Cindy Burnett and Krista Hensel
Family Pizza Night A Gamer’s Retro Collection Hosting Exchange Students The Bormaster Family Home Safe: When Jack Disappeared Who Remembers 45s? Travel: D-Day and Dad
Connecting Readers and Authors by Andria Frankfort
Buzz Baby: Co-Sleeping Chef’s Corner: Emily Trusler Houston, TX
A Teen-Vocab Primer
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Cooking on Vacation
JEFF RILEY, MARGARITA BARCENAS, AND JIM WATERS
EDITOR’S NOTE She was sitting next to me at the hair salon. I knew about her son-in-law’s recent life-changing accident, but I wasn’t sure it was appropriate for me to mention it. She appeared relaxed and happy, and I didn’t want to cause any stress. But I recalled something I learned from a cancer survivor in a Buzz article that’s stuck with me: It’s always okay to say something. So, I said to Leslie Bormaster, “I am so sorry to hear about your son-inlaw.” Leslie immediately put me at ease and told me about his incredible, positive attitude. Leslie and her entire family have that effect on everyone they meet. Her daughter, Kim, a Special Olympics athlete, inherited that bright Leslie smile and strength. This month, Pooja Salhotra captures this special family’s contagious support for each other and uplifting spirit. We know they will inspire you, too. joni@thebuzzmagazines.com
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On our cover: Friends Cindy Burnett and Krista Hensel run Conversations from a Page, where they introduce readers to authors. Cover photo by Nikky LaWell, lawellphoto.com The Buzz Magazines has made all reasonable attempts to verify the accuracy of all information contained within. Advertising claims are solely the responsibility of the advertiser. Copyright © 2019 Hoffman Marketing & Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any portion of this magazine by any means without written permission is strictly prohibited. Printed on recycled paper. Please remember to recycle.
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WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 5
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Your letters, thoughts, opinions Web of emotion Wow! I cannot begin to express how excited I am that my sweet Spidey [Magnificent Phidippus Jumping Spider/Third Place/Nature, The Buzz Magazines 2019 Photo Contest, July 2019] captured your hearts the way he did mine! Thank you so much for awarding the photo of him. In my five years of photography, this particular photo has meant the most to me. Never in my life did I expect a tiny little spider to affect me so greatly. In all honesty, I toned down my affection for Spidey in the notes about the photo; my first draft was ridiculously emotional. The level of excitement when I discovered him to the devastation I experienced when he was no longer around is inexplicable to me. It's one of the most special, yet bizarre, experiences I have had in my life … but that’s what makes photography so amazing! Thank you so much for the recognition! It means so much to me. Kathy Fujimoto Editor’s note: The thanks goes to you, Kathy. We feel as if we know Spidey now too. If any of you missed our popular annual photo contest this year, you can find all the pictures, including Spidey, at thebuzzmagazines.com.
Tracy captured adventure – and us You did a marvelous reporting job, making sense and coherence of our ramblings [Travel Buzz: Like father, like son, by Tracy L. Barnett, June 2019]. And I thought you captured a large slice of our personalities and perspectives. I know from experience that is not easy.... Wyche Fowler
Three cheers for Brantley I was so pleased to read the wonderful article in the recent issue of The Buzz about Brantley Payne [The Giving Tree: Growing alongside its boy, by Jennifer Oakley, May 2019]. Brantley is a fine young man, and the article was a poignant reminder that the value and priority one places in education, in reading and in one's church "family" in the end helps foster well rounded and thoughtful young men and women. Brantley is exactly that kind of person, and we are blessed to have him, and his whole family, as active members at St. Martin's. Three cheers for Brantley! And for The Buzz for continuing to remind us all of what is most important! The Rev. Dr. Russ Levenson, Jr., Rector, St. Martin's Episcopal Church
Don’t let fear stop you It was so lovely this afternoon to discover your two articles [My Quarter-Life Crisis: Leaving Harvard Law School for home and Exploring Houston – Hidden gems: Third Ward, by Pooja Salhotra, June 2019] while thumbing through the local magazine. I loved both. You are a very talented girl, and I know you will do great things. I wish you all the best in making your decisions as you go forward, and am so glad that you feel a sense of relief for now. If you want to be a lawyer, don’t let fear of failure stop you. You won’t fail. If you don’t want to be a lawyer, don’t let fear stop you from walking away. Fallacy of sunk costs and all that. You will WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 6
succeed in whatever you choose! Alexandra Cannon
Distracted driving? [In response to Back Porch: On-the-go podcasts, by Andria Frankfort, July 2019] Distraction when driving seems to focus on the cell phone, especially texting or reading, but also just from talking/listening. [I] have to wonder if listening to something other than music such as audiobooks and podcasts increases potential of accidents as [the] mind [is] involved in listening and comprehending. Dean Fisher
Reading every page Just wanted to let you know how very much I enjoy your Buzz. I open it just to browse, and invariably before I realize, I’ve read every page – standing up. Great stories, sometimes making me cry, some reminisce, and all thoughtful and engaging. Thank you! Janice Donalson Editor’s note: We are so glad you are enjoying the magazine, Janice. Thank you for the kind and encouraging feedback. If you ever want to reread an old story, search for topics, or explore online-only content, check out thebuzzmagazines.com. Send letters to info@thebuzzmagazines.com. Please include your name, address, phone number and email address for verification purposes. Letters are subject to editing for clarity and space. Views expressed in letters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Buzz Magazines, and The Buzz takes no responsibility for the content and opinions expressed in them.
What’s your story? We are looking for residents for upcoming articles who: • Know a Buzzworthy neighbor to profile. • Have traveled with your pet. • Have unique hobbies or collections. • Have funny or unusual parenting stories. • Have special holiday traditions. If this sounds like you or someone you know, please contact us at info@thebuzzmagazines.com or 713.668.4157, ext 12.
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KIDS by Michelle Casas Groogan, staff writer
Home Safe When Jack disappeared
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very parent has endured the feeling – split second panic when you lose line of sight on your kid. For parents of children with autism, the ordeal can occur with gut-wrenching regularity. Liz Selig never knows when her 7-year-old son Jack, who is nonverbal, will wander away. He’s done it before, an inclination made more dangerous by his love of the water. Anxiety flares as this single mother of two recalls one evening earlier this spring when she saw a Bellaire police officer’s car outside her home. “I thought Jack was playing in his room. Then my eyes shift to this patrol car, and I saw this little blonde kid in the back seat that looked like Jack, and then I knew. I dropped my phone, and I just bolted toward him.” Jack had walked to Evergreen Pool in Bellaire a couple of blocks away from their home. She never knew he was gone. It was no easy task for Officer Alex Marcotte to get him home safe. “He just kept saying pool,” said Marcotte. “He couldn’t say his last name or describe his house. He was getting a little anxious and agitated with all the people around. I asked him to go for a ride in my police car, but he didn’t want to go to my car. I had to physically transport him – kicking and screaming.” One week after Jack’s incident, another boy in Bellaire with autism wandered from his home. The parents realized he was missing and flooded social media with his photo. He was found safe at the Target in Meyerland, more than a mile from his home and on the other side of Loop 610. Not all incidents end without heartbreak. Earlier this year, a 7-year-old boy with autism slipped undetected out of his family’s townhome in Texas City. His body was recovered the next day from a nearby retention pond. It is this type of tragic outcome that parents like Liz and the City of Bellaire are trying to prevent. After hearing that Bellaire first responders had no way to identify residents with special needs, Liz advocated for a program similar to one she learned about in Florida. The city answered and, this summer, launched Home Safe Bellaire. Bellaire’s Police Department already utilizes a statewide program called State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry (STEAR) that WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 8
alerts police about residents who have special needs. The program helped during Hurricane Harvey, alerting Officer John Edwards to 28 registered residents he checked in on. “The Home Safe program will be specific to people with autism and dementia, people who are nonverbal and who might wander off. We can flag addresses if we know someone wanders from the HOME SAFE BELLAIRE Jack Stephens, age 7, has some fun with Bellaire Police house,” said Officer Alex Marcotte. Their last time together was scary as Jack had wandered from Edwards. “The home, but the incident helped launch a new city-wide program. information will street, and a neighbor identified Jack. tell us where the child likes to play, if they like “I’ve never had experience with autism, the water or trains, any likes, dislikes and triggers. directly, but my youngest has Down syndrome. It’s one extra safety precaution to keep our citiI know it’s tough to be a parent in that situation; zens safe. Immediately we’ll have a picture of the it’s a lot to take care of,” said Marcotte. “I asked person, and all dispatched officers can start lookhis mom that if I ever saw him again what are ing for him without any delays.” some things that I could say to him to help him.” In Jack’s case, a quick-thinking lifeguard at Now he and other Bellaire police officers will the Evergreen pool stopped him before he could have the help of the Home Safe Bellaire projump into the water. gram. “I was happy to hear that the city was on “I noticed he had no shoes on, and I knew board with putting this program into action. something was off because I asked him where his People who have challenges communicating are parents were, and he couldn’t answer that,” said the most vulnerable citizens in our community,” Kimberly Landry, a lifeguard and full time stuMarcotte said. “These are the citizens that we dent at Texas Southern University. Landry are supposed to help.” stayed with Jack in an office, trying to comfort “I’m ecstatic that something positive came out him, and another lifeguard walked down the of this scary-as-hell experience,” said Liz. “Now street looking for concerned parents. I’m going to work at getting neighboring commu“What amazes us is how he found his way here. nities to get on board and the City of Houston.” It was all from memory. We knew he definitely had been here before, and he’s definitely smart enough Editor’s note: To participate in the Home Safe to know where he was going,” said Kimberly. Bellaire program (available to Bellaire residents), conOfficer Marcotte noticed Jack was wearing an tact Community Resource Officer John Edwards at Episcopal High School shirt, so he set out to find jedwards@bellairepolice.com or 713-662-8103. a matching yard sign. He ended up on the right
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NEIGHBORS by Andria Frankfort, staff writer
Conversations from a Page Connecting readers and authors
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his year, a couple of West University neighbors took summer reading to a whole new level. Cindy Burnett, a former attorney and current book reviewer, and Krista Hensel, a former physical therapist and current part-time assistant swim coach at St. John’s School, teamed up to create Conversations from a Page, a severaltimes-a-year gathering to introduce readers to new authors and books. The group began when Cindy hosted an event for friend and Houston author Katherine Center, when Katherine’s book How to Walk Away launched in 2018. “Everyone thought it was so great and said they would love to do it again,” Cindy says. “I have a number of friends who are authors, so I reached out to a couple and asked if they’d like to come to Houston to talk about their books, and they said they’d love to.” That was last October. Cindy invited her friend and fellow St. John’s mom Krista to cohost, and now the events – some morning coffees, some evening gatherings – are held in Krista’s home. “We had such a great response to that first event, we decided to label it,” Cindy says. “We used my Instagram, @ThoughtsFromAPage, as a jumping-off point and decided on Conversations from a Page.” “Cindy and I feel such joy connecting readers and introducing authors,” Krista says. “I am lucky that Cindy and I have found a way to combine our talents and work together in friendship.” “We have two goals,” Cindy says. “First, we want to expose people coming to our events to new authors. Through book reviewing, I have found that there are a million and six books being published, especially with self-publishing and Amazon and all these small, independent publishers. So it’s really hard for authors to have good luck with their books selling, even if they’re good books, and for people to weed through all the books out there to decide what to read. “Second, we keep hearing over and over that people love the social thing where everybody comes together to see people they don’t always WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 10
BOOK SMART New fans and friends surround author Mary Kay Andrews after her interview at a recent Conversations from a Page event.
see and meet other readers. It’s a community thing. Something fun and social, where people can come and enjoy and feel refreshed.” This summer, Cindy and Krista hosted Mary Kay Andrews, a fun, prolific author with a loyal following, Lisa Duffy, who recently launched her novel about belonging, This is Home, and Wendy Walker, who introduced her thriller The Night Before. “We’re realizing we need a wide range of authors and genres,” Cindy says. As an unwitting prelude to Conversations from a Page, Cindy started her Instagram account, or “Bookstagram,” as avid readers and book reviewers dub accounts like hers, three years ago to review books online. “When I was trying to decide where I was going to review, I noticed that people were moving away from blogs, going to places like Facebook and Instagram where they already are. I never want to go to all those independent blogs, so I didn’t want other people to have to do that.” Although it’s turned into something big, Cindy’s passion for books has always been just that – a passion. The former attorney and mother of three says, “I always read a ton, and once my kids were in elementary school and it
wasn’t so hard keeping up with a toddler at home, I started feeling like I wanted to do something else. I am in all these book-reviewing groups online. I got involved with a friend who runs a Facebook book group, and it started blossoming from there. I was in charge of a book-reviewing group and met all these people on the Internet.” Those new friendships made online have developed into something more. Cindy now attends a book conference in New York, where she has met a lot of like-minded readers and authors. “It all kind of came about organically, and it’s come to this,” she says. While Cindy brings her knowledge of authors and books, Krista enjoys hosting. “I greet and welcome everyone arriving into my home so that all are comfortable and a part of our event on a very personal level,” she says. Authors Mary Laura Philpott and Katherine Center will be featured at the next Conversations from a Page event on the morning of Sept. 19. If you would like to be added to the list to receive a notice, email cfapage@gmail.com. For more information, go to cfapage.net.
