Sporting a pink polo, dangling earrings and golf shoes, Alice Brown braves the morning rain to hit balls at the driving range.
At 49, she is a member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association. She is also a hairstylist, wife, grandmother and golf teacher. All things are possible, she says. It doesn’t matter how old you are, or who says no. You just have to go for it.
“I have no limits because I don’t put limits on myself,” she says, a golf bag and bucket of balls at her side.
Brown’s preparing for the LPGA Developmental Tour qualifiers, a tournament she breezed through in 2008 to make it on the association’s 2009 Developmental Tour. To get ready, she spends at least four hours a day practicing her game. Sometimes, she’s at Ace Golf on Kings Avenue, where she also teaches lessons. Other days, when she has a lot of appointments at the Brandon salon where she works, she hits balls down the aisle next to her stylist chair.
She knows some golf professionals see her age and the fact that she’s a black woman as a disadvantage. While golfers such as Renee Powell have made the game more accessible for women like Brown, blacks remain a minority at the top of the game. Brown says it is sometimes hard to find sponsors. The opposition just makes her work harder.
She teaches her students to do the same.
“It’s encouraging to watch her persevere despite the hurdles she has to get over,” said Tampa’s director of solid waste Tonja Brickhouse , a New Tampa resident who also is Brown’s student.
Brown says her competitive spirit keeps her going. Growing up in South Hill, Va., she played high school softball. She was a shortstop of the year, a home run champion. Then, at age 16, she gave birth to a daughter who became her world. Later she met and married an Army soldier, Gary Brown, and decided to go to cosmetology school.
She worked as a licensed master stylist out of salons near where her husband was stationed in Illinois, Georgia, Hawaii and New York. She played on women’s softball teams, recruiting players as hair clients.
When her husband asked her to learn to golf with him, she told him softball was her game. But after some convincing, she tagged along.
She started out with a swing and a miss.
“I thought, why is it I can hit a ball that’s moving but I take a swing and I miss a ball that’s sitting still? I liked the challenge,” Brown said.
Brown began taking golf lessons in 1997. She practiced several hours a week, then almost daily. It was a bonding experience for her and her husband, who retired from the military and moved the couple to Brandon in 2003. The two fell in love with the sport together, but she took it to another level when she entered an amateur tournament in Tampa in 2004.
Brown quickly mastered the greens at local tournaments, winning a championship title at MacDill Air Force Base. Then, in 2008, she entered the LPGA qualifier and registered as a professional.
This year’s qualifier is in November. She says she is ready. It is a step on the way to the major tour. She golfs with a pink ball marked by a purple heart. The pink represents the friends and clients she has lost to breast cancer. The purple heart is to honor military friends wounded in battle.
Her fight to win a game is an easy one compared to those struggles, she says. She wants to win, but the journey is what’s most important to her.
“I’m just going to keep going,” she says, pulling her golf bag through the rain.
Sarah Whitman can be reached at (813) 661-2439 or swhitman@sptimes.com By Sarah Whitman
Times Staff Writer
Sporting a pink polo, dangling earrings and golf shoes, Alice Brown braves the morning rain to hit balls at the driving range.
At 49, she is a member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association. She is also a hairstylist, wife, grandmother and golf teacher. All things are possible, she says. It doesn’t matter how old you are, or who says no. You just have to go for it.
“I have no limits because I don’t put limits on myself,” she says, a golf bag and bucket of balls at her side.
The problem with Misty Copsey’s disappearance is the same problem it’s always been: no body, no traces to help Puyallup police figure out what happened to her.
She went to the Puyallup Fair on Sept. 17, 1992, a 14-year-old goody-two-shoes on a girl’s night out with her best friend.
She never came home.
Her mother, Diana Smith, reported the disappearance to police, fearing Misty had been kidnapped and killed.
The case got screwed up after that.
A generation ago, police insisted Misty was a runaway. They discounted Smith’s fears and questioned her honesty.
They conducted a cursory investigation and suspended it for flimsy reasons. They let potential evidence slip away, misled the public and failed to interview key witnesses for almost six months.
For years afterward, they hinted that Misty was just a runaway from a troubled home, alienating her mother permanently.
That talk is over now. Police are investigating a homicide. They’ve spent two years revisiting the Copsey case. They’ve assigned a team to review every inch of it.
In 2009, a News Tribune series, “The Stolen Child,” exposed gaps, miscues and oversights in the original inquiry. Spurred by the story, a new generation of investigators rebooted the case.
They’ve re-interviewed every available witness. They’ve spoken to old suspects and new ones. They’ve interviewed the original investigators. They’ve consulted with the FBI, following a template of best practices governing cold-case methods.
They’ve gathered forensic evidence originally scattered among four agencies, sought and obtained DNA analysis where possible and built a file that could serve as a foundation for a prosecutor if the right moment comes.
