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SukkahCity Austin at the Dell Jewish Community Campus

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A sukkah is a temporary prayer shelter for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

Several sukkah design judges — including me — who met at Battle Hall in the University of Texas School of Architecture several weeks ago did not know that in advance.

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Hours later, we could cite each of the traditional rules and regulations about these symbolic huts that are constructed especially for the pilgrimage feast day.

Designers from Texas and Israel proposed creative structures that were open on at least one side and on a portion of the top. The judges disqualified some for because they appeared unsustainable, others because they didn’t fit the religious qualifications.

The best of the designs were constructed for SukkahCity Austin. Sets of sukkahs remain on display at two locations — Dell Jewish Community Campus and Whole Food Market downtown upper terrace — through Tuesday.

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Kids love ‘em, since they resemble play houses scaled to their sizes.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, for instance, Rachel and Levi Hurt tooled in and around the ones on the JCC grounds while their father, Bazaarvoice chief Brett Hurt looked on. His wife, Debra Hurt, served on the SukkahCity Austin committee, which modeled the event after a similar New York design competition.

Some of the sukkahs look like high modern sculpture. Others like organic forms that include plant life in the walls. Still others are simple, elegant boxes with seats.

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The judge’s favorite, however, came from Israel: A framed cube. Guests are invited to wrap it in colorful yarns, making a delightful inside-outside experience for everyone. The judges liked it so much, they asked that it be constructed at both locations.

For more information on these free exhibits, go to shalomaustin.org.


Record Your Own Untold Austin Stories

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She sat in a tiny room bathed in yellow light. Talking in low, soothing tones, she patiently answered a battery of questions from her daughter, grandson and granddaughter.

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Austinite Jayne Keedy’s gift from her family on National Grandparents Day (Sept. 9) was a trip to the Block House audio studio, a top recording spot located inside a modest Northwest Austin home.

There, Keedy related how she met her first husband, what her daughter was like when she was young and her impressions of the world decades ago, a world her grandchildren can only imagine.

If preserved, Keedy’s family recording should be treasured as an heirloom. Rarely are such oral histories available when we want them.

And in most cases, personal memories are all any family possesses regarding its past, other than some photographs, a few possessions and official records of births, deaths, marriages and matters of property.

That kind of data is much more accessible these days, thanks to the Internet, but nothing beats the actual voice and warm memories of your forerunners.

(Currently, I’m reading Michael Gillette’s oral history of Lady Bird Johnson, which comes out in December. Blessedly, I can hear her honeyed-iron voice in every syllable.)

Recording such living history has been on my mind because of the Untold Austin Stories series which runs on the third page of this section on Sundays.

Looking into Austin parks with the help of historians Kim McKnight and Gloria Mata Pennington has opened up a flood of memories from locals. Some of them have lived through three times as much Austin history as I have.

Wouldn’t it be thrilling to interview every octogenarian and nonagenarian in town, spurring memories of really Old Austin for the benefit of New Austin? Kind of like the “East Austin Stories” project put together by the University of Texas.

In Keedy’s case, the tales don’t go back that far. She’s about my age.

And her delightful grandchildren, Alex D’Amico and Piper D’Amico, threw plenty of curve balls during the interview. The grandson was interested in relating her experiences to more recent family episodes, while the granddaughter, much quieter, came out with hilarious nonsequitors like: “Did it hurt when you pierced your ears?”

They and their mother, Rebecca D’Amico, were helped by Lindsay Patterson, who does this for a living. Her company, Reflect and Record, is dedicated to family storytelling.

“I’ve always loved interviewing and listening,” says Patterson, whose background is radio journalism. “My favorite parts of interviews I do as a reporter are when people share stories of their lives, the people who influenced them and how they came to do what they do. Unfortunately, these stories don’t always make it onto the air.”

Originally, Rebecca D’Amico and some friends had hired Patterson to record a friend in Louisiana who is terminally ill. When D’Amico heard about the Grandparents Day deal, she signed up with Patterson right away.

“It’s an important job,” Patterson says. “Because if you don’t take action to preserve the stories, they are inevitably lost.”

KIPP Austin 10th anniversary luncheon

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The numbers tell much of the story. And we’ll get to those. But first, let’s consider the people attending the KIPP Austin 10th anniversary luncheon, staged at the south campus off Interstate 35, the hilltop site of a former Walmart and Sam’s Club.

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Christy Pipkin and Julia Null Smith

The most inspirational speaker was 12th grader Marisela Bueno, who has thoroughly lived the KIPP dream of hard work and college aspirations for students usually not availed such opportunities. She was most moving when she described the evolving relationships with her neighborhood friends who did not attend a KIPP School.

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Mary Herr Tally and Will Wynn

Classy CEO Kathrin Brewer introduced Isabel and Dave Welland, winners of the first Lorax Award for school support. Teacher and founder Jill Kolasinski announced the Jan Hughes Memorial play area, named for the Austin leader who died last year.

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Mark Strama and Crystal Cotti

Back to a selection of those promised numbers:

Only one of every three students who registers for KIPP’s annual enrollment lottery gets in.

KIPP serves 2,000 students today.

Four in 10 KIPP students are English language learners.

KIPPsters started the school year early — on Aug. 6 — and the school day goes from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Gulp!)

KIPP operates seven schools now in East Austin.

Nine out of 10 KIPP students go to college, as opposed to one out of 10 lower-income students from other schools.

By 2019, KIPP Austin will run 10 schools and serve 5,000 students grades K-12.

Hard to argue with that kind of success.

