 10 women at its Smart Party 3.0 tonight at Iron City on Southside.

Kay Bains, partner, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings

Louise Beard, Broadway producer who won 2014 Tony Award for Best Musical for “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”

Constance Burnes, director of schools, Birmingham City Schools

Michele Elrod, executive vice president and head of marketing, Regions Bank

Susan Greene, executive director, Norma Livingston Ovarian Cancer Foundation

Eileen Markstein, managing director, Markstein Consulting*

Andrea McCaskey, vice president, human resources, BioHorizons

Kathy G. Mezrano, founder and president, Kathy G. and Company

Carolyn Sherer, photographer and director*

Dr. Farah Sultan, founder and medical director, Vitalogy Wellness Center

•

Women Who Make a Difference

Birmingham Magazine and the Alabama Media Group will honor these 20 recipients as Women Who Make a Difference on Wednesday at The Club. 

Lisa Borden, pro bono shareholder, Baker Donelson

Nita Carr, executive director, Cornerstone Schools of Alabama

Carol Clarke, manager, Regions Financial Education Institute

Leigh Collier, Mid-South region president, Wells Fargo

Priscilla Hancock Cooper, interim president and CEO, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Kate Cotton, vice president, community relations, Protective Life Corporation, and executive director, Protective Life Foundation

Trisha Powell Crain, executive director, Alabama School Connection

Phyllis Hoffman DePiano, president and CEO, Hoffman Media

Virginia Samford Donovan, actress, philanthropist, namesake of the Virginia Samford Theatre

Martie Duncan, chef, finalist on “Food Network Star”

Ann Florie, executive director, Leadership Birmingham

Alie Gorrie, founder, Songs for Sight

Kathryn Gwaltney, executive director, National Center for Sports Safety

Shirley Salloway Kahn, vice president for development, alumni and external relations, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Meg McGlamery, executive director, Crisis Center

Shanta’ Owens, district judge, Jefferson County Criminal Division

Valerie Ramsbacher, vice president, corporate advocacy, Regions Bank

Chanda Temple, public relations director, Birmingham Public Library

Véronique Vanblaere, owner and artist, Naked Art Gallery

Beth Wilder, executive director, Literacy Council of Central Alabama

A look back at all things and people and events 2009 …

Video: City Stages files for bankruptcy.

June 15 | Wade on Birmingham takes the spotlight in Birmingham Magazine’s June issue. Also featured, the Birmingham Blogging Academy and five urgently needed blog topics for the city.

June 18 | Annual downtown music festival City Stages asks for a bailout before the gates even open. And we take a hard look at the numbers.

June 18 | A big fine for a big crook: HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy is ordered to pay a $2.87 billion fine in a civil suit. Much of his estate has been sold at auction, including his Vestavia Hills mansion and his car collection.

June 25 | Twenty years down the drain: City Stages ends more than $1 million in debt, failing to pay its vendors tens of thousands of dollars. Organizers filed for bankruptcy in July.

See all of our June coverage.

• • •

Haiku flashback

appetite for deduction [June 8]

As my friend told me
about the cancer, I tried
to eat my sandwich.

• • •

365 days of Birmingham’s best and worst: Wade on 2009

Love holiday eating? If so, why not shop and eat locally for Thanksgiving, Christmas and any other upcoming holiday celebrations and feasts?

Our pal Amanda at Food Revival has a great list of farms and shops that sell organic or sustainably raised turkeys and vegetables. See her list, shop smartly and let us know about other places to shop in the comments.

Also, Birmingham Magazine has recipes to get you started, including Satsuma-Stuffed Locally Bred Turkey with Alabama Root Vegetables and Conecuh County Sausage and Collard Cheese Grits.

Enjoy your holidays!

Enjoy the Fourth, my fellow Americans!

• Fun activities around Birmingham and Alabama
• Independence Day playlists from Birmingham magazine

And some fireworks and tunes to celebrate our freedom!

We’re doing something a little different but a lot of fun over on my personal site WadeKwon.com.

If you’re on Twitter, you can follow me at @WadeOnTweets. Then you can enter my crazy 1,000 follower prize blowout.

You can win prizes from these great Birmingham-area sponsors:

• Birmingham Business Journal
• Birmingham magazine
• Birmingham Museum of Art
• The J. Clyde
• McWane Science Center
• Mellow Mushroom

All you have to do to enter is retweet the contest. For full details and rules …

Visit the contest page.

Good luck!

*as a featured blogger (feh)

What, you thought I was pretty enough to be selected to be among 2009’s Beautiful People in Birmingham magazine? Sigh, no.

But nonetheless, my sites for the Birmingham Blogging Academy and this little ol’ blog Wade on Birmingham are prominently featured, thanks to our pal and associate editor Carla Jean Whitley.

The article focuses on the academy’s origin and courses and how to get started blogging. So be sure to check out:

• Carla Jean’s story
• and my suggestions for five urgently needed blog topics for Birmingham.

And absolutely grab a copy of the June issue of Birmingham magazine today!

(Maybe next year I’ll be beautiful. sniff!)

If it’s August, it must be time to plug this site’s annual appearance in Birmingham Magazine …

Our pal associate editor Carla Jean Whitley rounded up the best sites in town, charitably including Wade on Birmingham in the list. We’re on page 87! We’re on page 87!

Ironically, the “Birmingham on the Web” article is not on the Web. However, you can plunk down $2.95 at your local magazine shoppe or newsstand for the issue, because it’s worth every penny finding out which sites to surf when not enjoying “clever, daily haikus.” We’re blushing.

Our thanks to Carla Jean, with a hat tip to head:subhead.

Also:

• An excerpt from “My Birmingham” in the August 2007 issue
• The magazine’s picks for the most beautiful people
• Our selection of Birmingham’s hottest sites

Then and now

Stages and the city: City Stages 2008 brought the usual highs and lows, including …

• A variety of musical acts
• An historic 20th year, impressive for its longevity, sad for its inability to innovate
• The unsurprising conclusion: inadequate ticket sales, persistent debt

Videos from the festival, after the jump …

(more…)

Birmingham Magazine shows off the pretty, pretty people

Each June, Birmingham Magazine singles out the fairest of them all, the city’s “Beautiful People.” You can find them all in this slideshow, or on the newsstand this month.

Ogle them, rate them, rank them.

At least one blogger has already done so:

“There is hardly any criteria to being birmingham’s most beautiful person. These ppl have normal jobs for the most part, and are semi-attractive according to the pictures. So what? Why is a magazine going to set themselves up for complete criticism by putting the word beautiful on the cover and then not deliver….AT ALL!”

So, are they Birmingham’s prettiest? Or somewhat plainest?