The effort leads to the same empty space: no right moment. No forensic clincher. No long-suppressed confession. No body. “We need a spark,” Deputy Chief Bryan Jeter said. “Somebody knows, is the bottom line.”
REBUILDING THE FILE
Police have cleaned up a chaotic case file, which sounds trivial. It wasn’t.
In 2009, the Copsey case was a heap: a generation’s worth of records gathered over 17 years by detectives and police officers from one city and two counties.
There was no index. File folders jumbled in six banker’s boxes. Reports, correspondence, photographs and transcripts mingled in mounds, all of it on paper.
It had to be rebuilt, reviewed page by page, cross-referenced along with new information, and digitized for computer reading.
The scut work fell to Jason Visnaw, a detective who spent much of the past two years reorganizing the file, retracing the players, digging for old leads and chasing new ones, aided by a trio of commanders: Sgt. Ryan Portmann, Capt. Scott Engle, and Capt. Dave McDonald.
Visnaw is a silent sort with close-cropped blonde hair, built like a linebacker. On detail questions, the commanders look to him. He rubs his head and reels off the answers. He knows the murder book.
“You can’t underestimate the amount of work Jason did on this case,” Jeter said.
Utica Square is filling the void left by its oldest store, Brouse’s, by leasing to national shoe retailer Marmi.
Next month, Marmi will fill the space next door to Med-X Drug that was occupied by Brouse’s — the family owned shoe store that opened in the 1950s and operated until closing this summer.
Marmi specializes in “comfortable, fashionable footwear for women and is recognized as a leader in European influenced footwear,” a news release from Utica Square states. St. Louis-based Marmi also carries a broad range of sizes – from 4? to 13 — as well as styles with narrow and wide widths.
“Brouse’s left a huge hole, especially for women who want to shop for shoes with different sizes,” said Jessica Barr, property manager at Utica Square. “Marmi specializes in hard-to-find sizes as well as a lot of regular styles. So our hope is to fill the gap for people.”
Marmi opened its first boutique in 1986 and has now has some 30 stores nationwide. The privately held retailer carries brands such as Ara, Barefoot Original, Sesto Meucci, Vaneli and others.
Brouse’s shoe store opened in 1958 and was a mainstay for Utica Square shoppers. Barr believes Marmi will also a good fit for the shopping center.
“All Marmi employees are trained in proper fit, fashion consultation and the Marmi method of individual customer service and satisfaction,” she said.
Looking at a pair of premium denim jeans (you know, the kind that cost upward of $120 and are generally found in department stores and specialty boutiques), it can be easy to miss some of the tiny details, deliberate nicks and distressing that go into the design.
The process of transforming a garment with origins in sturdy, utilitarian work wear into something pricey, fashion-forward and sometimes sexy, requires lengthy design sessions, an intricate fit process and hours at a wash house where denim is treated more like a science experiment-meets-an-artisan-workshop rather than a mass-produced basic churned out by the thousands in a factory.
“Basically everything is done by hand,” Adriano Goldschmied says, referring to the washing and fabric treating process. The founder and creative director of Goldsign Jeans and creative director for Citizens of Humanity men’s line spends much of his time in his denim laundry facility in Gardena experimenting with new washes for his lines. He’s referred to by many in the fashion industry as the “Godfather of denim,” having started and developed a number of denim companies, including Diesel, Replay, AG Adriano Goldschmied and his current obsession, Goldsign.
Goldschmied walked us through the steps he uses to get a pair of raw boot-cut jeans to look perfectly worn in, distressed and creased in all the right places.
The jeans are thrown into a washing machine with a soap that helps to break down the fabric and contrasts the blue and white yarns.
The jeans are then placed into an industrial-size washing machine filled about halfway with Turkish pumice stones, which create small abrasions on the edges of pockets and along the hem of the pants.
Then the jeans are rinsed in cold water to eliminate the soap as well as any powder or residue formed during the stone-washing process. They are placed in an extractor to remove excess water until they are just slightly damp.
Next? Forty minutes in a 140-degree dryer.
Once dry, the jeans are dipped in a vat of resin to stiffen them and prepare them for the sanding and abrasion process.
Another trip to the extractor eliminates excess resin.
By this point, the jeans begin to exhibit a slightly stiff yet moldable texture ideal for deliberate creases. The pants are pulled onto a machine that is essentially a mannequin with only legs to create pleats around the upper thigh area and hip area – all done by hand, so no two pairs are exactly the same.
After the desired creases and pleats are made, a large black bag is zipped around the jeans and filled with air heated to 170 degrees. The heat “cures” the resin enough so that the jeans can be removed from the mannequin, hung on a rack and fed into a large 330-degree oven for 15 minutes to cure further.