Jordan Shipley & Sunny Helms: Music, football and romance

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The eyes give away the game. His are enormous, kind, copper-colored. Hers alert, amused, blue then green.

Clearly, they are in deeply, irrevocably in love.

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Former Longhorn standout wide receiver and current NFL free agent Jordan Shipley and his wife, songwriter Sunny Helms first met some 13 years ago in the West Texas town of Rotan.

Shipley was in eighth grade, new to town. Ranch-raised Helms was the older girl, a confident cheerleader in ninth grade.

“He was a just skinny little kid,” Helms, 27, says. “But we got along really well. I guess you could call it dating. We were only 13 or 14.”

“She was a grade older than me,” Jordan, 26, says. “Automatically that helped.”

The budding romance made the Shipley family’s move to remote Rotan, located on the Brazos River below Double Mountain, easier.

“I had been in Abilene pretty much my entire life,” he says. “I started out not wanting to go there, then ended up not wanting to leave.”

The couple, who are still moving into their regional modern house in Oak Hill, took a long and winding road to adult romance. Now they share grown-up interests like cooking and exploring Austin’s food scene. They also sing and play the guitar together.

In fact, they recently recorded an EP. Under the name Sunny Leigh Shipley, the songwriter recently released three songs on iTunes (tinyurl.com/8u37o9k).

One, “Don’t Let Me Sink,” features her husband’s soft voice. Proceeds from that song will go to Holden Uganda, a group based in Snyder that builds water wells in Africa.

Helms is no songwriting tenderfoot. For years, she wrote for other artists in Nashville. Her biggest success was “Oh, Tonight” for the Josh Abbott Band, aptly about young couple in love. It hit No. 1 on Texas charts and made the Top 50 on Country Billboard’s charts.

Of late, the couple has found more time to fix up their two-story house, built on a former racetrack, and pick guitars overlooking their spacious back yard. Shipley was recently cut from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Helms left behind her former songwriting gig in Nashville.

After a couple of off-season operations, Shipley is back in shape and trains his extra-long arms in hopes of another NFL call. Shipley — whose younger brother, Jaxson Shipley, now plays for the Longhorns — is the son of a football coach who took the high school job in Rotan.

“He liked it because anybody could drive,” Helms jokes about country life.

Before moving to Burnet, where he played out his high school career, Shipley spent some time with Rotan’s Sammy Baugh, the TCU and Washington Redskins great and subject of a recent biography: “Slingin’ Sam: The Life & Times of the Greatest Quarterback Ever to Play the Game.”

After Shipley left, the lovebirds tried to stay together.

“Neither had a drivers license, so it was hard,” Helms says. “I went to his state championship game. When he got here to UT, I was at (Texas) Tech. We saw each other when the schools played. And we texted sometimes.”

Later, while she was working in Nashville, Shipley took a road trip to visit a buddy at nearby military base. He happened to text Helms before arriving.

“‘Happened,’” she kids, watching his response to her tender sarcasm. “He likes to pretend he was nonchalant.”

“We hung out once or twice,” he says. Then he made a return visit with his friends. “I invited her to dinner. She hung out with us the whole weekend.”

“We had been dating other people, but we didn’t tell each other that,” she says. “The second time he came, I think we both knew it could be something again.”

A family trip to Lake LBJ gave Helms a chance invite Shipley deeper into her life.

“I knew he was very busy with football, training,” she says. “He came out for dinner and stayed three days and three nights with my family.”

Why the recurring attraction?

“She’s hilarious,” Shipley says. “You’d have to be around her for a while, but she’s so much fun. Our personalities go together real well. She’s not bad to look at either.”

“He’s probably the kindest person I know,” Helms says. “The way he treats me and treats other people: He always thinks about others first. He’s a very hard worker, very determined. I learned a lot about that from him.”

They made their vows last year in Rotan on the Brazos River within sight of the Double Mountain buttes.

No babies yet, but they talk of possible redheads, which is a genetic possibility given their families. For now, they just savoring the weather, food, music and people of Austin.

Shipley: “We have plenty of time to think about what to do next.”

Friday in Austin: Dinner, ballet, film festival party

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One night in Austin and the world’s your oyster.

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Mariam Parker and Ben Brown

It started at Max’s Wine Dive. The Houston-based eatery and drinkery has carved big-boned banquet rooms out of its basement on East Third Street. On Friday, one hall held the Austin Cellar Classic dinner.

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Kevin Benz and Olga Campos

My companion for the evening, social connector Jacob Stetson, immediately introduced himself to everyone around our table. Gotta like a walker who is more social than the social columnist.

To my left were CultureMap Austin’s Kevin Benz and U.S. Money Reserve’s Olga Campos. We discussed the comparative merits of covering the U.S. Grand Prix in November from the track’s stands or waist deep in luxe downtown parties.

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Carla and Gary Osborn

The only dish served before our departure was a delicate carpaccio with thinly curled pear slices. We made our apologies and raced across downtown for …

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Andrea Stoery and Greg Vrentas

The opening night of Ballet Austin’s “The Taming of the Shrew” drew a moderately dressy mass of dance lovers. They giggled and guffawed at artistic director Stephen Mills’ elegantly devised physical humor inspired by the Shakespearean tale of gender friction.

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Eric Prince and Charisse Brea

We always linger on the Long Center’s terrace, an almost accidental gift to the city. The ring of smooth columns are part of the old Palmer Auditorium’s structure. The fact that they frame the city’s growing, glowing skyline like a theatrical arc is just a bonus.