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KIDS by Cathy Gordon, staff writer
A Fixation with Pixelation Dylan Aguilar
A teen’s love of retro video games
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he click of a chunky cartridge slipping into a game console. Pixelated graphics darting about to chirpy electronic music. Fingers firing away in a frenzied mashing of control buttons. It was a tactile experience, playing video games in the ’70s and ’80s. The soundtrack to many a childhood. And then there’s Jason Gerber, 15, born well after technology’s departure for smooth, interactive pastures. Surely the rudimentary graphics and basic action of video game infancy bore him, right? “Oh, I love the early games. The simplicity of them is really cool,” enthuses the Emery/Weiner School sophomore, sporting a mop of curly, brown hair, feet anchored in ladybug socks. “Pixel graphics stand the test of time, even with the ultra-realistic games we have today.” Yeah, Jason is Pac-Man. Eats the stuff up. This day, in his family’s Old Braeswood home, he acts as docent on a tour of the Gerber Museum of Cool Video Game Stuff. Okay, not a museum, but an upstairs area off of the game room that he’s taken over as lair for his collection. All manner of consoles, games and hand-held playing devices reside here for his pleasure. The Atari 2600 introduced in 1977 (Space Invaders, anyone?) is the granddaddy of the collection, followed by Nintendo’s first-ever console and follow-up Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The Nintendo 64 that revolutionized 3D game play with hits such as Super Mario 64 and Super Smash Bros. preens from a shelf here as well, along with the GameCube (“We’re getting closer to when I was born with that one,” he says.), Wii, Wii U and the Nintendo Switch. “I have really early games to current modernday ones,” Jason explains. “I think the collection I have now is way better than the one I had before.” Yes, there’s been a collection reboot. In August 2017, as Hurricane Harvey raged, thieves ransacked the Gerbers’ home, stealing jewelry, electronics, cash and other sentimentals, including Jason’s video game collection. Game Over. “We’d moved valuables to the upstairs, where Jason’s collection is. They went right up there and took it all,” says mom Teri. “He was devastated.” Jason and older brother Sammy were at a WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 12
GAMING GURU Jason Gerber is all smiles amid his stash of games, a collection that tells the tale of video games from infancy through current day.
nearby aunt and uncle’s house the night the storm came in. They’d gone with their parents to watch a pay-for-view boxing match. When heavy rain moved in, Teri and husband Howie headed home, barely making it. “It was unbelievable how fast the streets flooded,” Teri said. “The boys really wanted to stay and watch the fight, and we just figured we’d get them the next day, but we couldn’t, the flooding was so bad. My mom lives next door to us, so Howie and I were at her place when our things were stolen.” While their home didn’t flood, the theft left them feeling violated, especially Jason. He’d paid for his collection with money saved from a part-time job as Sunday school teacher assistant at temple Emanu El. He’d also saved birthday money and earnings from power-washing and other household chores, Teri says. “He spent so much time and energy on collecting. You just hate to see your child go through something like that.” But time heals. Before long, Jason was back at it. “I learned a lot of things not to do the second time around, like don’t buy stuff second-hand off of Amazon that doesn’t work,” he quips. “Now I get things mainly off of eBay and stores.” He enjoys playing games, new and old. But Nintendo’s long-running The Legend of Zelda
series is his favorite. Not to be confused with their dog, Zena, who surely considers herself legend, stretched out full-body on her comfy chairthrone among Jason’s treasures. “It’s a franchise, action-adventure type game that’s stood the test of time,” Jason explains. “There’s a puzzle-solving aspect to it that intrigues me.” Older games might seem elementary with their simple pixel graphics, he says, but they’re the most challenging. “I wasn’t alive for more than half the stuff I own, but I can tell you that early games are the hardest,” he says. “There wasn’t room to write video games on the small storage space they had, so instead of making more game play, they just made it harder so you could play more.” Not every game in his collection was a success, he says, reaching for Nintendo’s Virtual Boy, released in 1995, a red, hand-held Nintendo mask game console, meant to deliver 3D fun. “The games were really stupid. And when you put it to your face and play on it, you get a huge headache.” But flops are as important as successes to the video game timeline, says Jason. “They’re fun to collect ’cause they didn’t make many of them. They’re all really cool pieces of technology. I want to preserve that history.”
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Elaine Matte Mut
NEIGHBORS by Andria Frankfort, staff writer
Exchange Students Part of the family
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didn’t give my children a brother, so I rented one for a year.” That’s what Lewis Kalmans, a wealth advisor at Morgan Stanley and father of three teen girls, says of hosting a 17-year-old boy as an exchange student from Hungary for a year. Except the Kalmans family got Laci (pronounced LA-tzi) for way more than just a year. Almost two years after Laci left Houston, he is still on the Kalmans group text. “He’s part of the family,” Lewis’ wife Elyse says. AFS-USA is the nonprofit organization that brings these students to Houston (and to other locations across the country). The founders of AFS-USA were volunteer WWI and WWII American Field Service ambulance drivers who promoted cross-cultural and educational exchanges in order to prevent future conflict. Elyse began thinking about hosting an exchange student after she heard another mother of three girls speak about AFS at a Kinkaid School Parents’ Association board meeting. “It was a similar situation and sounded cool,” Elyse says. The Kalmans girls were in 11th, 10th and 7th grades when Laci joined them as a high school junior in Aerin’s class. Kinkaid has a longtime relationship with AFS and pays for tuition, books and school lunches. Laci played on the football and soccer teams, with the Kalmans crew cheering on their new “son” and brother. Laci’s family came to Houston at the end of his school year, and the Kalmans crew spent a Thanksgiving in Hungary visiting Laci’s family. “He and Aerin still FaceTime multiple times a week,” Elyse says. Elizabeth and Paul Tepikian have hosted six exchange students – four boys, from Thailand, Norway and Germany, and two girls, from Italy and Germany. Paul, a retired ExxonMobil executive, moved the family to Guatemala for three years for his work. “We saw the impact that had on our kids, experiencing another culture, another language, which put us in a position to host when we come back to Houston,” Paul says. When their older daughter Emily left for college, leaving younger daughter Chantrea an “only child,” the Tepikians took the leap. “Manuela, from Italy, was a year older than WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 14
THE MORE THE MERRIER The Tepikian family has hosted several exchange students. From left, with a student from Germany: Elizabeth Tepikian, Chantrea Tepikian, Mac the dog, Moritz Maher and Paul Tepikian.
our youngest,” Elizabeth, an attorney, says. “So they were 15 and 14. It was a bit of work to get two teenage girls to get along, but they ended up loving each other.” Another challenge? One of the boys from Thailand was named “Him.” “Made for very interesting conversation,” Paul says, “because it was like, ‘Where’s Him?’ The Tepikians brought their students on family trips, including scuba diving trips to Cozumel. “If you’re going to be a Tepikian, you’re going to learn to scuba dive,” Paul says. He says one of his favorite moments was watching Vagar, a tall, blonde Norweigan exchange student, leave the house with his daughter Chantrea, who is Cambodian, and her then-boyfriend, who was African-American. “Vagar came from a town where if one percent of the population wasn’t Norweigan, that would be a lot. Some of these kids come from towns smaller than Lamar.” Tepikian exchange students have attended Lamar and HSPVA. “In the grand scheme of life, they’re not here that long, but you end up with a tight bond which is quite gratifying,” Elizabeth says. Sarah Selleck and Brent Nyquist have made hosting AFS students a multi-generational affair. When Brent was a teenager in Montana,
his family hosted Pancho from Chile, with whom they are still in contact. “That planted in my mind that I could go somewhere,” Brent, an architect, says, “so I spent my senior year in Finland. I had never been to a non-Englishspeaking country before, so this was fairly radical for a kid from Montana. I didn’t talk to anyone for four months, but for me that isn’t a tough thing.” A generation later, Sarah and Brent host students here, and their daughter Kat spent an exchange year in Germany. “I learned so much, about how I react out of my element, how I deal with certain things,” Kat says. “I went from living in inner-city Houston to a town of 15,000 where I had cows outside my window. “I’m not saying it was perfect, but I loved my year. You have to be okay with being yourself, and I’ve learned that. I can make it through those hard situations and come out even better.” To anyone considering hosting a student or living abroad as an exchange student, Kat says, “Do it! It was the hardest but best year of my life so far in 19 years.” If you are interested in hosting an exchange student or studying abroad, contact Kelly Nugent at AFS-USA Texas Gulf Coast: 832627-7705 or knugent@afsusa.org.
