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Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, Mary Rogers Column: Event Shows That Kids Are the Real Stars

Posted on: Monday, 27 March 2006, 06:00 CST

By Mary Rogers, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Mar. 27--There are a few benefit events that help define this community. Blossoms in the Dust, benefiting the Gladney Center for Adoption, is one of those. This annual luncheon, style show and bazaar is all about family -- about a sense of belonging and a respect for commitment.

Now in its 42nd year, this event is also -- and always -- a sweet reminder that the promise of all young life is precious. So it's no wonder that last week more than 600 of Gladney's friends and extended family came to celebrate spring, as they do each year.

The spring fashions came from Dillard's, and some of the models were pros, but event chair Julie Siratt made certain there were plenty of Gladney children and their families parading down the runway.

Some of the little ones ducked their heads, afraid of all the attention, and others waved and threw kisses to grandmothers who knelt at the end of the runway to get photos.

Almost everyone in the crowd had come to see the little ones.

They'd shopped the bazaar and applauded as Cynthia Hill presented her longtime friend Shannon Schumacher with the Leslie Amend Memorial Award. It was a salute to Shannon's passionate advocacy for adoption, her record of volunteerism and her leadership.

The crowd sat still while the Gladney Center's programs were explained and extolled and while a couple of videos rolled. Finally, they got to see the kids. After all, that's what they came for.

The brothers: History lovers will want to tune in to KERA at 10 p.m. on April 5 to see Alpha Phi Alpha Men: A Century of Leadership, a documentary about what a news release calls the nation's "largest and oldest black fraternity." This fraternity was founded at Cornell University in 1906. Eventually the organization's membership included such powerhouses as writer W.E.B. Dubois, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., supreme court justice Thurgood Marshall, musician Duke Ellington and track star Jesse Owens, to name only a few.

Naturally, other chapters opened at other colleges and universities all across the country, and the men of the fraternity rose to prominence in hundreds of towns.

The fraternity has long played an important role in Fort Worth's African-American community and boasted such leaders as the late Dr. Marion J. Brooks; his son, county commissioner Roy C. Brooks; former Texas Rep. Reby Cary; educator James E. Guinn; Tuskegee airman Robert T. McDaniel Jr; and religious leaders such as the Rev. Albert E. Chew Jr.

Alpha Phi Alpha member Blake Moorman is proud of the fact that the fraternity helps younger men find their way. The local chapter is sponsoring a Beautillion to honor and encourage young men still in high school.

That formal presentation will be held at Texas Christian University's Brown-Lupton Student Center Ballroom on Saturday.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

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Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)

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