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Laura Forster and Stephanie Forsythe

Inside the Dell Hall, we sat next to Cookie Ruiz, the ballet’s biz whiz, Meria Carstarphen, the school superintendent, and Brent Hasty, the arts education guru and Mills’ partner.

A patron perked up Ruiz’s first intermission with an unexpected kindness inside a plain envelope, which I’ll let her reveal — or not.

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Garry Davis and Dax Dobbs

After the show, we swam through the humidity across downtown — through the pre-game crowds swarming in each entertainment district — to the Swan Dive on Red River Street.

There, we awaited the first-nighters for the Polari’s Fest’s centerpiece film, “Fourplay.” Quite the classy and contempo joint for the gay and lesbian fest’s 25th anniversary.

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Elaine S. Holton and Jaelah Keuhmichel

A DJ eventually seduced fest-goers out on the dance floor. Meanwhile, we caught up with the festival’s board members, and the artistic team behind “Fourplay,” the series of four short stories directed by Kyle Henry, formerly of Austin.

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Gary Chason and Carlos Treviño

After a dozen sharp chats, we steered back down East Sixth Street, where the human tides swept us to and fro. Fresh tourists — some from West Virginia for the Saturday game this night — always remake Sixth Street, much maligned by locals, but still the electric social center of Austin on any weekend night.

It follows the rule of any lively downtown, being the only place were all classes and ages meet on the same social plane.

Moonlight and Memories for the Christi Center at Hill's Cafe

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Some charitable groups hover on the horizon of public consciousness. The Christi Center — formerly called For the Love of Christi — has been helping survivors overcome the loss of a loved one for 25 years.

That’s forever in Austin nonprofit years.

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Andrew Menke and Nicole Torres

Yet I don’t think about it, except when invited to events such as Moonlight and Memories last week at Hill’s Cafe. The low-key benefit, blessed by the first chill of autumn, allowed me to meet Susan and Don Cox who started the charity after losing their daughter, Christi, to a drunken driver. Their son, Sean Cox, who helped found the group, was also at the party.

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Rachel Horton and Liza Chenwillmore

If you live long enough, you’ll face no shortage of tragedies that cry out for grief counseling. The Christi Center is there for you.

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Karli Stine and Amy Shorter

I plan to meet with the Coxes to talk about their journey since Christi’s death in 1985. It’s time.

Mellow Yellow for Livestrong at a Tarrytown home

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There must be a million parties like this in Austin every year. But you hardly ever hear about them. They fill a living room and a backyard. They generate a good time and some cash for a noble cause.

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William Archer and Elizabeth Adams

In this case, marketer and drink blogger Matt McGinnis and his wife Suzanne invited dozens of their guests over to raise $5,000 for Livestrong, the cancer nonprofit which is doing fine despite the troubles of its founder Lance Armstrong.

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Suzanne and Matt McGinnis

In a novel twist, the McGinnises borrowed one of those banners from Livestrong so that photographers and snappers like myself would promo the charity whenever they shot an entering couple. They also snazzed up the backyard with furniture and lamps. At first I thought their kids’ trampoline was a rental for a cage fight, but alas no …

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Ed and Susan Auler

I ran into wine pioneers Susan and Ed Auler, whose Fall Creek Vineyards not only processes the grapes for Scott RobertsSalt Lick Cellars, I learned, but also has reclaimed lakefront land on Lake Buchanan during the drought. (One now travels by land rather than by water to their famous falls.)

Spent time with Elizebeth Adams and her brother William Archer. We shared Archer stories. I lockered below William “Reyn” Archer for one year in high school. He’s the son of U.S. Rep. Bill Archer (R, Houston) and later a Bush appointee to the post of Texas Commissioner of Health. When Reyn got into trouble for the usual political falderal, the press pummeled the other William Archer — the party Archer — with questions.

He took it good-naturedly.

Untold Austin Stories: Hancock Golf Course

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In an historical essay, John W. Ramzy cuts to the chase: “Golf has been played longer at this location than anywhere else in Texas.”

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That location is Hancock Golf Course, centerpiece for the Hancock, Hyde Park and Red River neighborhoods. According to Ramzy, Austin Mayor Lewis Hancock organized the country club and the course that bears his name after trips to Scotland.

The first location for the nine-hole course was directly on Groome Street, now known as Duval Street. Later it moved to undulating land on either side of Waller Creek. Winner of the first competitive tournament: Walter Bremond — of Bremond Block fame — in 1900 when it was a private club.

After 1901, a series of clubhouses were built, then damaged or destroyed by fire. Materials from the demolished Old Main building at the University of Texas were used to create the current clubhouse, which fire hit in 1963.

Among the women who played here: Julia Pease, daughter of Gov. Elisha Pease, and winning amateur golfer Hilda Urbantke. Among the men, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, U.S. Attorney General T.W. Gregory and U.S. Rep. Jake Pickle.

Gambler Titanic Thompson hustled players on the course. The most famous player, however, was Harvey Penick, who began his pro career here in 1923. He went on to become one of the nation’s most revered golfing gurus.

In 1913, the course was expanded to 18 holes through the purchase of the Ernst Farm, now the location of the Hancock Shopping Center, developed in the early 1960s. Texas Rangers removed and sledgehammered illegal slot machines from the clubhouse in the 1930s.

In 1946, Mayor Tom Miller led the fight to purchase the course for the city of Austin. The private Austin Country Club moved first to East Riverside Drive then out to Davenport Ranch.


Profile: Inventor, writer and golf pro Chip Thomson

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When the visor goes on, the Austin inventor looks like an alien.

The thin, dark device that wraps around his eyes is called 3rdiView, the latest creation from golf pro, writer and serial business founder Chip Thomson. It allows athletes to view a live video feed of their performances.