Dylan Aguilar
NEIGHBORS by Russell Weil, staff writer
Vinyl 45s When music was round
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ho remembers 45s? A lot of us choose to stream music now, through phones and smart speakers and laptops, rather than actually own it and store it on a shelf. But there are plenty of us who remember – and love – records. I’m not talking about LPs, the larger “longplay” records that have 10 or more songs on them and have become the retro darlings of vinyl collectors. I mean the 45 rpm record, seven inches across, with one song on each side, usually a featured release on one side with a lesser known “Bside” single on the other. The 45 record was released in 1949 by RCA Victor and was popular through the 1970s. I bought my first one in the summer of 1972. While listening to disc jockey Casey Kasem host the weekly American Top 40 countdown on 610 KILT-AM radio one Sunday morning, I heard a song that I had heard the previous evening while watching The Carol Burnett Show. Later that day, I asked my dad to take me to a discount department store called SAGE, located at the corner of Beechnut and Loop 610 where Lowe’s stands today. I hurried to the record department to make my first 45 purchase. For 88 cents, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia by Vicki Lawrence became the first 45 record in my collection. I offer no apologies for this choice. Once I was home, I placed the disc on my hifi stereo record player. As I listened to Vicki Lawrence sing the murder ballad over and over, I would play a verse and pause the record while I wrote down what I had just heard. I continued this process through the entire song until all the lyrics were written down. If asked, I can still sing every word. I am rarely asked. Other Buzz-area residents say they, too, vividly recall their first 45. “Rock the Boat by The Hues Corporation was one of the first I owned, and I still have it!” says Elise Newman, a travel agent. “I received it for Chanukah. I got a bunch of 45s at the same time. Still the One by Orleans. Silly Love Songs by Wings.” While my early 45 purchases also included WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 16
ABBA’s first American single, Waterloo, school librarian Suzy Scheinthal had a slightly different taste in music. “Two 45s, which I played incessantly, were Play That Funky Music [by Wild Cherry] and Brick House [The Commodores].” Attorney Jeff Horowitz remembers his first 45, Indian Reservation by Paul Revere and the Raiders. “It was the first 45 I purchased on my own when I was 11. I remember buying it at a record store near the Lewis & Coker grocery store on Hillcroft SHE’S GOT THE LOOK Where else would a vintage 45 record collection be stored, in Maplewood. I other than a denim-look case? Elise Newman has held on to her treasures. think it cost a dolyellow Top 40 lists at stores around Houston. lar. I thought it was a cool song. I liked the lyrics On some happy occasions, there would be lyrics about maintaining pride in the face of oppresfrom the No. 1 song of the week on this list. sion, and the music was dramatic…. It’s written As the 1970s came to an end, so did the 45 in a minor key, the verses build up slowly, and record. Singles had become less popular than the chorus explodes. I still have it.” buying full LP, or long-playing, albums. Vinyl My favorite place to browse through records records were soon joined on the store shelves by was Cactus Music on South Post Oak Road in clunky 8-track tapes. Not long after, cassette the Meyerland area. While this location has tapes became popular. When CDs showed up in long since closed, the music chain has been in the early 1980s, they pretty much vaporized all business for over 40 years. Their selection of 45 the other formats until vinyl staged a nostalgic records might have been dwarfed by the long comeback many decades later. aisles of LP albums, but I never went home While the way we listen to music may have empty-handed. You can still buy records at their changed, our favorite songs are with us forever. Upper Kirby-area store at 2110 Portsmouth St. One of the great memories from the era of 45s Editors’ note: Share your favorite 45s with other was listening to iconic DJ Casey Kasem count readers by emailing info@thebuzzmagazines.com or down Billboard’s Top 40 records based on sales commenting under this story at thebuzzmagazines.com. from the prior week. KILT-AM radio distributed
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Dylan Aguilar
NEIGHBORS by Pooja Salhotra, staff writer
The Bormaster Family Ties that bind – no matter what
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y family is my most favorite thing in the world, I can spend every second with them and be happy,” says Kelly Masel, 32, as she relaxes on her parents’ living room couch in Bellaire. She’s wearing leggings and a tank top and holding her smiling 18-month-old son Benjy, while her 2-year-old niece plays with a stuffed animal on the carpet and the tune Wheels on the Bus plays from a toy in the background. Kelly’s affinity for her family might sound like a Hallmark greeting card, but her sentimentality is nothing but genuine. As one of four children of native Houstonians Scott and Leslie Bormaster, Kelly was taught from a young age to treat everyone equally, regardless of their differences. When Kelly was born, immediately following her was her twin sister, Kim, who was a surprise to Leslie and Scott. They discovered they were having twins only two weeks before Leslie gave birth. Amid the bustle of the Bormaster household – energized by 2-year-old Alli and 4-yearold Brian along with the new twins – Leslie realized Kim was developmentally behind her twin sister, both physically and mentally. A special education teacher herself, Leslie took Kim to a doctor who diagnosed her as “developmentally delayed” but high-functioning. Though she started school with Kelly, Kim struggled to keep up with her peers, particularly in reading and comprehension. While her sisters went on to Trafton Academy and then followed Brian to Bellaire High School, Kim moved over to The Briarwood School, which specializes in educating students with learning differences. “It was hard,” Leslie says. “She would sometimes ask, ‘Why am I at The Briarwood School?’ I told her that everyone has differences, everyone struggles with something.” “It was hard watching her struggle while Kelly was excelling in everything,” Scott said. “I was worried for her, and it took me a while to accept her limitations.” Meanwhile, Kelly says she loved growing up with Kim as her twin sister. The two girls shared a bedroom until age 13, went to sleepovers together and talked about everything. “Her friends were my friends, and my friends were her friends,” Kelly says. Kelly, a social butterfly her mom calls her WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 18
most “spirited” child, took Kim under her wing and became fiercely protective of her. If Kim had any overnight accidents in bed when she was little, Kelly would put a clean pair of pajamas and underwear at the edge of the bed for her sister to change into. When they GOING FOR GOLD Kim Bormaster has racked up dozens of medals since she startplayed outside with ed competing in Special Olympics as a student at The Briarwood School. the toy wagon, it’s their positivity and love that is most evident. Kelly would help Kim get in safely. They talk in strings of compliments. They’re not Kim’s intellectual disability made no differoblivious to their family’s unusually strong ence to the Bormaster children, they say. In fact, attachment. Kelly says people tease them for they say, Kim taught them how to be more combeing so close, but she’d rather be with her fampassionate. “Kimmy’s always been so happy and ily under a bridge than not with them at all. joyful. You’d never have known there were any Over the past nine months, Kelly and the rest difficulties,” says Kelly, who shares the same of the Bormasters have stuck together through smile as Kim. Alli says growing up with Kim an overwhelming trauma. Alli’s husband Jeffrey inspired her to study special education along sustained a devastating neck and spinal cord with elementary education. Brian was a Division injury in Mexico after diving into a swimming 1 baseball player at Tulane University, and, in pool on the first day of a vacation with friends. a news article, he attributed his positive attitude He had surgery to repair his vertebrae and staand strong work-ethic to his sister Kim, saying bilize his spine, and he continues to receive outshe “made me realize that even if stuff doesn’t patient treatment from The Institute for always go your way, you have to be happy.” Rehabilitation and Research. Through therapy, As the three eldest Bormaster children grew Jeffrey has regained some strength in his upper up and moved out of the house, they grew closer body – he feeds himself using special silverware to each other and to Kim, who lives with Leslie and completes day-to-day activities with the and Scott in Bellaire. Kelly now lives in help of a caretaker. Doctors cannot say with cerGalveston with her husband and son, with tainty whether he will regain mobility in his another son on the way, but she sees her siblings lower body or remain paraplegic. and parents at least once a week. “It’s hard being Soon after the accident, Dad Scott recalls away from them, so I make an effort to come. receiving a long text from daughter Alli. “It was Being with them is my happy place,” she says. like a letter, all about how she had learned And it’s easy for Kelly to catch all the Bormasters strength through adversity from us,” Scott said. in one visit – both Brian and Alli live within a “And that all started right here,” Scott says, point10-minute drive of their parents’ house, and they ing to Kim. “Even in adversity, we are so blessed.” both often come over for pool parties, meals, or Jeffrey, an oil and gas marketer, continues to to drop their kids off with their favorite babysitwork while in recovery, having meetings in his ters: Aunt Kimmy and “Sessy” (Leslie). own home, sending mes- (continued on page 20) When the Bormasters talk about one another,
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FAMILY REUNION Alli Feinstein captured this shot of the Bormaster family in Rosemary Beach, Florida, last August by setting the timer on her camera. Top row, from left: Brian Masel, Leslie Bormaster, Scott Bormaster, Claire Bormaster, Brian Bormaster, Blake Bormaster and Jeffrey Feinstein. Bottom row, from left: Benjy Masel, Kelly Masel, George Feinstein, Jack Bormaster, Joshua Feinstein, Kim Bormaster, Alli Feinsten and Julia Feinstein. (continued from page 18) sages using voice-to-text
technology and riding to the office with Alli or a caretaker once or twice a week. “You take what you have, and you run with it and hope for the best,” Alli said. “Kim’s shown that, and that’s how we’re pushing forward too.” Following Jeffrey’s accident, his friends created a GoFundMe page to cover some of his medical expenses. Jeffrey needs around-the-clock homecare, which is not covered by insurance. They far exceeded their goal. “It was unbelievable – we were so blown away,” Leslie says. The Bormasters may not have expected such an outpouring of support, but support is, in a way, a part of their DNA. Leslie and Scott, along with their three oldest kids, have been the pillars of Kim’s life, cheering her on from the sidelines as she plays volleyball with the Houston Hot Shots for Special Olympics and, in Leslie’s case, serving as her doubles partner in tennis. Kim does not drive, so Leslie drops her off in the mornings at Let Us Play, a daycare where Kim volunteers. On some weekends, her parents take her to Special Olympics tournaments. “I joke that [Scott and I] will be 80 years old in a walker and still going to Special Olympics,” Leslie says. When they were moving into a new home WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 20
about 10 years ago, Scott and Leslie decided to find a house with a garage apartment in the back, where Kim could move in when she felt ready to have her own space. She moved in last year – “I wasn’t ready before,” she says. The space is bright, with windows overlooking the pool, and cheerful, with framed photos of her five nieces and nephews adorning the shelves. In the mornings, Kim wakes up and pours herself a bowl of cereal and makes coffee before joining her parents in the main house. In the evenings, she likes to retire to her room and watch Modern Family or anything on the food channels. As Kim has achieved greater independence, her parents have grown with her. Scott says he’s become more compassionate by seeing how Kim patiently cares for her nieces and nephews. Leslie says she’s learned from Kim’s resilience, seeing how she picks herself back up after a difficult volleyball game. Since she graduated from The Briarwood School in 2008, Kim has dedicated herself to Special Olympics. In 2011, she traveled all the way to Athens, Greece, to compete in the World Games, where her volleyball team brought home a gold medal that now hangs in Kim’s bedroom. Recently, Kim was one of two athletes inducted into the Ronnie Arrow Jewish
Sports Hall of Fame. And in her role as a Global Messenger for Special Olympics, Kim has traveled to Washington D.C. to advocate for the program in front of political leaders. “It was a piece of cake,” Kim says with a flip of the hand. This self-assuredness is one of Kim’s most distinctive qualities. While she rarely brings up her own accomplishments, she doesn’t mind being in the spotlight. When Kim’s dad talks about Brian’s baseball career, Kim chimes in, saying, “No, I’m the athlete in the family.” Scott laughs and agrees, noting Kim has reached the pinnacle achievement within her capacities, going all the way to the Olympics. “She knows who she is and what she wants,” Scott says. “If we could all be like Kim when we grew up, the world would be a much better place.” In the future, when her parents have passed, the plan is for Kim to move in with her siblings. When Scott and Leslie were reworking their will recently, they struggled with the biggest decision – what would happen to Kim when they’re gone? But the decision was made easier, or perhaps more difficult, when all three kids stepped up. “They all want her,” Scott says. “I’ll rotate, four months at each place,” Kim says and smiles.
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Dylan Aguilar
FOOD by Jennifer Oakley, staff writer
Home Slice Making your own pizza
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opped with pepperoni, peppers or pineapple, pizzas are perennial favorites. And while most people get their pies via delivery to their houses or seated at a restaurant, there are some Buzz residents who have the recipe for la dolce vita: by baking pizzas at home. “It’s the boat analogy for me,” says Niko Lorenzatos with a broad smile, surveying his backyard. “Some people really love owning a boat and dream about boating on a weekend. But I don’t want to have a boat. This pizza oven is what I want.” Niko says his love of cooking was influenced by his family. “My mom and dad are both from Greece, and my brother and I are first-generation Americans. Every summer growing up we spent two or three months in Greece, and food is a big part of who we are there. It seemed like a natural thing to have a pizza oven.” A home-renovation project three years ago set the stage for Niko, general counsel at Oasis Petroleum, and wife Jenny to create a space for that oven. “We were wondering what life would be like at home with a couple of teenagers,” he says. Their son Luke is now 17, and daughter Rebecca is now 14. “We entertain at home a lot, and I wanted a grill with a seating area around a pool.” The pizza oven was a natural extension of his new, casual, outdoor kitchen. He settled on the Italian Mugnaini brand of pizza oven that was bricked into an outside wall and made to appear seamless with the house. Niko next set his sights on learning how to make the pizza dough. “My mom’s advice on cooking was if you have good ingredients your food will taste good,” he says. “I use good flour, water, salt and yeast and good olive oil, and it’s pretty hard to go wrong.” Niko follows the recipe from the Mugnaini website to create his dough. “I make the dough in the afternoon and place it in a proofing box [a large, plastic box with a cover, where the dough rests and rises] for three hours. Then about an hour and a half before we want to eat the pizza, I go outside and turn on an Astros game and start lighting fire – who doesn’t like doing that? I use oak, and the oven gets to over 1,000 degrees.” While the oven heats up, Jenny, Luke and WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 22
Rebecca pitch in with pizza prep (“Rebecca rolls out the best dough in the family,” Niko says) and stocking up on the toppings, both savory and sweet. “We make dessert pizzas with Nutella and marshmallows as well as ones that are like a churro with butter, cinnamon and sugar,” enthuses Rebecca. They line their kitchen counter with everything from sausage to mushrooms and have HOT OUT OF THE OVEN Niko Lorenzatos says his pizza oven heats up to people top their own 1,000 degrees. A homemade pizza takes just minutes to bake. pizzas. Once topped, not use a mixer for the dough – he uses his hands Niko takes over, placing the pizzas in the outfor just very basic Italian cooking.” They buy door pizza oven. It takes under 2 minutes for the DeLallo Type 00 flour at Whole Foods Market. pies to be baked and then the eating begins. “The flour is silky soft and super refined, and “We eat them as they come out of the oven,” when you mix it with the water and yeast, it’s soft says Jenny. “Niko loves to cook. He has that like silk, and this is the secret to Italian pizza,” she Greek cooking soul.” says. “He will make the dough in the morning, and the dough is covered with a dish towel at hen it comes to Italian cooking soul, look room temperature because I feel like it rises better for Giovanna and Guglielmo Andreoli. at room temperature.” The dough takes hours to “We make Italian pizzas every Sunday night,” rise, so when Guglielmo makes it Sunday mornsays Giovanna. She was born in Milan, and ing, it is ready to bake by dinner time. Guglielmo was born in the southern Italian town For their Sunday night dinners, the family has of Calabria. “We try to maintain our Italian cultheir pizza prep down to a science. “We use a ture at home.” To that end, Giovanna and round pizza dish that is perforated at the botGuglielmo, senior petroleum trader with Eni, tom,” she says. “Guglielmo is very good at make a point to share their childhood Italian stretching out the dough, and he does not use a lifestyle with their 8-year-old daughter, Giulia. rolling pin. He sprinkles some olive oil on it, and Pizza is one of the ways they continue their trathen you spread some homemade marinara on ditions. “My husband has a traditional southern the raw pizza dough.” They bake the pizzas in Italian family,” says Giovanna, director of finance their kitchen oven, set at 450. “We bake it with at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public just tomato sauce for four minutes,” she says. Policy. “He remembers his grandma with the apron “Then we take out the pizza, add the cheese and cooking all the time, and it has evolved as a memput back in the oven for two or three more minory that we are passing down to our daughter.” utes. We use fresh mozzarella cheese that comes Guglielmo prepares the pizza dough, and then in balls. We slice it and put it on the pizza. the trio tops the pizzas together. “Italian cooking When it cooks, you just see circles on the pizza is not complex, and we are mindful of using high – it’s delicious!” Sometimes, they add fresh basil quality ingredients,” she says. “My husband does
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Dylan Aguilar
lawellphoto.com
Dylan Aguilar
PIZZA TRADITIONS At left: Niko, Rebecca, Luke (from left) and Jenny (seated) Lorenzatos enjoy the variety of their homemade pizzas. At right, top: Giovanna and Guglielmo Andreoli make their own dough and bake pizzas in their kitchen oven every Sunday night, passing on their Italian heritage to daughter Giulia. At right, bottom: a pizza from Niko’s outdoor oven.