Emerging from the oven, the jeans are dry and ready for sanding. They’re placed on another mannequin for what Goldschmied calls “local abrasion,” a process designed to enhance the texture and increase the color contrast in the fabric. Using a square of sandpaper made especially for working with denim, an employee sands specific areas on the pants. “The sanding breaks up the indigo, so the white color of the thread inside comes through,” Goldschmied says.
He then dips a cloth in chlorine and goes back over the area he has just sanded to make the white areas even more white.
The jeans are washed yet again to neutralize chemicals used in processing and remove any residue created in the sanding process. (Some styles are treated with a tool that resembles a drill head with coarse sandpaper attached to it, resulting in an “aged” finish.)
Finally, the jeans are placed back on the mannequin for some browning and aging detail, which is accomplished with a torch. A finisher runs the flame lightly over some of the whiter areas to lessen the contrast.
The entire process – washing, stoning, curing and creasing – takes about six hours.
The rapid demise of former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty recalled the wisdom of Lincoln-via-Jesus: A house divided against itself can’t stand.
Pawlenty sought above all to position himself as a pragmatic, results-oriented, problem-solving former executive of a blue state. But the more firmly-established former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney boasts the identical credential—this in addition to his private-sector experience.
So he tried to differentiate himself by outflanking Romney’s right, first with a fumbling attack on the latter’s healthcare record (the infamous “Obamneycare” contretemps) and next with a laugher of an economic proposal.
As my friend Amy Gardner of the Washington Post reports, Pawlenty’s “Mr. Conservative” reboot was an utter flop: “It wasn’t who he was, supporters said, and so he either came across forced or he hesitated so much that he left the opposite impression than he intended.” [See a collection of political cartoons on the GOP hopefuls.]
Pawlenty shouldn’t feel too bad, however: Romney himself mounted a similar campaign against the too-moderate Sen. John McCain in 2008. True, he didn’t flame out as quickly as Pawlenty; he just wasted a bigger pile of cash.
There’s another parallel: Pawlenty in ‘11 battled the same kind of thorn in the side that Romney did in ‘08. This year, Pawlenty was done in by the fire-breathing Rep. Michele Bachmann; in the last presidential season, Romney found he couldn’t dispatch former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the candidate most trusted by social conservatives. [Read more about the 2012 presidential election.]
All this ideological positioning and niche-occupying brings into sharp relief Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s greatest potential strength: He can—or will try to—offer Republicans the best of both worlds: the results-oriented governor as well as the ideologically unspoiled standard-bearer.
Unlike any other Republican candidate, Perry can both tout a record of job-creation and pray for rain.
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat calls Perry the “conservative id made flesh.”
This isn’t even the half of it. He’s actually the neo-Confederate id made flesh. Take his flirtation with secessionist extremism; his asinine rhetoric about the unconstitutionality of Social Security and Medicare; his vision of an “inconsequential” federal government — what we have here is not so much a conservative as as a Calhounian.
Will Romney wilt under the pressure of the Perry-Bachmann tag team? Or will he triangulate above it?
Funnily enough, in last week’s debate in Iowa, former Sen. Rick Santorum highlighted a territory that remains unoccupied in the current GOP field. He said: “There are things the states can’t do. Abraham Lincoln said the states do not have the right to do wrong. I respect the 10th Amendment, but we are a nation that has values.” [See a slide show of who's in and out for the GOP in 2012.]
Santorum was speaking, of course, in a context of bedrock social values, but the principle applies equally to economics.
Until recently—you need only look to the model of George W. Bush circa 1999—it was a mainstream conservative view that America is one nation.
The Perry-Bachmann-Palin-Tea Party-neo-Bircher juggernaut has shattered this consensus.
Will Romney—will anyone—run as a Lincoln Republican?
A teacher testified last Thursday that a gay student at a Southern California junior high school paraded around in makeup and high heels in front of a classmate who is accused of killing him the next day.
Arthur Saenz said he saw defendant Brandon McInerney sitting on a bench looking angry and upset while 15-year-old Larry King walked back and forth in front of him as other students laughed
“I saw a lot of anger and rage,” the history teacher said about McInerney.
Saenz said he did nothing about the situation because the school administrator walked up and saw the same scene. He said he assumed she would take care of it.
Saenz said that in hindsight, he thought the encounter “appeared to be sexual harassment.”
McInerney, who was 14 at the time of the 2008 shooting at E.O. Green School in Oxnard, is being tried as an adult on first-degree murder and hate crime charges.
The defense is arguing that McInerney had a troubled childhood and had reached an emotional breaking point over unwanted sexual advances by King when he shot his fellow student in a computer classroom. The prosecution contends McInerney was driven by white supremacist anti-gay beliefs.
Saenz’s testimony came after McInerney’s aunt testified that she saw the young man’s father physically and verbally abuse him.