The idea for 3rdiView came while coaching golfer Pete Jordan for the 2002 U.S. Open.

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“He was making a move with his swing that I couldn’t correct with video recorder,” Thomson says. “A day and a half we spent on that. We could not correct it. That night, I bought a Sony Glasstron video helmet and wired that into a video recorder so Pete could see himself in real time. Five minutes later it was corrected. It removes memory from the equation. The brain sees it and automatically corrects.”

Now trying to nudge 3rdiView into production, Thomson, 55, hardly stops with one big project. Smooth and manicured yet meticulously casual, he percolates ideas from his serene cliffside home above Barton Creek. He credits his good fortune across several careers to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

“ADHD was thought of as a negative disease,” says the man who keeps tabs on four computers atop his home office desk. “But actually it’s been the key to most of my business success. I can be scatterbrained and still be efficient. Because I always have four or five jobs. What I never could do is sit at the same job for eight hours a day.”

Born in New Orleans, Thomson grew up in small-town Illinois, then bounced around the country.

“I’ve always been geographically driven, not business driven,” he says. “I find jobs where I like to live. I’ve been lucky enough to live in some cool places, Austin being one of them.”

His deceased stepfather, Ralph Thomson, an attorney, gave him crucial life advice.

“When I was five, he took me into his law library and said: ‘It takes all these books, as well as policemen, judges and lawyers to determine what is legal,’ the grown son recalls. “Right and wrong is here — in your heart. Follow your heart and you’ll always do what’s right.’”

The whole family appears to have adopted a Horatio Alger view of life. When he was seven, his mother, Delores Nunes Thomson gave him a paperweight that read: “Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out and get it.”

After playing golf for two Illinois colleges, Thomson left school to learn about business. In New Orleans, he played and taught golf during the day and ran a restaurant in the evening.

“I slept about two hours a night,” he says. “Then I realized that all my friends were into drugs and alcohol and I had to get out.”

Thomson sold water purifiers in Arizona, then ran two eateries in Santa Fe, N.M. Perhaps his oddest job was selling nuclear equipment — with no engineering background — for a Denver outfit. That business brought twice-divorced Thomson to Austin 23 years ago.

“That’s the luckiest thing that every happened to me,” he says. “Because of golf here, my three first Austin friends were Ben Crenshaw, Darrell Royal and Larry Gatlin. It was like having the keys to the city. Those three guys know everybody. We had a blast.”

Early on, Thomson played golf as often as five times a week. He coached PGA players and wrote about golf for newspapers and magazines. He contributed golf updates to CBS and CNN.

Inventions came next. The first was the Money Clamp.

“I was playing golf with Coach Royal and Gatlin,” he remembers. “We all pulled money and credit cards out of our bags and we all kept them in those black paper binders.”

So Thomson put together something between a money clip and a binder. He later introduced the ZClip for credit card security. Then he devised a system that attempts to predict the outcome of sporting events.

He is most excited about 3rdiView, which could be used to train performers along with athletes and racecar drivers. Thomson thinks it might work for surgeons, who often watch their procedures on distant video screens.

“You glance slightly upward and see yourself through other people’s eyes,” he says. “It changes people without telling them how to change. The most gratifying moment will come when I see someone preparing for an Olympic event with this.”

Skeptical about his wondrous life story? That wouldn’t hurt his feelings.

“I’ve been cursed with a confidence level far and above my ability,” he says. “I’m constantly throwing myself in the deep end, acting like I know what I’m doing, then having to learn it quickly, so I don’t come out looking like a fool.”

La Dolce Vita and Communities in Bloom

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La Dolce Vita was Austin’s first essential food festival. The benefit for AMOA Arthouse started out as a few coolers of wine and some local vendors. It now showcases dozens of wineries and most of the finest restaurants in town.

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Jennifer Lingvai and Michelle Martinez

It lacks the international glamour of the Austin Food and Wine Festival and the weather security of similar processional events held inside local hotels.

Yet you can’t beat the food, especially if you arrive early. (Never arrive late.) And backers have lucked out year after year, just missing rain or worse.

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Philip Olson and Julia Lorenz-Olson

It was muggy at Laguna Gloria, but far from intolerable.

We made several circuits of the festive booths and heard the most buzz about the lobster delicacies from Larry McGuire’s new seafood spot on West Sixth Street, Clark’s Oyster Bar, and the charred pork dipped in liquid chocolate from Dallas’ Dude, Sweet Chocolate, the brainchild of pastry chef Katherine Clapner, who formerly worked for Kevin Williamson.

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Ryan Walker and Patrice Williams

Aptly enough, Williamson served as chairman for the outdoor benefit and McGuire was lead chef. Sometimes, it all works out that way. The $100,000 the fest nets for AMOA Arthouse helps support 600 classes for more than 5,000 art students.

Made another stop that night: Communities in Bloom party for Rainforest Partnership at the Commodore Perry Estate. Once again, this meticulously restored mansion did the trick, spinning a web of good feelings around the damp evening.

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Selena Xie and Francisco Garcia

Partnership leader Niyanta Spelman spun a similar web around the group that provides alternative economies for rainforest residents in order to spare their environments.

Spelman is driven. That’s a good thing. The Partnership, now stretching across the country, is a very Austin thing.

And part of Austin’s outreach to the world.

"Survivor: ACL"

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When I mentioned on Facebook that I would be skipping muggy Zilker Park and the ACL Music Festival this year to visit my parents in Houston, one reader suggested it would be, historically, the first trip to Houston in order to escape humidity.