to the pizzas right before eating. “When Giulia has her friends over, I take a regular log shaped mozzarella and grate it, and when the cheese melts the kids love it,” she says. “Whole Foods Market sells a Genoa uncured salami with no nitrates that the kids love too because it is salty. Sometimes we make a vegetarian one with only mozzarella and broccolini – it’s so good! “In Houston, we can replicate true Italian pizza that makes us feel not so far from home. The homemade baked pizza crust is a perfect balance of chewy and crispy.”
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hip Earle fell into pizza making two and a half years ago when he received a Big Green Egg (an outdoor grill that works as a grill, oven or smoker) on Christmas morning. Although he has always liked to make desserts (crème brûlée and pralines are his specialties) pizza was new territory. “I had never made a pizza before,” says Chip, general counsel of Newpark Resources. “I started in the meat section of the Big Green Egg cookbook and worked my way through.” Once he mastered the grilled meats, he literally turned the page to pizza recipes and a whole
new world opened up. “The Big Green Egg really does lend itself well to being a pizza oven,” says Meg Earle, who gifted the grill to husband Chip. “The first time he made the pizza, we were like ‘Wow! This is really good!’” And that was a game changer for the couple and their three children, Amelia, 12, Margaret, 11, and Edward, 8, who have dietary restrictions due to food allergies. They keep their home gluten and dairy free. “Amelia was diagnosed with celiac disease when she was 2 years old. We have been gluten free for a long time. A lot of our meals tend to be ‘build your own’ rice bowls, tacos and salads where everyone can pick and choose their own ingredients,” says Meg. “When Chip learned to make the pizzas, it really was nice for Amelia because it is something she cannot normally have. It is nice to have something to cook at home that tastes like a treat.” Chip says he makes his dough gluten free and that it took a little time to get his recipe down pat. “My recipe is a combination because the Big Green Egg cookbook does not address gluten issues,” he says. “At Central Market, they have Bob’s Red Mill Pizza Crust Mix flour, and I use that as a starting point.” He purchased the pizza stone and pizza peel (a pizza-sized spatula) that work with the grill.
“The trickiest part is transferring it from the kitchen to Big Green Egg. It’s more art than science getting it onto the pizza stone.” “The kids and I will put out different toppings like tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil from the garden, pineapple, pepperoni, artichokes, peppers and mushrooms,” says Meg. “It’s fun,” says Chip. “The kids love the pizza. Whenever we have a free weekend I will make it, and we get a pizza party.” “Pizza is the perfect food,” Niko says. “What would you rather eat than pizza? It’s satisfying. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.”
Niko Lorenzatos’ Pizza Dough 1½ cups warm water, divided 1 teaspoon active dry yeast 4 cups Mugnaini Pizza Flour (or “00” pizza flour) 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon olive oil Place ¼ cup warm water in a small bowl and sprinkle with the yeast. Let sit for 5 minutes or until yeast is hydrated and creamy. (This will allow the yeast to be quickly absorbed by the flour.) Place flour, salt, yeast (continued on page 24) WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 23
Dylan Aguilar Dylan Aguilar
Dylan Aguilar
LA DOLCE VITA At left: Chip Earle makes homemade gluten free pizzas for daughter Amelia. Top, right: Chip bakes pizza inside a Big Green Egg. At bottom: Chip and Meg Earle like to eat homemade pizza with their children, (from left) Edward, Margaret and (seated) Amelia. (continued from page 23) mixture and remaining
water in mixer bowl fitted with a dough hook. Mix on low speed for 2 minutes to combine. If the dough appears too wet and sticky and is not combining, add flour 1 tablespoon at a time while mixing until dough takes on a “shaggy” appearance. Drizzle with oil and mix for 2 minutes more. Dough should form a smooth ball and clear the sides of the bowl. Turn mixer off, cover top of bowl with plastic wrap, and let rest for 20 minutes. Resume mixing on medium low speed for 3 minutes, or until dough forms a smooth ball, clearing sides of bowl. Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit at room temperature for 2½ hours. It will double in size. After rising, the dough may be made into dough balls. Yields 4-5 pizzas.
Chip Earle’s Gluten Free Pizza Dough 2 teaspoons active dry yeast 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar 1 cup warm water (105-115 degrees) 1 package of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 24
Purpose Pizza Crust Mix 1 Tablespoon salt 1 egg 1 Tablespoon olive oil 2 cups gluten free all purpose baking flour (plus extra as needed) Equipment: 1 Big Green Egg 1 Big Green Egg convEGGtor 1 Big Green Egg Pizza Stone 1 Big Green Egg Pizza Peel Aluminum foil Saran Wrap Set the Big Green Egg for indirect cooking with pizza stone on top of the grate which sits on top of the inverted convEGGtor. Place aluminum foil on top of the pizza stone to prevent the crust from burning. Preheat Big Green Egg with pizza stone in place to 600°F. Combine yeast, sugar and water in a small bowl and let stand about 10-15 minutes until liquid becomes frothy. Place full package of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Pizza Crust
Mix and salt in a separate large bowl and add egg and oil to wet ingredients; then pour in the small bowl with the yeast. Wet your hands with water and knead the resulting dough by hand. Split the dough into two large balls. Place one ball into a large bowl and cover the bowl with Saran Wrap. Place the second ball in a separate bowl and cover that bowl with Saran Wrap. Allow the balls to rise for 30 minutes. Place 1 cup of all purpose gluten free flour on a cutting board. Use a rolling pin with some flour on it to roll out one of the dough balls into a 10- to 12-inch circle on the cutting board. Cover with favorite sauce and toppings. Sprinkle all purpose gluten free flour on pizza peel, transfer pizza dough with toppings on top to pizza peel, and then gently slide the pizza onto the pizza stone within the pre-heated Big Green Egg. Cook for 10 minutes or until the dough is slightly brown and the cheese is melted and bubbling. Remove the pizza and repeat steps 6-8 for a second pizza from the second dough ball. Makes 2 large pizzas.
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KIDS
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by Annie Blaylock McQueen, staff writer
Buzz Baby
Co-sleeping kerriclarkdesigns.com
Buzz Baby is a column about life with little ones. Writer Annie McQueen has three children age 5 and under.
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have been a parent for only five years, but I have learned in those years that what works for one family might not work for the next. Take family co-sleeping, for example. I know parents who, almost every night, let their 3 and 5 year olds crawl into their bed. They all sleep together, one big happy family. They have co-slept since their babies were infants. If the parents go to sleep alone, chances are they wake up with one or both kids in the bed. One mom said it wasn’t their original plan, but in the early days home from the hospital as new parents, it just worked out that way. I heard her say once that she worries when they’ll ever start sleeping in their own beds – which, yes, the parents are ready for. In the past, my family has slept all together when we’re sharing a hotel room or when our kids are sick. (Middle-of-the-night ear infections are the worst.) However, that’s started to happen more often – and to be honest, I don’t hate it. Recently, a loud storm rolled into Houston in the night. I rolled over and checked the clock with half-open eyes. It was 4 a.m. I heard “I’m scared” in a soft voice and sat up to see our then4-year-old son, Cash, standing in our doorway. He was frightened. “You can come sleep with us,” I said. He wasted no time jumping into our bed, where we all proceeded to sleep for the rest of the night. He did squirm quite a bit, and I think we all ended up sideways, but it was fun to wake up to his little smiling face. Our twins always slept in their room in their cribs when they were babies. It just worked out that way (probably because there are two, I am not sure). Now they are 5. When our youngest, Georgia, now 2, was born, she did sleep next to our bed in a bassinet or a Dock-A-Tot infant mattress. We just did what worked best at the time. However, for a lot of parents out there, it’s one big happy family in one big happy bed, no matter the age. While researching, I learned that throughout much of the world, co-sleeping is the norm. It’s WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 26
SLEEP TIGHT The Horié family – Julia and Takeshi with Clara, 4, and Isaac, 22 months – often co-sleep as a family.
unheard of in some cultures to let a baby sleep alone in a room and is even thought to be inhumane. For example, in Latin America, the Philippines and Vietnam, some parents sleep with their baby in a hammock near the bed. In Japan, many parents sleep next to their baby on bamboo or straw mats, or on futons. Many parents and parenting experts say cosleeping increases the bond between baby and parent. James McKenna, a biological anthropologist, has investigated mother-child co-sleeping at his Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. McKenna says his research suggests an additional bonding effect between mother and infant when they sleep together. Co-sleeping has vocal fans and critics. I’ve heard parents say co-sleeping interrupted their alone time and private couple time or that it felt unsafe. Then again, I’ve heard others say sleep is their most crucial need during that phase of parenting, so if co-sleeping equals sleep, then climb on in, kids. Julia Horié, a civil engineer, is a fan. She and
husband Takeshi have two kids, Clara, now 4, and Isaac, 22 months. Julia said when Clara was born, they were navigating being new parents and desperately wanting some sleep. The pair tried everything, including turning on a loud blow dryer to shush her to sleep. They realized that lack of sleep for them would not work long term. So, when Clara was about 6 months old, she started co-sleeping with them. It worked great for them and solved the sleeping issues for everyone. “We still co-sleep with either when one is afraid of thunder or another is having a nightmare. It only happens maybe 4-6 times a month,” said Julia. Isaac can be a squirmy toddler, so co-sleeping with him is a little more of a challenge. “Isaac is sometimes a Cirque du Soleil performer at night, so we will rock him to sleep and put him back in the crib those nights,” said Julia. “Some nights are peaceful, and other nights are brutal.” Julia urges other parents who co-sleep not to look back. “Don’t feel guilty. Kids will only be little once.” For now, she says, they’re going to enjoy the extra snuggles.