Megan Csorba said she saw her brother sit on his son until he couldn’t breathe, pull his thumb back until he screamed and punch him in the face, the Ventura County Star reported.
In cross-examination, a prosecutor asked Csorba why she didn’t report the abuse to police.
“I was going through my own abuse, and I wasn’t going to do that to my brother,” Csorba said.
She said that books on Nazi youth and videos on shooting at McInerney’s home belonged to the defendant’s older brother. She also testified, as did McInerney’s half-brother, that the defendant had been molested by a cousin.
The trial was moved to Los Angeles County because of extensive media coverage in Ventura County.
Steven Rodrig is at it again. Last spring he created that awesome pair of high heels out of circuit boards, which we all ogled at either through appreciation or confusion. And this summer, he’s created a rather amazing pair of sandals.
Rodrig has a knack for dreaming up, and building, some unusual items out of old computer parts. These “Data Sandals” are “fashioned from PC mother boards, ribbon wire and a host of other electronic components all put together to make these highly detailed and one of a kind Sandals,” writes Rodrig on his Etsy page.
Of course, there’s a downside…
As Discovery News writes, “They’re cool, they’re highly detailed and they’re one of a kind; the only thing they’re really not is wearable. Display them, gently fondle them or stare at them in awe — just don’t put them on.”
Despite not being able to wear them, any geek with an eye for fashion — or any fashionista with an eye for the unique and interesting, for that matter — would appreciate having these in their home, I’m sure.
If you’re game, they’re $350.00 on Etsy.
SHOE firm Church’s has opened its first “women-only” shop in one of London’s most prestigious shopping streets.
The Northampton company has opened the shop, which is dedicated to women’s shoes and accessories, in New Bond Street in London’s West End.
The move has been welcomed by fashion experts, with Grazia magazine pointing out that Madonna is among celebrity fans of the Northampton-based firm’s shoes.
The shop stocks Church’s range of women’s flat shoes with lace-ups and brogues specially cut for women’s feet. Prices start at ￡200 for ballerina pumps and rise up to ￡350 for lace- up boots or studded brogues.
Church’s was founded in Northampton in 1873 by Thomas Church and his three sons Alfred, William and Thomas Jr, building on family experience in making shoes dating back to 1675.
Within a few years, the company was transformed from a workshop into a major business supplying shoe shops across Britain.
One of the company’s earliest styles, the Adaptable, won a Gold Medal at the 1884 Crystal Palace Exhibition and the company claims it was one of the first pairs of shoes to be made with specially designed left and right shoes.
Kim Kardashian and sisters Kourtney, Kendall, and Kylie made an appearance at the Teen Choice Awards in LA tonight. The gals all looked stunning in their very different looks, of course.
Kim was dressed in a black and white dress with a high bun, while Kourtney wore a hot royal blue dress with snakeskin heels. Kendall and Kylie both looked great in their ensembles — and tall. They towered over their sisters!
The Teen Choice Awards were held at Gibson Ampitheatre on August 7, 2011. The evenings big winners were Taylor Swift, Taylor Lautner, Blake Lively, and more! Selena Gomez and a slew of other performers also rocked out during the exciting evening.
COPE is calling on the men of Galway to take a stand against domestic violence by donning women’s high heels and taking part in a sponsored walk for the charity.
The fun event, which will see men tottering through the city streets in their finest footwear, aims to draw attention to the very serious issue of domestic violence against women, and to raise funds for COPE’s Waterside House, the only domestic violence refuge for women and children in Galway.
Walk a Mile In Her Shoes will take place on Saturday September 24 at 2pm. The walk will commence in Eyre Square and participants will walk down Shop Street as far as Cross Street, then up Quay Street and back to Eyre Square, with one loop around the Square to the finish.
“This is our first time doing this event; we saw the idea in America and thought it would be a great fun way to involve men in speaking out against the issue of domestic violence,” said Fintan Maher of COPE Galway. “We are hoping that the men of Galway will be brave enough to don a pair of ladies’ high heel shoes and that others will reward their bravery by sponsoring them for doing so. While the event is targeted at men and getting them to experience what it is like to walk in high heels, it is open to their friends and families to participate also.”
COPE Galway will provide the shoes on the day. People need to register in advance and they will be sent a registration pack including sponsorship forms. All participants are asked to raise a minimum of €50 which will cover the cost of the shoes and staging the event.
To register for Walk a Mile in Her Shoes contact Pamela on (091) 778750, email fundraising @copegalway.ie, or visit www.copegalway.ie
All funds raised from this event will go to Waterside House, COPE’s refuge for women and children experiencing domestic violence. In the past 12 months the refuge accommodated 142 women and their 169 children. In the same period the refuge was unable to accommodate 262 women and their 486 children, and these were offered referral to other refuges, the nearest of which is in Athlone.