Really, it was a matter of survival.

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Outdoor music festivals like ACL are not the ideal places to hear music or see musicians. The big acts are far away, viewed only on giant screens. The sound — even at the smaller stages — lacks nuance.

The only musical advantage in this setting is the social thrill of sharing the concert with thousands of ecstatic fellow travelers.

Otherwise, these mass gatherings are not primed for socializing either. Virtually everyone is a stranger.

You meet people, but mostly you talk strategy, tactics and logistics, almost as if part of a military campaign. How far to this stage? Which way the shade? How long until the sun sets?

The food and drink, though local and tempting, are not consumed in ideal conditions.

One music fan, also skipping this year, described his customary festival movements as inscribed in an iron triangle between beer stand, concert stage and potty stops.

Now one could easily kindle a weekend-long buzz at the festival, but alas, that option is not available to working reporters from mainstream media.

So why have I attended so often? It is a huge party, so inherently interesting to a social columnist. And I flatter myself that my reporting has, at times, been useful to the newspaper’s ACL team.

Yet if I examine my motives more honestly, I went to say I had done it. And survived.

Stupidly, insanely, I even volunteered while I suffered from a since-fixed heart condition.

Think about it. How do fest-goers mark the previous decade of musical glory? The mud fest and the dust fest. The hurricane year and the really hot year.

It becomes “Survivor: ACL.”

This does not take away from the astonishing achievements of the C3 organizers and their army of staff and volunteers who keep dozens of bands pepped and on time, scores of vendors stocked and in business, and tens of thousands of fans safe, healthy and, for the most part, happy.

My ACL break allowed me to spend precious time with my family and to race back for Marshall Kuykendall’s 80th birthday party at the delectable Rolling in Thyme and Dough in Dripping Springs. Some of the most diverting people from the Hill Country attended.

I guess that, at age 58, this is more my natural setting: A breezy night eating buttery sandwiches under old oaks while talking with people about several lifetimes of personal adventures.

Photo: Guillermo Hernandez Martinez

Mockingbird Domestics combines stories with people and objects

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When Laura Whitney Daly lived in France, she would drive around the countryside, shopping with her mother.

Sometimes, they would stumble on a studio of glassblowers or other artisans whose families had been molding local resources into functional and decorative objects for ages.

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“After you’ve seen it, you say: ‘I have to have one,’” Laura Daly says. “Or 10! You wanted to take a piece of France back with you. The whole buying experience became more meaningful.”

She and her husband, Jeff Daly, want to echo that experience in Austin.

First through their Mockingbird Domestics website and now with their eclectic furnishing shop on South Lamar Boulevard, the Dalys make it possible to purchase year-round what in the past was mostly available only during events such as the East and West Austin studio tours — lots of high-quality, locally made furniture and home decor.

“It’s not just the product,” “Jeff Daly say, “It’s the product with a story and a personality behind it.”

The Dalys have nurtured relationships with the city’s wealth of artisans. They encourage studio visits and they train their staff — including daughter Allison, who studied apparel design and merchandizing at Ball State University and interned at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in textile preservation — to share the history of each object in the store.

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They also stage pottery throwings and other demonstrations of artisanal processes.

How would one classify the look the wood, fabric, metal and other materials in Mockingbird Domestics? Urban rustic? Post-industrial?

“We pick the pieces we think are going to last,” Laura Daly says. “We want people to think they are buying things to pass on from generation to generation.”

Both Dalys benefited from wide-ranging education and extended stays in different parts of Europe.

Laura Daly, 52, daughter of a computer executive and housewife with deep Texas roots, was born in Tyler and studied at Texas Tech University, the University of Texas Dallas and Southern Methodist University. She took art history and French at the Sorbonne and the American School in Paris, France.

“I never focused on a period,” she says of her art historical studies. “Renaissance would have been it. … I think there’s a rebirth going on now. But the the time periods are moving faster and they are getting muddled.”

Laura Daly has lived long enough, for instance, to see designs from the triumphant postwar period go through the usual cycles of dismissive rejection, kitsch curiosity and then earnest revival. She agrees that the turning point in wider acceptance of this period was the late arrival of the term “midcentury modern.”

“To us, it was the furniture our parents had that we didn’t want,” says Laura Daly, whose guarded eyes light up when she talks about the connections between artists, objects and collectors. “Now the younger crowds embrace it and want it.”

When her father was transferred to Nice, France, she haunted the Roman part of the city made famous by the artists who had hung out there. She also loved the sense of permanence that accrued from having handmade objects all around her.

“People trade them from generation to generation,” she says. “There is so much value in that.”

Jeff Daly, 52, was born in Reno, Nev. Interestingly, his dad was also a computer executive. Both his parents, however, were from the Upper Midwest and met during high school in Des Moines, Iowa. His mother taught English and took gigs as a professional clown.

While he grew up mainly in Dallas, Jeff Daly attended part of high school in Copenhagen, Denmark. Like his wife, Jeff Daly distinctly recalls trips to factories such as the one that makes Royal Copenhagen porcelain.

“I still remember the personalities behind the plates,” he says. “That reflects what we are trying to do here.”

He met his wife at Plano High School in 1978.

“We lived in Plano for 30 years,” Laura Daly says. “Too long.”

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Jeff Daly, whose bearded features frame a soft, attentive manner, studied management at Texas Tech and UT Dallas.

The couple married in 1981. They have two daughters.

In the Dallas and Indianapolis areas, Jeff Daly became a technology executive and worked for a series of companies including Tandem, Lotus and IBM. His last full-time high tech job was as regional manager in Austin for Adobe. He built furniture on the side.