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TRAVEL
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by Tracy L. Barnett, staff writer
Travel Buzz
Reflections on D-Day and Dad
Uncovering a father’s legacy Gene and David Dewhurst knew their father was a B-26 bomber pilot in WWII who participated in D-Day. They didn’t know much else. “We had our father’s uniforms that we played with when we were growing up,” said Gene. “I never thought much about his war experience or what he did, and I never met anyone who really knew him.” It wasn’t until the brothers went to Normandy in 2007 for the annual D-Day Commemoration that they began to uncover their father’s legacy. A friend, a commissioner on the American Battle Monuments WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 28
Kelly Frels
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his summer as hundreds of thousands of people made their way to Normandy, France, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the largest military liberation in world history, Houston descendants of two World War II heroes reflected on the significance of the event. For Virginia Mampre, daughter of the 97year-old Albert Mampre, it was a bittersweet time, as the two had been planning to join the festivities, just as they had for the 70th anniversary in 2014, when Albert had sat on the stage with battle comrades and two presidents. The last living medic and the head of medics for the famed 101st Airborne Division’s Easy Company, featured on HBO’s Band of Brothers, fell ill shortly before his 97th birthday. On May 31, just two days before they were scheduled to head for France, he passed away. Virginia took comfort in the outpouring of love showered on her family as nearly a thousand people came from all over the world to pay their respects. For Gene Dewhurst, the final farewell of his war-hero father had occurred many years earlier – when Gene was only 1 and his brother David was just 3. Their father, David H. Dewhurst, Jr., was killed by a drunk driver after returning to Texas from WWII after flying 85 combat missions over France and Germany. Over the years, Virginia and Gene both spent time retracing their fathers’ steps during that war, and those journeys marked their lives with an even deeper respect for their fathers and what their sacrifice had meant for the world.
HEAVY HITTERS Gene Dewhurst, David Dewhurst, Julie Nixon Eisenhower and David Eisenhower, Ike's grandson, (from left) attended the celebration of the Utah Beach Museum signing extension of "Dinah Might" with the Paris Air and Space Museum.
Commission, had invited them. They hired retired U.S. Army Col. Peter Herrly as their guide for their first tour of Normandy. “We went to the D-Day celebration and sat up on the stage – freezing cold and rainy and overcast and windy and shivering – and I thought, ‘Oh, well. This is probably what it was like in 1944.’” The next day the group was scheduled to see the British sectors. But the night before, the brothers had told Col. Herrly about their father, and there was a change of plans. “Instead, he surprised us and took us to Utah Beach,” said Gene. “Out on the beach, during low tide, Col. Herrly pulled out of his pocket our father's DDay battle orders, and he read them. It was very emotional for all of us, including the friends of ours who were there.” The group went inside a tiny museum on the site to warm up and get out of the rain. Within minutes, a friend called out: “Hey, Dewhurst!” There they saw a small exhibit showing the flight of their father leaving England, flying over the English Channel and Utah Beach, and then returning. “They had a picture of him and they had the
names of his crew with tacks and string,” Gene recalled. The group was stunned. They met with museum staff and learned that a local resident, a young boy during the war, saw the American planes flying overhead and recorded the tail numbers. After the war, he became active in the B-26 Marauder Historical Society. Several years before the Dewhursts’ 2007 visit, Gene said, the man, now in his late 80s, put up the exhibit in the Utah Beach Museum out of gratitude, attributing the much lower death count in the area, compared with that of Omaha Beach, to those pilots. They befriended the man as well as the museum director, the son of the museum founder, and the mayor of the town, St. Marie du Mont. They also met and befriended the bombardier, the left wingman and the tail gunner who had flown with their father. “We started this journey learning more about our father — and our mother, too,” said Gene. The brothers went on to support the museum, tripling its size and getting a B-26 plane to display. They received the (continued on page 30)
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Virginia Mampre
HONORING THE HEROES Clockwise from lower left: Al Mampre with the medics at Ft. Campbell, current home of the 101st Air Assault (formerly Airborne); Al Mampre and daughter Virginia in Holland; Gene Dewhurst’s granddaughter, Vera, in front of the display of her great-grandfather David at the Utah Beach Museum; David and Gene Dewhurst laying wreaths on D-Day at Utah Beach; Al and Virginia Mampre at the Ft. Campbell Medal of Honor Rotunda. (continued from page 28) Knight of the Legion
along with Helen Patton, Gen. Patton’s granddaughter. “We feel that we have been given an opportunity to know our father,” wrote Gene, “and to develop a brotherhood with the French that we never thought was possible.”
Father-daughter journey Albert Mampre was a humble man who never liked the word “hero,” and he never saw himself as one. But as his daughter discovered in her travels with him, his legions of admirers around the world disagreed. Al, as his friends called him, was a son of Armenian immigrants who enlisted in 1942 and trained as a paratrooper, then as a medic. “I liked the idea of pluggin’ holes instead of makin’ holes,” he told one interviewer in his typically self-deprecating way. Mampre went on to become a psychologist, marrying his childhood sweetheart and having three daughters. Virginia, his eldest daughter, became a manager of broadcasting stations and a VIP travel consultant, exploring the world before retracing together with her father the steps of his legendary platoon, from D-Day to Operation Market Garden to the Battle of the Bulge to the capture of the Eagle’s Nest in Berchtesgaden. She will never forget the pomp and circumstance of that 70th D-Day celebration at the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer in Normandy in front of 10,000 people, seated in the front row, looking up at her father who accompanied two presidents onstage. Years before, the pair had accompanied a documentary filmmaker to that cemetery. She had followed as her father traversed a line of white WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 30
crosses and Stars of David, then stopped before the name Ernest Oats — one of his medics. He couldn’t go on. “Those were the true heroes,” Mampre reflected in one interview, speaking of the fallen. The 70th anniversary was a happier affair, with some 6 million people visiting from around the world to pay respects – people dressed in ’40s-era clothing, restored cars and jeeps from the era. That night their group headed to the Pointe du Hoc, the highest point, where they watched a display of fireworks that went off all up and down the beaches. At the end, a silence fell in the darkness, and then a sole trumpeter began to play “Taps” off in the distance. “Nobody could breathe,” said Virginia. Mampre, who trained along with the rest of his unit for D-Day and did the exhibition jump with Churchill and Eisenhower, was devastated when a severe infection sidelined him to the hospital – an illness that likely saved his life, his daughter says. His first parachute drop was “Operation Market Garden,” memorialized in A Bridge Too Far. Mampre was among the 35,000 paratroopers and glider troops who landed in the Netherlands in September 1944. A 250-pound paratrooper landed atop him with all his gear, and Mampre extracted himself despite his own injuries and treated his comrade. The troops went on to liberate several Dutch towns, which had been under occupation for four years. At one point, a German sniper started firing on them, and he ducked into a doorway. As he stood there watching the bullets fly by, a woman’s arm came out the window, holding a spoonful of cherries. “A machine gun’s firing down the street, and she’s feeding me cherries,”
Mampre told the West Point Center for Oral History. “Can you imagine? That’s all she had.” Mampre almost lost his life many times, and has two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star to show for it. In an episode depicted in HBO’s Band of Brothers, he ran into the open to save Lt. Bob Brewer, who had been wounded by sniper fire. Mampre, too, was shot in the leg and the groin, but both men made it to safety. The last father-daughter Europe trip was last September, for Operation Market Garden’s 74th anniversary and an over-the-top Liberation Tour. They went to the place where he had been shot, saving Lt. Brewer. “It was like you were walking back into the 1940s,” said Virginia. “They had immaculately restored American and British vehicles that were used during the war. They had a huge Big Band orchestra with music from the ’40s, and there were posters everywhere from the war.” Re-enactments including a medic station in a church, and a procession of 600 uniformed scouts with torches left them deeply moved. Virginia, who has been to nearly every country, experienced an entirely different sort of travel at her father’s side. She had become his social secretary in the last two decades of his life, when to his great surprise, he began receiving a constant flow of invitations from all directions, and he tried to answer every one. “He was just magnetic,” she said. “But it was really not for himself. He really did it for those who never returned.”
MORE ONLINE See Gene Dewhurst’s essay and more photos of both families with this story at thebuzzmagazines.com.
WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 31
by Melissa Schuck, contributing writer
Cooking Buzz
Photo courtesy of the Junior League of Houston
FOOD
Cooking on vacation Cooking Buzz is produced in partnership with the Junior League of Houston, a women’s charitable and education organization founded in 1925.
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s a working mom, the summer schedule is a patchwork of summer school, camps, babysitters and random days off for mom or dad. Our family usually sneaks in a few weekends away on the Texas coast and plans a more adventurous family vacation for mid-August, once summer camps wind down but before school begins. My husband and I both enjoy cooking, and our kids enjoy eating, so we try to cook on vacation whenever we can. For quick beach and lake weekends, I do most grocery shopping before we go. Here’s a tip: order your groceries online while the recipes are in front of you. Set the curbside pickup time to coincide with your getaway time (don’t forget to add a couple of bags of ice!). Then run by the store on the way out of town and throw your perishables in your cooler with the ice. I prefer to run errands before the trip to make the most of time with family and friends. (Or save an errand for vacation if you’re looking for some peace and quiet! We go to Galveston one weekend every summer with college friends, and one of the guys always volunteers to pick up fresh fish and shrimp from the fish market on Saturday for that reason.) We try to meal plan efficiently: fish tacos on Friday night, with tortillas leftover to make breakfast tacos on Saturday morning or fried shrimp po-boys for lunch, with extra French bread for garlic bread as a dinner side. The Broiled Halibut with Meyer Lemon Sauce from Peace Meals is an easy dinner. Broiling requires less oven time, perfect for keeping your kitchen from getting too hot. If you want to skip the lemon sauce, you can serve fish tacos with Corn and Pepper Relish from Stop and Smell the Rosemary. I love the versatility of the relish, as it’s good with tacos or tortilla chips, and it’s an easy thing make at home before the trip since it keeps well. Another Friday night dinner staple at the beach is steamed crab. Use any remaining crab to make the Mother’s Bayhouse Crab Salad WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 32
GETAWAY FARE Broiled Halibut with Meyer Lemon Sauce or Mother’s Bayhouse Crab Salad make a quick vacation feel like even more of a treat.
from the Star of Texas Cookbook for lunch for the rest of the weekend; you can pair with crackers and fresh fruit for a simple lunch. Like the crab salad, Barley Corn Salad from Stop and Smell the Rosemary uses any corn leftovers from dinner and is a delicious lunch or dinner side for the next day and a hearty meatless alternative. To enjoy your vacation, be sure to cook what you love, and leave the rest for convenience. The sausage breakfast tart, cinnamon rolls and orange rolls from The Pantry at the Junior League make Sunday morning breakfast a breeze. Ice cream with a treat from a local bakery are dessert everyone will enjoy. These are just a few of my tips for taking your home cooking on the road!
Broiled Halibut with Meyer Lemon Sauce From Peace Meals Fish: Extra virgin olive oil 6 halibut fillets (about 6 ounces each), without skin, rinsed and patted dry Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper Meyer Lemon Sauce: 1 cup Greek or plain yogurt 1 teaspoon finely grated Meyer lemon zest 1 teaspoon fresh Meyer lemon juice 1 teaspoon finely grated lime zest 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice ¼ teaspoon coarse salt ½ teaspoon honey Preheat the oven to broil and set the oven rack at the highest position. Lightly coat the rack of a broiler pan with olive oil. Season the halibut with salt and pepper. Broil for 10 to 14 minutes, turning halfway through, or until the fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. While the fish is cooking, whisk together the sauce
ingredients plus 2 tablespoons of water in a small bowl. Serve the halibut with the Meyer Lemon Sauce.
Corn and Pepper Relish From Stop and Smell the Rosemary 2 cups apple cider vinegar 1 cups sugar 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh basil ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper 1 cup diced green bell pepper 1 cup diced red bell pepper Kernels of 4 ears cooked corn (2 cups) Combine vinegar, sugar, basil, and pepper in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Add bell peppers and simmer 3 minutes. Stir in corn. Cool to room temperature. Spoon into sterilized jars. Cover and refrigerate. Yields 2 pints.
Mother’s Bayhouse Crab Salad (Red Bluff) From The Star of Texas Cookbook Boiled cold crab meat from 1 dozen large crabs or 1 to 2 pounds fresh lump crab meat 1 cup (or more) mayonnaise 1 Tablespoon capers 1 teaspoon lemon juice 1 cup coarsely chopped celery 4 water chestnuts, coarsely chopped 1 small onion, grated or finely chopped Salt and pepper to taste Mix all ingredients lightly and serve on lettuce cups. This is beautiful surrounded by hardcooked-egg slices, tomato slices, green-pepper slices, pickles, and olives. Serves 6.
