Black Tie & Tales

+ SMHF Corinthian Society celebrates at annual event
More than 130 supporters of Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation’s Corinthian Society gathered Dec. 9, at Bird Key Yacht Club, for its annual celebration. The event welcomes new members and honors all Corinthian Society and Legacy of Life members. This year, foundation President/CEO Alex Quarles and Board Chairman William Stanford presented plaques to outgoing foundation trustees Sally Gambling and Howard Isermann. New “Doctors of Philanthropy” were inducted in recognition of $50,000 of cumulative giving; donning their honorary white coats and stethoscopes were Richard Redmon, Marty Samowitz, Daniel Long, John Berteau and Dr. Mohfouz El Shahawy with his daughter, Malaka Hilton, representing her mother, Sylvia El Shahawy. Joan Mendell was honored with the organization’s signature blue vase for $100,000-plus in cumulative giving.

+ Hey, Virginia, there are two Santa Clauses …
At least there were at the Rotary Club of Sarasota’s annual holiday banquet Dec. 11, at Marina Jack: Ed Pierce and Bill Jotham. The Rotarians enjoyed a karaoke performance of holiday songs sung by the Rotary Singers under the leadership of Linda Ballou. Engineer Lee Chung, dressed as an elf, contributed a lively song-and-dance.

+ L’audace, toujours l’audace!
It takes real élan to carry off a necklace like this, and artist Pat Talbott has it. She acquired the piece, which she acknowledges is incredibly uncomfortable, at the (icon)cept show and sale of wearables-by-artists in March, at Art Center Sarasota. Pat added the chair pin near her left clavicle because “it felt like it needed something on that side.” Sarah Ford and Fayanne Hayes are the artists who built this wonder — and a skirt in the same genre.

+ From the ballet to book
Retired Sarasota Ballet Artistic Director Robert DeWarren signed books Dec. 8 and Dec. 9, at the Bird Key home of Elita Kane. He welcomed about 150 friends and admirers and sold all the books he could spare after selling them at the previous week’s performances of “The Nutcracker.”
“Sarasota Ballet will receive a good part of the royalties from all these occasions,” DeWarren said.
His book, “Destiny’s Waltz, In Step with Giants,” is also available from Amazon.com. No customer reviews yet, but plenty of people here are reading it, so there should be one soon. Batter up!

+ BT tidbits
Mending and missed … Nikki Nilon is out of Plymouth Harbor and into her own Siesta Key home, polishing off a long recuperation from nerve damage subsequent to an otherwise successful surgery. And Elaine Keating has a new hip … Everyone is raving … about Debbi Benedict’s holiday luncheon “Under Mrs. Palmer’s Pergola” last week at Historic Spanish Point … His Bar Mitzvah suit?... Gene Noble looked splendiferous at Sonata a Due last week wearing an old suit. A 58-year-old suit, to be precise. “It takes work,” he says. At last count, he was still doing about a 100-plus push-ups a day … How romantic can you get? ... How about the small castle, Schloss Liebig, on the Moselle river? That’s where Sarasota Orchestra Assistant Conductor Dirk Meyer, who hails from nearby Dusseldorf, Germany, will wed Jennifer Berges, of WUSF Public Broadcasting, July 31, 2010 … Out of Africa … Mary Ann Robinson, back just in time for the Designing Women Boutique show that she chaired … BT&T column hiatus … this column takes two weeks off while the Black Tie section celebrates the year just ending and the even better one to come. Happy holidays! See you in the Jan. 7 issue.