The pair moved here five years ago and settled in a brick colonial with an arts and crafts finish in a midcentury pocket of Travis Heights south of Live Oak Street.

As they reached the half-century point in the lives, the Dalys began to consider “the next thing.”

“We wanted to do something together,” Laura Daly says. They explored the possibilities of opening a bed and breakfast or a retreat center, or perhaps flipping houses. “This was a good time to step back and say: ‘If we are going to do it let’s do it now.’”

They set up a sort of war room for the future at their house. When they visited a furniture-makers’ show in Kerrville and admired the work, the couple realized they didn’t know how it was sold the rest of the year. The same issue came up with the hugely popular East Austin Studio Tour, where they discovered enormous talents among the artisans and artists.

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“Two weekends out of the year, you could buy this great art or furniture,” Laura Daly says. “But you wouldn’t know where to find it after that.”

So they decided to act as go-betweens. They started by collecting objects and filling up their house with the purchases.

“The family room and the kitchen were sacred,” Laura Daly jokes. “The other rooms were stuffed with stuff. Now it’s all empty again. We are going to have to buy some of this handmade furniture to fill it.”

A year ago, they launched Mockingbird Domestics online. It tapped into both their skill sets.

“With his passion for building and for putting things together and knowledge of running systems,” Laura Daly says. “And me being in design and loving handmade things, it just came together.”

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When time came for a bricks-and-mortar store, the Dalys considered the West Sixth Street, West Lake Hills and downtown retail districts in order to be near customers who could afford one-of-a-kind furniture and decor. There were always problems, however, with ceilings, signage or parking.

They looked into a former party supply store on red-hot South Lamar, but instead switched to the former propane distributor next door.

They gutted the offices and warehouse, then used whitewashed pine to warm up the plain but lofty space.

They kept the flame from the propane sign, which now doubles as a bird’s feather.

Why a mockingbird?

“We are focusing on Texas and it’s the state bird,” Jeff Daly says. “But the new Texas, not the ranch-style Texas. Also, a mockingbird protects its nest and comes up with its own songs. That’s what we can do with furniture and what we can do with this business.”

Photos: Ralph Barrera

Untold Austin Stories: West Austin Park

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Austin park shelters come in varied styles and have served varied purposes. The Tudor Revival structure built in West Austin Park in 1930 is also known as a “bathhouse,” because the shelter’s rest areas serve as a changing rooms for the park’s small pool.

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Historians believe that the bathhouse was designed by Hugo Kuehne, the distinguished architect and parks advocate who created similar shelters in Pease Park, Shipe Park, Eastwoods Park and Little Stacy Park.

Since the 1930s, the central sheltered area has been drafted for picnics, games and performances. Its two square rooms are connected by a steep wooden roof. The half-timber decoration is for looks only, although it probably fit neatly with the scattered Tudor Revival homes in Old West Austin.

Recently, the Friends of West Austin Park finished a renovation of the bathhouse, including a new cedar shingle roof and restored decorative elements. The support group is working with Urban Forestry to install an irrigation system to reclaim water and nurture 50 new trees. The park already houses a reclaimed water tank.

West Austin Park was among the first to double as a leash-free dog zone. Now popular across the city, these areas not only provide essential play time for pets in a “pack” environment, they also can increase the sense of community in a neighborhood. (As long as they are kept scrupulously clean.)

This 3-acre gem is among the lesser known parks in Austin. Because of the area’s zig-zagging streets, one stumbles on West Austin Park if trying to forge a back trail from North Lamar Boulevard to trendy Clarksville — or trundling to and from the crowded retail area along West Sixth and West Fifth streets.

West Austin Park

Location: 1317 W. 10th St.

Acres: 3

Dedicated: 1930

JW Marriott groundbreaking ceremony at One Congress Plaza

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Straining at the bit for the new 1,000-room JW Marriott hotel to open its doors at Congress Avenue and East Second Street. But I — and everyone else — must wait. Although the groundbreaking was yesterday, the grand opening won’t come until 2015.

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Eden Shapiro and Lia Pette

The downtown social scene needs it. The Four Seasons, Driskill, AT&T Center and W Austin split most of the high-end social events. The Hilton Austin, Palmer Events Center, Bob Bullock Texas History Museum and Austin Convention Center handle mass-production parties. And there are plenty of smaller venues along with clubs, eateries and galleries for organized socializing.

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Linda Velazquez and Whitney Gafford

Yet all those places feel maxed these days. And the high social traffic means less attention to detail and diminished personal touch. A new, spacious and modern place to meet will be welcomed, I think, by everyone.

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Mark Underwood and Kim Cadwell

The groundbreaking moved into the lower lobby at One Congress Plaza because of rain. That didn’t appear to dampen enthusiasm. Reps from business, arts, music, nightlife, food and other scenes rubbed shoulders and dreamed of 2015.

Rostow Awards at AT&T Center

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Austin loves plans. Some of them work. Among those that set the city’s imagination on fire was the Austin Project.

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Charles Barnett and Mark Williams

Started by LBJ advisers Walt and Elspeth Rostow in 1991, the project took a holistic approach to lagging performance by needy children here. It emphasized early health and general welfare, but also pushed heavily for early literacy programs and strengthened public education.

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Toya Haley and Luci Baines Johnson

Tuesday, the Project honored two staunch supporters of those efforts, State Rep. Mark Strama and educator/benefactor Teresa Lozano Long. Can’t argue with those laurels. Both leaders seem to be everywhere making sure every young person gains access to anything that will substantially improve their lives.