MORE ONLINE See thebuzzmagazines.com for more recipes.
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WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 33
DINING
by Dai Huynh, staff writer
Chef’s Corner
Emily Trusler
Find out about your favorite chefs in our Chef’s Corner column. This month, restaurant writer Dai Huynh interviews executive chef Emily Trusler.
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estauranteur Benjamin Berg, the “B.B.” of B.B. Lemon, opened a second outlet last month at 4319 Montrose (formerly Pax Americana). Emily Trusler oversees the Washington Avenue and Montrose locations. Here, the 32-year-old Houston-raised executive chef talks about the new B.B. Lemon, grilling steaks and buying fresh fish. Tell us about the new restaurant? The B.B. Lemon on Montrose is a little bit more seafood heavy. I love working with seafood, so we have snapper crudo and Mediterranean snapper entrée. That’s going to be only at the Montrose location. Also, we have scallop with corn puree and chorizo, and mussels with fennel and lemon. I think the clientele in the Montrose area would be more open to seafood options. There aren’t a whole lot of places in that area that serve fresh seafood. Sum up the concept of B.B. Lemon. Our owner (Berg) is from New York. The restaurant is based on places he used to go to in New York, so it’s nostalgic. You have P.J. Clarke’s and J.G. Melon, which we’re based on. So, some typical dishes are falafel with tahini sauce and the all-day omelet. Everyone in Houston thinks it’s so weird, but in New York, they have these taverns and diners that serve omelets all day. That and the corned beef. How did you start cooking professionally? I’ve always been in the restaurant industry, but mostly at the front, waiting on tables and bartending. So, there I was in this arcade bar, waiting on customers, when the kitchen manager walked out in the middle of the shift. I thought, ‘I can do this.’ I got back there and started cooking. I never went to school for cooking, so everything has been self-taught. You worked your way up to executive sous chef at Fleming’s Steakhouse. Give us a steak tip. I know that cooking filet can be kind of intimidating because it’s an expensive cut of meat. But it’s about trusting your instinct. You can look at it, touch it, and feel it. So, I tell peoWEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 34
ple about this fun little trick: Press the tip of your pinky finger and your thumb together. Next, take the index finger of your other hand and push on the fleshy, fatty area between the thumb and the base of the palm, and this is what well-done meat feels like. As you go down your fingers, the rarer the steak. So, the ring finger would be medium-well. Your middle finger would be medium, and your first finEMILY TRUSLER Houston-raised chef Emily Trusler oversees the menus for both B.B. ger would be medi- Lemon locations, inspired by the classic Manhattan barrooms/restaurants P.J. Clarke's um rare. and J.G. Melon. In 2015, you There are a lot of female chefs out there now. were appointed sous chef at the now-defunct SaltAir. But yes, it is still male dominant, and there is How can you tell if a fillet of fish at the grocery is still that stigma that female chefs should be pasfresh without the eyes and gills to guide you? try chefs. But it is getting better. There are many Usually, you can tell mostly by the eyes. But more female chefs making themselves known. if you only have the flesh to go by, you can tell There is a cool documentary on Netflix about by the color. If something is gray, dull or matte, female chefs [The Heat]. it’s probably not fresh. But the main way to tell What restaurants do you frequent? is from the gills and the eyes. If the eyes are My favorite is Nobie’s (2048 Colquitt St.). cloudy, then it’s probably not fresh. Their chef, who worked in Chicago, does really Sometimes, the eyes may be clear but bloodied. creative things. He would put things together Is that ok? that you would never think go together. It’s Yeah, it’s ok. So, if you can’t tell by the eyes, inspiring. Their Texas tartare with smoked check the gills. The gills need to be a bright pink jalapeño and deviled egg is phenomenal…. or reddish color. If it’s gray, then it’s probably Then, there is Fiesta En Guadalajara (3522 not good. Irvington Blvd.) for fajitas and enchiladas. Their After SaltAir, you worked as executive chef at micheladas and margaritas are good, too. 51fifteen in The Galleria, then chef de cuisine at Emmaline, and now, B.B. Lemon. You’ve been in Editor’s note: Buzz dining columnist Dai Huynh the industry for 18 years. Has it become less maleis a James Beard food-journalism award winner and centrict? Will we start seeing more female talents at longtime Houston-based restaurant writer. the helm?
SPORTS
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by Todd Freed, staff writer
Texas A&M Athletics
SportzBuzz I
n the wake of a sensational senior season, St. Thomas Eagles pitcher Josh Wolf was selected in the second round of the MLB draft by the New York Mets. “It’s been my dream pretty much my whole life to play Major League baseball, and to now have the opportunity to fulfill that dream is a really great feeling,” said Wolf. “Not only that, I get the chance to play ball in one of the greatest cities in the world. It’s really pretty cool.” As a junior last year, Wolf earned all-state honors and last November had signed to play college baseball at Texas A&M. But Wolf took his game to an even higher level this season, striking out 126 batters in 69 innings. He capped off his illustrious career at St. Thomas with a two-hit shutout victory over Concordia Lutheran in the TAPPS 6A state semifinals. Now, as the 53rd overall pick in the MLB draft, Wolf also becomes the highest draft pick in the rich history of St. Thomas baseball. “It’s really amazing,” said Wolf. “St. Thomas has such a tremendous historic program, and the fact that I’m the highest-drafted player ever from the school is truly an honor.” The tradition-rich Lamar Texans baseball program added another feather to its cap with the selection of former Texans pitcher John Doxakis in the second round of the MLB draft by the Tampa Bay Rays. Doxakis, a 2016 Lamar graduate who then went on to an outstanding collegiate career for Texas A&M, was the 61st overall player selected in the draft. Doxakis joins the former big-league team of pitcher Jeff Neiman, who graduated from Lamar back in 2001. “I’ve had the pleasure of coaching four No. 1 draft picks who played their high school baseball here at Lamar, all of whom then became All-Americans at Rice University,” said Lamar baseball coach David Munoz. Along with Niemann (Class of 2001), Kenny Baugh (1998), Joe Savory (2004), and Anthony Rendon (2008) are all Lamar products. Rendon is still enjoying a standout Major League career for the Washington Nationals. In all, Munoz says about 18 Lamar players over his 22 years at Lamar have gone on to play professional baseball at either the minor or major league level. “We’ve had wonderful sup-
WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 36
A TRADITION CONTINUES Former Lamar Texan and Texas A&M star pitcher John Doxakis was selected in the second round of the MLB draft by the Tampa Bay Rays. The pick adds to the rich tradition of former Lamar players continuing their baseball careers at the professional level.
port from the administration and parents, plus some really good coaches that have helped lead to the success of our baseball program.” As for Doxakis, he now becomes the highest draft pick out of Lamar since Rendon was selected back in 2011. “I’m really happy for John,” said Munoz. “He’s an extremely hard worker with a world of upside.” This past school year closed out in grand fashion for the St. Agnes Academy softball team, which captured the TAPPS 6A state softball championship. “This is really special,” said Tigers softball coach Jamie Wissinger. “My sister Laura was on the St. Agnes team that last won state 10 years ago, and my assistant coach Brittanie Polasek played on that same team. I was actually at that game back then as well to watch my sister win state.” In her four seasons as the Tigers’ coach, Wissinger has guided the Tigers to the state Final Four in all four years, culminating with this year’s title. At this season’s state tournament, the Tigers were led by a pair of dominating outings on the mound by senior pitcher Shelby Echols, who posted victories over Incarnate Word and then Dallas Bishop Lynch in the state
final. “Shelby has been on the All-State tournament team for all four years she’s been with us. She’s been a huge leader and will play college softball next season at HBU,” said Wissinger. Wissinger credited freshman Sadie Niermeyer with hitting “lights out” in both the state semifinal and championship-game victories. Defensively, sophomore catcher Callie Young and senior shortstop Annie Budnik were huge contributors for the Tigers. Budnik capped off a tremendous season by earning first team All-State honors, while Young was a second team All-State selection. “Our senior class really provided the leadership and chemistry, which had a trickle-down effect across our roster,” said Wissinger. “We played as a team all season, and it really showed up at state. You don’t win a championship in a day – you win it in what you do every day.” Editor’s note: Todd Freed is the Emmy Awardwinning co-host and producer of the KUBE SportsZone, which airs Saturday and Sunday at 6 p.m. on Channel 57-KUBE. To submit high school sports news for possible inclusion in SportzBuzz, please email todd@thebuzzmagazines.com.
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Money talk with adult children Our client, David, has a problem many people would like to have: He has more money than he can spend during his lifetime. But the problem isn’t what to do with the excess money. That’s been carefully planned out and memorialized in his will and other estate documents. The money will go to his two daughters, so decisions around how much and when are set. So, what’s the problem? It’s that David doesn’t know how to effectively communicate to his daughters his thoughts about money and desires for how they should manage their inheritances. Like many of us, David was raised in a family where money was rarely discussed. As a result, he never developed communication skills on the topic of money. This situation is common among financially successful couples and individuals. They have successfully prepared wills, trusts, and other documents, but the messaging about money is missing. In fact, most of our clients want to share their beliefs and life lessons about money with their adult children. Heartwarmingly, in our experience, children want to hear what their parents have to say. In preparation for the upcoming meeting with his daughters, we helped David organize his thoughts and plan to effectively communicate with them. The more we talked, the more articulate and confident he became. He talked about regretting hoarding money and not enjoying it. He wanted to encourage his daughters not to be prisoners of their money. With coaching and practice, he was able to diplomatically express his concern about his financially irresponsible son-in-law and describe the workaround solution we developed. Not naming his eldest daughter as executor of his estate was another potential sticking point. He gained confidence
about explaining that, too. We recommended that David not treat this meeting with his daughters as an event, but rather as the beginning of an ongoing dialogue. We urged him not to worry about covering all the points. We also encouraged him to not underestimate the “power of the written word” and to consider writing follow up emails and letters to continue to conversation with his daughters. After the meeting with his daughters, David told us, “I blew it.” He was reflecting on the fact that he didn’t bring up most of the points he wanted to make. Nevertheless, he still sounded pleased and relieved. He was pleased that he had started the conversation and also relieved, I think, because he began making his best effort to help “his girls” manage their inheritance well. There’s a lesson in David’s tale. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your estate plan is complete because wills and other documents are current. You also need to talk with your loved ones. They will cherish hearing your advice and wisdom in connection with the money you give them. It’s the foundation upon which they will make money decisions going forward. Don’t put off this important conversation. James R. Waters, CFP®, PARTNERSINWEALTH, 3400 Bissonnet, Suite 145, Houston, Texas 77005, 713.964.4028, jrw@partnersinwealth.com, PIWHouston.com
WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 37
SPORTS
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by Angie Frederickson, staff writer
SportzBuzz Jr. W
elcome to SportzBuzz Jr., a column spotlighting neighborhood athletes in elementary and middle school.
Mighty Pups on the field The Lanier Mighty Pups/HYLAX girls’ lacrosse team (top photo) participated in the Greater Houston Girls Youth Lacrosse Association end-of-season tournament held at Alden Bridge Sports Park in The Woodlands. They played three games in a single-elimination format, and finished in fifth place out of 14 teams. Many of the girls were first-time players, and they had a strong showing against many other teams with girls who have played for several years. The up and coming Mighty Pups are (top row, from left) Peyton Coleman, Sasha Jezic, Ava Faubus, Ava Golden, Rayah Johnson, Julia Faubus, Matilde Goncalves, Yana Zabarov, coach Myleka Booze, Lia Symer, Kaille Williamson, Aurora McGinty, Samantha Tudor and Evelyn Cooper; (bottom row, from left) Simone Plante, Callie Steele, Ella Stromatt, Joanna Pastore, Natalie Saldana, Annie Schaefer, Iliana Almendarez and Caroline Stefan.
Making BLL history Bellaire Little League’s (BLL) Rice Owls (middle photo) won the Texas league championship with a 33-14 victory over the TCU Horned Frogs. This was the highest-scoring championship win in the history of BLL’s Texas league. The 7and 8-year-old Owls came into the game as underdogs after losing to the Horned Frogs during the regular season. Twenty-one of the Owls’ runs were scored in the final two innings of the game, with each batter in the lineup hitting the ball into the outfield. After shortstop Colton Rich forced the final out at second base, the championship celebrating began. The record-setting champions are (top row, from left) coach Andy Rich, Ryan Cowles, Evan Cohen, coach Dan Cowles, Gabriel Monroy, Colton Rich, Natan Saber, Will Kozar, Caleb Crosby and coach Bubba Crosby; (bottom row, from left) Truitt Wynn, William Rocha, Jaxson Ray, Nicholas Leonard, coach Kevin Leonard and coach Travis Kozar.
Inaugural all-star Presbyterian School eighth grader Bella Bourlon (bottom photo, center) won the All-Star most valuable player medal for outstanding pitching, fielding and hitting performances at the All-Star softball tournament held at St. Francis Episcopal Day School. Presbyterian School just added softball and baseball to the athletics program this past season, with the addition of its new practice facility. Bella was a standout varsity player on the school’s inaugural team coached by Leslie Ukandu (pictured on left) and Casey Sax (pictured on right). Before playing for Presbyterian School, Bella played in both the Bellaire Softball League and the West University Softball Association. Editor’s note: Send your best high-resolution photos and behind-the-scenes stories about young local athletes, in both team and individual sports, to SportzBuzz, Jr. at info@thebuzzmagazines.com. Include all contact info, names, ages, grades and schools. Featured athletes must live in Buzz-circulation neighborhoods. Items will be published on a space-available basis. WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 38
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Unclaimed funds and probate If you lose track of a deposit or investment, the custodian is not allowed to pocket the money. When accounts are dormant long enough, the money gets delivered to the Texas Comptroller, where the name and address of the owner and a description of the property are posted for all to see. Paychecks and utility deposits have a 1-year abandonment period. For traveler’s checks the period is 15 years. For most other property, e.g., stocks, bonds, insurance proceeds, and checking, savings and IRA accounts, the rule is 3 years. The abandonment period resets with activity, e.g., whenever someone pays a fee or calls customer service. Safe deposit boxes are different. If abandoned 5 years, the contents go to the Comptroller, which posts the owner’s name and address, but not the contents, online. A year later, unclaimed contents are auctioned on eBay. About 60 percent of abandoned safe deposit box contents are auctioned, with the rest collected by the owner or heirs. Sales proceeds are held until claimed, and do not go to the state. The Comptroller holds funds forever. There is no claim deadline for individuals. If you don’t leave a will, your estate’s administrator can’t collect unless appointed within four years of your death. There’s no such limit for the executor under a will. To search or claim property, start at claimittexas.org. If the owner died, the Comptroller often pays the heirs’ claims of $10,000 or less without probate. The required affidavit must be recorded with the county clerk if the claim is over $5,000. Other forms and resources are available at claimittexas.org/app/forms. Real estate and vehicle title are already a matter of public record. Those
assets are never delivered to the Comptroller. Abandoned mineral royalties and bonuses are delivered to the Comptroller, along with i) the name of the lease, property, and well, ii) identification numbers, and iii) the county. That information points to the underlying mineral interest, which, like other real estate, is not reported or delivered to the Comptroller. A small royalty can lead to a large mineral estate. There are a variety of assets the Comptroller does not audit. Look elsewhere for assets abandoned while living in other states, uncollected pensions, insurance policies, U.S. savings bonds, and IRS refunds, among others. Links to custodians of those assets are found at claimittexas.org/app/ucp-databases. Locating assets is as much an art as a science. Here’s the suggestions I share with other lawyers: bellaireprobate.com/2018/08/locating-assets/. We write wills and go to probate court. We offer no-obligation initial interviews for estate planning and administration, so it costs nothing to hear specific recommendations that suit your needs. Foreign nationals and international families welcome. Russell W. Hall, J.D., LL.M. (Tax), Board Certified – Estate Planning and Probate Law, Texas Board of Legal Specialization, 6750 West Loop South, Suite 920, Bellaire, Texas 77401, 713.662.3853, bellaireprobate.com/blog
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STRESS SOLUTION Eugenie Pflieger, a senior at the British International School of Houston, says singing has helped her handle stress and gain confidence. Here she’s pictured after a performance with the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra for their Stars and Stripes Concert.
KIDS by Eugenie Pflieger, age 17
Buzz Kidz
Just keep singing
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participating in Houston Grand Opera youth productions. Music gave me unexpected gifts: public speaking and leadership skills. I was shy before I started singing, and I wasn’t one to volunteer to speak in front of crowds. Through the years of practice, I became more comfortable with presentations and performances. Ultimately, these skills led to the creation of one of my most enjoyable passions: Band Together for a Change (BTC). BTC is a schoolbased musical band (with the hope of having a fiscal sponsorship soon) that aims to raise money for the National Endowment for the Arts by performing at local events. This program was created in 2018, and its purpose is to advocate for the importance of the arts in a student’s curriculum. The band is composed of fellow British
International School of Houston students. Within BTC, we have a tabla player, a pianist, a drummer, a guitarist, singers and an aspiring upright bass player. (I am the optimistic upright bass player.) I have learned that music, and the arts in general, can be anything you want it to be. It can be a remedy in challenging times (such as senior year of high school) and can be the key to another world of which you could only dream. Want to be a Buzz Kid? Email approximately 350 words, a high-resolution photo and caption to info@thebuzzmagazines.com. Or mail it to The Buzz Magazines, 5001 Bissonnet, Suite 100, Bellaire, Texas 77401.
Photo by Pepper Lendennie
t would be nice to have an answer to every problem. Not knowing something, whether that be an answer to a math problem or which college is the best for me, is sometimes hard to handle. It is good to have a remedy to abate these challenging times. My remedy is singing. I started singing when I was 8; I started lessons at the Acadiana Symphony Conservatory when I was 11. During my lessons, I discovered that music had a mind of its own; it was another world, an open door, instead of the blanket to hide from the noise that I once considered it to be. Singing opened doors to opportunities such as performing with the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, singing before Juilliard representatives, being a member of Revels Houston (a community-based performing arts organization) and
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Galleria Area
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Alpha gal – an exceptional allergy It is uncommon for individuals to develop a food allergy in the adult years of life, especially if that allergy is to red meat or pork. As we know, however, the world of medicine is full of exceptions. Alpha gal sounds like a strong female leader, but it’s actually one example of an exception in the field of allergy. Folks with food allergies generally react to certain proteins in food. However, alpha gal is not a protein, but rather a carbohydrate called galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, which is found in non-primate, mammalian meat. In other words, alpha gal can be found in four legged hoofed animals – cows, goats, pig, lamb, etc. Even more odd is that this allergy develops after a tick bite, although the exact mechanism is not yet fully understood. Tick bites rarely lead to an alpha gal allergy, but the ones that do tend to occur in the eastern United States. After being bitten, individuals, who may have enjoyed meats containing alpha gal for years, will be at risk for delayed anaphylaxis if they consume such meat, even if it is only a small amount. Since anaphylaxis can be life threatening, people with an alpha gal allergy should avoid all red meats and pork, and carry an epinephrine auto-injector in case there is a reaction after an accidental ingestion. For some, an avoidance to dairy is also recommended. Since this reaction is delayed, it takes longer for symptoms to develop than a regular food allergy, about 3 to 4 hours. The most common symptom is a red, blotchy, itchy rash, known as hives. Interestingly, the allergist who discovered alpha gal is Dr. Tom PlattsMills at UVA Charlottesville med school. He also put dust mite allergy on the map many years ago by identifying them as the active allergen in
house dust. How do you know who has an allergy to alpha gal? Since alpha gal is a carbohydrate rather than a protein, the typical skin and blood tests to meat proteins are not reliable for diagnosis. A blood test that specifically looks for a reaction to the alpha gal carbohydrate should be used in conjunction with a clinical history. How long does the allergy last? I want my steak and bacon! The immune response to alpha gal typically declines slowly over time. An allergist will look at a combination of regular blood tests and clinical history to decide when it is time to possibly reintroduce non-primate mammalian meats into your diet. No one nose allergies like we do.™ Note: Information contained in this article should not be considered a substitute for consultation with a board-certified allergist to address individual medical needs. David B. Engler, M.D., The Allergy Clinic, 7707 Fannin, Suite 100, Houston, Texas 77054, 713.797.0993, *1200 Binz, Suite 180, Houston, Texas 77004, 713.522.9911, www.allergyclinic.com, *Operating as Houston Allergy and Asthma Clinic
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Sunday, age 1, Goldendoodle, Dartmouth Ave. Hello. My name is Sunday, but my friends call me “Subway,” “Nugget,” “Muffin,” “Muppet” or pretty much anything in a highpitched voice. I spend my days convincing my parents to play fetch and begging for table scraps. I can sit, lay down, shake and speak, but I’m still struggling with stay. My favorite things to do are to play with scrunchies and harass my dog brother, Mr. Biggs. I also enjoy taking road trips to Austin to visit my human sisters (Hook’em!) and letting my fluff blow in the wind. No matter how many haircuts I get, I still cannot see, but I enjoy the car rides nonetheless. I spend my evenings watching Real Housewives and taking long walks around the park. If you see me strolling around West U or brunching at Tiny’s, please say “hello” and give me a pat, but you’ve been warned – I’m a kisser. Got a cute critter? Email a picture of your pet with approximately 150 words to info@thebuzzmagazines.com or mail it to The Buzz Magazines, 5001 Bissonnet, Suite 100, Bellaire, Texas 77401. Featured pets receive two passes to Rover Oaks Pet Resort. Each pass can be redeemed for one day of lodging in a Bunk House Suite, 25 percent off your next grooming appointment or 25 percent off one obedience training class.
Create a buzz for your biz. BELLAIRE MEMORIAL RIVER OAKS TANGLEWOOD WEST UNIVERSITY Est. 2002. Mailed to 58,000 homes monthly. To advertise in The Buzz Magazines, contact us at 713.668.4157, ext. 11 or advertising@thebuzzmagazines.com WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 42
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Legal separation in Texas divorce
Foot health for kids
Clients often ask whether Texas has legal separation and what that means in a divorce. The easy answer is that there is no such thing as a legal separation in Texas. Moving out from the marital home and residing elsewhere does nothing except give parties space during their marriage to try and figure out if moving forward with a divorce is the right move. Texas also does not have “abandonment,” so moving out of a toxic home does not infer you are abandoning your spouse. However, if you would like to keep the home at the end of the divorce and/or you have children, be careful about moving out of the house because you may harm your case by doing this without seeking advice from legal counsel. Do be aware that your community estate continues until the date of divorce, so any income you receive is still community even if you are “separated.” Likewise, any debts incurred will still be considered community and subject to division. If thinking of “separating,” it is wise to speak with legal counsel beforehand to make sure you don’t make costly mistakes. K. Nicole Voyles is a partner at Tindall England PC, a family-law firm specializing in divorce, child-custody modifications, grandparent access, paternity, adoption and premarital and postmarital agreements. K. Nicole Voyles has been recognized as a Super Lawyer by Texas Super Lawyers 2014-18. Tindall England PC, K. Nicole Voyles, Partner, Board Certified in Family Law, 515 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 500, Houston, Texas 77027, 713.622.8733, www.tindallengland.com
It is important to pay attention to children’s feet from the time they are born to head off problems down the line. Look carefully at your newborn’s feet…. Be on the lookout for anything unusual. Lightly cover your baby’s feet.... Kicking and moving the legs and feet around helps strengthen the muscles in preparation for walking. Let your toddler go shoeless…. When kids first start to walk, going without shoes indoors is good for normal development. Cut toenails straight across.... This will help prevent painful ingrown toenails. Keep feet clean and dry.... Thoroughly wash your kids’ feet at bath time. Afterward, dry them well between the toes to prevent athlete’s foot, a fungal infection that thrives in moisture. Buy well-fitting shoes.... Always take your child with you when purchasing shoes. Kids’ feet need to be measured every single time, since they grow so rapidly. Prevent foot injuries.... Walking barefoot outdoors on dirty pavement exposes kids’ feet to splinters, cuts, and severe injuries. Wearing shoes when playing outdoors can prevent these problems. Cover cuts…. Wash minor cuts, scrapes, and scratches on the feet with soap and water and keep them covered with a bandage until they’ve healed. Show and tell…. Clean and properly dry your feet and have your child copy. Many adult foot problems start in childhood. Explaining why good foot hygiene is important and showing your kids how to care for their feet is good medicine for a lifetime of healthy feet! Bellaire Podiatry/Nail Laser Center of Houston, Dr. Barry P. Weinstein, 4909 Bissonnet, Suite 120, Bellaire, Texas 77401, 713.721.5500, www.BarryWeinsteinDPM.com
WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 43
Daniel Ortiz
NEIGHBORS
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by Jordan Magaziner Steinfeld, staff writer
Buzz About Town Bailey Maierson
Fourth fun
West U neighbors celebrated the Fourth of July with their annual bike parade. Festive scooters, bicycles, wagons and strollers hit the streets as the parade traced its path from University Street to Colonial Park Pool. At the pool, residents enjoyed snow cones and face painters, plus the always-popular dads belly flop contest. Pictured are Seema and Michael Walsh with kids Liam and Quinnlan in their decked-out wagon. For a
photo slideshow, search "West U Independence Day Bike Parade 2019," by Bailey and Eli Maierson, at thebuzzmagazines.com.