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Joe and Teresa Long

The medium-sized sit-down awards dinner at the AT&T Center also featured city of Austin demographer Ryan Robinson who’s got one of the most fascinating jobs in town. I afford myself every opportunity to employ his finely tuned resources. And who better to help track the relative success of the Austin Project and other such worthy efforts?


Champions for Children Luncheon for Helping Hand Home at Hilton Austin

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Sometimes a benefit sneaks up on you. I didn’t now what to expect from the Champions for Children luncheon that supports Helping Hand Home. Other than the fact the child welfare group had been around since 1893 and it is favored by mainstream corporations and a certain slice of Old West Austin.

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Karen Cooper and Claire English

The sixth floor of the Hilton Austin was brightly bannered in light blue and 100 or so tables nicely filled out the big banquet room. I was the guest of Suzanne McFayden Smith and all my table-mates had stories to share.

To my right was Leo Manzano, who won silver at the London Olympics in the 1500-meter race. Well mannered and well manicured, Manzano was gracious with all the other guests and told me a bit about his own foundation.

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Suzanne McFayden Smith and Eliana Smith

We watched a video about a girl named Shelby who was fostered into adoption, then were introduced to Shelby and her new mother. Moving story. Later, honors were given to the Chaparral Foundation, community service champion Andrea Sparks, Austin Children’s Shelter leader Gina Reyes, Helping Hand volunteer Lizzie Pezoli and youthful supporter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Everett Wolf.

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Jimmy Wayne and Leo Manzano

Yet all their stories paled in comparison to that of featured speaker Jimmy Wayne, told in a brisk, authentic and deeply touching manner. The Nashville country musician’s mother moved in and out of prison. His stepfather committed murder then took the little family on the lam. Just a kid, Wayne was abandoned at a bus station parking lot.

He lived in group homes or was homeless most of his teen years. One day, he spotted a workshop on a lonely road and asked the elderly couple there if they needed any help. They told him to come back and mow the lawn. He did so for several months before they invited him to take one of their rooms.

With their help, he finished high school and college, paying his own way, the worked as a prison guard, keeping tabs on his former foster brothers who were not so lucky. He went on to a bright career in music and was able finally able to thank Bea, the woman who saved him, fully the day before she died.

He now advocates for extended foster eligibility to age 21, which seems so logical, I can’t believe legislators oppose it. He’s been successful in California and Tennessee. Hopefully, that logic will spread to Texas.

Profile: Virginia Cumberbatch of Austin Area Urban League and Hahn, Texas

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Every day after school, Virginia Cumberbatch reported the news. On the way home from Hyde Park Baptist School, she reviewed what happened in the classroom, the playground, the cafeteria.

“Dad called me the family newspaper,” she says. “I gathered intel. And I wasn’t shy.”

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Observing and reporting are still part of Cumberbatch’s habits. They serve her well as head of the Austin Area Urban League’s young leadership group and as coordinator of client services at Hahn, Texas, a prominent Austin public relations firm.

The Austin-born storyteller, 24, is the daughter of Ashton Cumberbatch — lawyer, former police monitor and vice president at Seton Family of Hospitals — and Jennifer Rousseau Cumberbatch — writer, musician and pastoral counselor.

The married pastors, who met at Brown University, raised Virginia and her three siblings as Christians at Bannah Community Church then Agape Christian Ministries.

“My parents got involved not only in the church but rest of city,” she says. “That’s a big part of our understanding of community.”

A well-behaved, high-performing student athlete, Cumberbatch was the only black student in her classes at Hyde Park. The student body was more diverse at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School — where she learned about the civil rights movement — but she still felt something was missing.

At an elite liberal arts school, Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., Cumberbatch discovered the part of the story that had been left out. Caught in between the scholarship kids and the ultra-wealthy students, she didn’t really belong to either world.

Committed to observing and reporting — rather than to succumbing to abstract ideology — she studied history and sociology of the Americas.

“I loved the stories,” she says. “I got really connected to the patterns that happen over time and how they relate to me now. What shocked me was how much I didn’t know about myself and how I fit in.”

At the Black Student Union, for instance, she was told by some: “You are not one of us.”

“I got called out on things I wasn’t used to being called out on,” she says. “But I came away with a sense that this is my calling: I had a heart for social advocacy.”

She interned at the National Education Association in Washington D.C. and plunged into urban life.

“College prepares you for just so much,” Cumberbatch says. “The best people to tell you how to meet needs is the people living those needs themselves. I’m not naive enough to think I have all these solutions, but let’s go get them.”

She considered teaching and applied for full-time jobs in D.C. Yet while at home, a job opened up at Hahn, Texas.

“What is it? A city?” she asked her father. Then she thought: “It doesn’t hurt to plant a seed in Austin.”

A phrase on agency principal Jeff Hahn’s website stuck out: “We help people tell their stories.”

“I can get down with that,” she thought. Two sets of group interviews later, Hahn gave Cumberbatch the job.

In fall 2010, she was invited by a colleague to attend a benefit.

“I thought: “Free dinner and an excuse to get dressed up,” she recalls. “I’m in.”

It was an invitation for the Austin Area Urban League annual gala. She knew something about this national civil rights group that started out finding jobs for blacks, and now offers health, housing and other services for people regardless of race.

Yet when a charismatic young woman spoke at the gala about bringing young leaders back into movement, Cumberbatch paid attention.

“Something about her plea spoke to me,” she says. “Her words brought to mind a thriving, visible and engaged group of Austin young (people) of color.”

Most of her high school friends, too, had left town for other careers. So where would she find new ones?

After a few casual lunches with an Urban League board member, Cumberbatch was drafted to restart the young leaders group. She kicked off her first meeting in December 2010.

“Forty people showed up and it turned into a venting session,” she says. “They said: ‘Austin doesn’t cater to us. We don’t have a place to meet each other.’ We talked about Austin’s attrition rate for people of color.”

The group wanted to be a resource for the city and for each other. Two years later, it counts 80 members. They assist first-generation college students and a deteriorating daycare center while providing discussions, seminars and mentorship programs.

Just as importantly, they’ve become a friendly face for newly arrived young people of color.

“We need to invest, take part in the fabric of the community — the whole community, not just our enclaves — and be visible!” she says. “Visibility is key.”

Austin Community Foundation Awards at the Four Seasons Hotel

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Texas Monthly editor Jake Silverstein joked from the dais: You know a gala is good when Michael Barnes skips his next scheduled social event. He got it right. The people, the food, the program, everything piled up to keep me seated during the Austin Community Foundation’s 35th Anniversary and Celebration of Giving at the Four Seasons Hotel.

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Dipti Dahal and Amit Pandey

This admirable group, which oversees funding for everything from tiny nonprofits to the Labor Day wildfire relief funds, never ceases to amaze me. The depth and breadth of knowledge about Austin on the staff is vast and precious to me. Its backers run the gamut of Austin’ generous classes.

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Priscilla and John-Michael Cortez

The lasting gift, however, of its annual gala is the reporting on awards winners. I always learn something. This year the Big 5 were Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, capital management sage Craig Hester, Saheli for Asian Families founder Mamata Misra, KUT leader Stewart Vanderwilt and the Effie and Wofford Cain Foundation, whose Texas family constituents now includes the Deniuses and McGills.

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Charmaine Denius McGill and Frank Denius

I sat in between Nancy Scanlan and JoLynn Free, which captained the event. Heaven.

Lance Armstrong's remarks at Livestrong gala

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Go here for a larger report on the Livestrong gala at the Austin Convention Center.

But here’s what a warm, steady and open Lance Armstrong said, slightly edited.

I am humbled by your support.

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It’s been a difficult two weeks. I’ve been better but I’ve also been worse.

It’s hard to imagine that about a mile from here at Z Tejas, I sat with five friends 15 years ago. We talked about my diagnosis, my disease, my prognosis. We asked: How could we help and serve people. It was October 1996.

I said: Let’s do a bike ride. Maybe we would raise $1,000. Give it to someone else. But the mission grew.

Now 90 people the smartest people I know are up here on the stage with me. Over those 15 years, because of you guys and you gals, these people have touched the lives of 2.5 million cancer survivors around the world and raised half a billion dollars.

I never thought we’d still here talking about this global epidemic. But we are.

We are grateful for your support. We don’t take it for granted. We try to be good stewards.

This mission is bigger than me. It’s bigger than any individual.

MLK said “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”

This team behind me has infinite hope.

The people in this room have infinite hope. The mission absolutely must go on. We will not be deterred. We will go forward. There’s 28 million people around the world who need us.

One last request: Let’s have a hell of a good time tonight.

More on the Livestrong Gala at the Austin Convention Center

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Photos to come soon.

The numbers and the names piled up. Seventeen hundred people — a sold out house — filtered into the Austin Convention Center for the Livestrong gala on Friday.

Even before bidding on auction items, they had raised more than $1 million for the anti-cancer charity.

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Jody and Douglas Feil

Livestrong staff forecast that before the evening ended, they’d gross $2.5 million.

The crowd split between Austin-wide donors like Suzanne Booth and Becky Beaver, wiry folks like Andrew Steinbrecher and Tyler Wain from Seattle who were in Austin for the Challenge, and others like Jody and Doug Feil from Frisco, Tex. who work for other cancer groups.

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Andrew Steinbrecher and Tyler Wayne

Among the announced celebrities, only Maria Shriver canceled, citing a conflicting engagement.

That left Robin Williams, Sean Penn, Norah Jones, Stephen Marley, along with athletes like Eric Shanteau, Quan Cosby and Bo Jackson.

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Jennifer and Darren Robinson

Among elected officials, U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, State Sen. Kirk Watson, State Reps. Eddie Rodriguez, Donna Howard, Mark Strama, Paul Workman and Elliott Naishtat as well as Mayor Lee Leffingwell are also here.

Inside the vast hall, guests were greeted by a giant media display that brightly and loudly recounted the history of Livestrong and the half a billion dollars it has raised for anti-cancer causes.

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Mona Rahman and Aaron Mushro

The question on everybody’s lips: Would founder Lance Armstrong’s troubles affect the charity?

“I really believe in the spirit of collaboration in the cancer field,” Doug Feil said. “People will rally around Livestrong.”

“Like Livestrong, we cancer survivors are committed to the cause,” Steinbrecher said. “I hope people separate Lance the cyclist from Lance the philanthropist.”

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Grayson Lee and Alyssa Vidos

“I think it will make a positive comeback,” said Darren Robinson from Steamboat Springs, Colo. “From an historical perspective, the best performers continue to perform.”

Reported earlier: Remarks from Lance Armstrong

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Courtney Robinson and Daniel Hayes

At one point, Armstrong returned to the stage, this time with Austin film star Matthew McConaughey.

“We’re just riffing because the electricity went weird,” Amrstrong says. On Bob Marley with cancer: “He believed he could play through it.”

McConaughey, philosophically: “When things happen, get relative.”

Armstrong: “That’s what I’m doing now.”

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