Books for Belize A group of 11 volunteers with Books for Development traveled to Belize, where they established nine libraries for communities in need – three in Punta Gorda and six in Burrell Boom. Started in 2010 out of Chapelwood United Methodist Church, the nonprofit has established and maintains libraries in several East African countries including Uganda, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. This was the organization’s first trip to Belize, and it was supported by Miles Schubert, a rising senior at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory. Miles collected book donations, organized volunteers and raised funds for shipping as part of his Eagle Scout Award project. Pictured here are (back row, from left) volunteers Karina Williams, Abby Schubert, Pete Schubert, Miles, Lori Davis-Schubert, Rob Williams, Geeta Gupta Kadakia, Kris Keller, (kneeling) Peggy Burck (trip leader) and Debra Greenlaw.
Home-run event World Series champion pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. and 2017 American League MVP José Altuve teamed up to host Kids and K9s, an event benefiting children’s and animal organizations. The event, held at Tootsies, raised nearly $400,000. Kara and Lance McCullers help rescue animals through the Lance McCullers Jr. Foundation, and Giannina and José Altuve help children with cancer through The Sunshine Kids Foundation. Citizens for Animal Protection’s supporters encouraged others there to help rescue animals. Players, including Carlos Correa, George Springer, Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander, Brad Peacock, and Joe Smith, enjoyed the evening with Baseball Hall of Fame members Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell. BARC Animal Shelter and Adoptions brought pups available for adoption. Pictured are Patty and Craig Biggio.
Welcome, WUES principal After 23 years, West University Elementary is welcoming a new principal, Scott Disch. Scott was born in Houston, and his dad lives in the West U house that Scott’s grandmother bought in the 1930s. Scott earned his master’s degree in teaching at Rice University. He spent several years at Grady Middle School (now Tanglewood Middle School) in a variety of roles, coaching football, basketball and baseball, teaching PE, special ed, English and Texas history. At Westside High School, he served for five years as a dean of students followed by dean of instruction at Westside. He said he’s looking forward to reconnecting to the community he grew up in. “I grew up playing West U Little League,” Scott says, “and I’ve got a lot of friends in the community. It’s a special community, and I’m excited to be an integral part of that.” (continued on page 46) WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 44
WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 45
(continued from page 44) Pictured is Scott with his
wife Rhianna and their daughters Blaire, 5 months, and Scarlett, 3. For more, search “Welcome to West U Elementary’s New Leader,” by Andria Frankfort, at thebuzzmagazines.com.
Good morning, Houston
Dave Rossman
Back-to-school bash
use, e-cigarettes and vaping. At 1 p.m., children, including pediatric-cancer patients from the hospital’s on-site K-12 accredited school, their siblings and MD Anderson caregivers will highlight this season’s back-to-school trends. Pictured are sisters Claire (on left) and Janie Spedale, who participated in the show last year. The event, which includes face-painting, balloon artists and other family-friendly activities, is free. Donations benefit the hospital.
Pooja Salhotra
cer after 26 years of marriage, and he’s now the board chair of the nonprofit Amy Krouse Rosenthal Foundation. Dr. Lorenzo Cohen of MD Anderson Cancer Center, Carolyn Allsen of Memorial Hermann Cancer Center and Buck Dodson of the SPB Foundation received the 2019 Ovarcome Heroes Awards. Honorees were Rachel Bradbury, Debbie Bisbano, Mandi Chambless, Elayne Adams and Jean Nichols (posthumously). Sharron Melton emceed. Pictured are (from left) Dr. Anirban Maitra, Juuhi Ahuja, Dr. Aparna Kamat, Runsi Sen, Dr. Priya Bhosale, Linda Ibrahim, Betty White and Dr. Robert Bast.
Overcame
Hung Truong
Ovarcome’s Annual Gala, Teal Amour: Soirée à Paris was held at the Westin Houston, Memorial City with more than 315 people in attendance. Sonja Bruzauskas, accompanied on the piano by Anita Kruse, sang an original song created especially for ovarian-cancer survivors, supporters and caregivers. Artist Jason Rosenthal received the 2019 Overcame Excellence Award. His wife died of ovarian can-
WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 46
MD Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital and The Galleria are hosting their eighth annual back-to-school bash, Sat., Aug. 10, 12-2:30 p.m. At noon, a 15-minute puppet show, for children K-4th grade, will address the dangers of tobacco
Fans of the television program Good Morning America were up as early as 3 a.m. to catch a glimpse of the live taping at Discovery Green. The GMA Summer Tour stopped in Houston with co-hosts Michael Strahan – a native Houstonian and graduate of (continued on page 48)
WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 47
(continued from page 46) Westbury High School
and Texas Southern University, weather anchor Ginger Zee and entertainment anchor Lara Spencer. Fans included the cheerleading squad from TSU along with members of nonprofits such as The Boys and Girls Club of Greater Houston and BakerRipley. The segment included a barbecue cook-off, an appearance by a 1,600-pound steer named Oliver and recognition of hometown hero Matthew Reel – a 12 year old who is creating a movement empowering students to feed the homeless. Mayor Sylvester Turner declared July 10, 2019 “Matthew Reel Day” in honor of the student’s service to the city. Pictured are mother-daughter duo (from left) Annie and Sophie Polasek, who watch GMA every morning. They were thrilled to be part of the audience, and Sophie even snapped a selfie with Zee. See more details at thebuzzmagazines.com; search “Good Morning America Tour Stops in Houston” by Pooja Salhotra.
A date with laughter
Alexander’s Fine Portrait Design
Fighting hate is a serious business, but there were plenty of laughs when ADL combined Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost with ComedySportz improv to present Houston in Concert Against Hate: A Date with Laughter. More than 500 people attended the concert at Revention Music Center, raising over $500,000 for ADL’s services. The planning committee included (from left)
WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 48
Jake Gardner, Joel Gluskin, Karen Westall, Sue Hauenstein, Jay Harberg, Jerry Axelrod and Mark Finkelstein.
“Conversations” fundraiser will take place Jan. 17 at Hotel ZaZa Museum District.
Sip, sample, see
Mark Twain fifth graders from Mrs. Elyse Esposito’s class traveled to Galveston to clean up littered beaches. They also went to Moody Gardens for a virtual-reality program that taught them ways they can preserve coral reefs. Then they came home and relayed their findings to
The Houston Junior Forum held a Sip, Sample, and See fundraiser at Archway Gallery, supporting their annual fundraiser, Conversations from the Heart. Attendees enjoyed a wine tasting paired with hors d’oeuvres, surrounded by art and lively conversation. Liz Conces Spencer, one of the gallery’s artists, helped Linda West and Joey Rovira host the event. The Houston Junior Forum operates the HJF Resale Shop on 1815 Rutland St. in The Heights, and its members volunteer at numerous sites. Pictured are (from left) Cookie Wells, Melinda Vanzant, Liz Conces Spencer and Gale Evans. The
Clean-up in Galveston
their Mark Twain community. Pictured are (from left) AJ Murray, Dylan Farrow, Noam Krentsis, Elliot Loper, Kyra Spears and Bianca Bekker picking up litter on the beach. Be seen in Buzz About Town. Send your high-res photos and community news to info@thebuzzmagazines.com. Items are published on a space-available basis. Also share your upcoming-event listings on thebuzzmagazines.com.
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WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 49
NEIGHBORS
by Andria Frankfort, staff writer
Back Porch
A teen-vocab primer for grownups
S
o much of August revolves around prepping for school. Kids are (hopefully) making sure they’ve read their summer-reading books, finishing up math packets and gathering school supplies. They’re getting school clothes and uniforms together, and they’re poking around trying to figure out which friends will be in which classes. Parents play a role in all of that: We nudge the process along, we try to keep it all organized, and we pay. But how are we getting ourselves ready for school? Over the summer, there was a lot of talk about “glow-ups” in our house. I had no idea what a glow-up might be until I was informed, after a few head shakes indicating something like, “How can you be so dumb?”, that a glow-up is a person on the way up (of course). Like a boy who has braces now and might be a little awkward but is going to be really cute when the braces come off over the summer. He’s glowing-up. This conversation wasn’t the only one requiring translation. My mom said something was “hip” and was immediately told that using the word “hip” was very unhip. “So what am I supposed to say?” my mom asked. “Fire,” according to the younger crew. All this talk made me realize that parents and grandparents – and anyone else wanting a little respect from the younger set – might need a vocab primer. Because we want the school year to be fire, too. Awk – Short for awkward, which describes anything that is slightly off or uncomfortable. Big oof – An exclamation used upon making a faux pas; “That test was a big oof.” Cappin’ – Lying; see no cap below for the antonym. Clapback – A comeback; if someone threw shade (see below) at you, and you turn around and throw shade back at them, that’s a clapback. Doin’ the most – A response to being told, “That’s so extra (see below),” might be, “Oh wow, you’re doin’ the most.” Extra – Over-the-top, as in, “The English poster I spent five hours on is so extra.” Fire – Descriptor for something really great; “That party was fire.” WEST UNIVERSITY BUZZ AUGUST 2019 50
Glow-up – When a person goes through a phase of being awk (see above) and comes out looking really good. Goals – Something you aspire to; my teenage daughter defined this one simply as, “Jennifer Aniston.” I’m down – Say this when you are in favor of something; “Do you want to go out Friday?” “Sure, I’d be down.” I’m hip (not to be confused with the “hip” that no longer equals cool) – I’m aware; I’m down with that. It be like that – When you get a bad grade on a test, your friend might tell you, “It be like that MAKING SENSE Need help translating what the teenagers in your life are sometimes.” talking about? Get ready for a new school year with our vocab primer. Literally, I can’t – mean you’ve laughed so hard that you have When you cannot deal with something; what become weak in the knees, or it can mean that you say when the test you’ve been studying for something is displeasing, as in, “Do you want to all night gets postponed. go to McDonald’s or Whataburger?” Low key – Minimal; “I low key want some ice “McDonald’s is weak; let’s go to Whataburger.” cream this afternoon.” Yeet – A sound effect used when throwing No cap – No lie; you are telling the truth. something, or to leave, as in, “When do you Salty – Describes someone who is grumpy or want to yeet?” mad; “I’m salty that we have a math test the day Let’s put it all together so that nobody seems after Labor Day.” awk by not knowing what the kids are saying. A Shook – When something makes a big impact few helpful starter phrases to memorize: or is surprising, you’re shook. Do you low key want to go to the movies? I’d be Spicy – Sassy; as in, “Your outfit is a little spicy.” down. TBH – An acronym for To Be Honest. Did you see the new episode of The Throwing shade – To insult someone without Bachelorette? There was so much drama, I’m actually saying anything bad; when your teenagshook. Literally, I can’t. er comes downstairs and you’re less than happy Janie was so awk last year, but she had a glowwith their outfit, if you said, “Well look at you… up, and now she’s really spicy. ” you would be throwing shade. Wishing everyone a school year that’s fire. Throwing mad shade – Being super insulting, Good luck with the lingo. i.e. throwing a whole lot of shade, as in, “Well And expect it to change in, oh, the next five look at that dress. Bless your heart.” minutes. Weak – This one has a double meaning: It can behance.net/runamokstudios
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