Season 2 Moments
By Chris Schroder
Alicia Philipp, president of The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, had her Moment 16 years ago when she spontaneously asked a question to a crowd of people and was surprised when nearly all of them stood up. That Moment taught her a lot about the value of mentorship and the special nature of her own mentor, Dan Sweat.
“I asked everybody in the audience who had been mentored by Dan to stand – not really knowing what the response would be,” she said.
Dennis Creech, who today is the executive director and co-founder of Southface Energy Institute, was in graduate school training to be a systems ecologist when he had his Moment. Throughout his education in the 1970s, his focus had been aimed at improving environmental conditions, but it wasn’t until that day at Emory University that a, well, light bulb went off that pointed him in a unexpected direction.
As he was studying smog, acid rain, and even the water crisis of Atlanta, it dawned on Dennis that there was a common denominator to many of the threats to the environment’s health and sustainability – the consumption of energy.
By Chris Schroder
Meredith Leapley’s Moment happened when the phone rang in 1999. Having moved to Atlanta from Maryland just a year earlier to run a branch of her father’s construction company, her heart sank when he called with some disappointing and life-changing news.
“My father called me and told me he was going to close our business and I was going to have to come back home to Maryland,” she said.
Still in her mid-20s, Meredith felt as though she was just establishing herself in Atlanta. In that year, she had grown so fond of her new city that she resolved to make a bet on it, deciding instead to stay and start her own construction business here.
By Chris Schroder
Zoo Atlanta President and CEO Raymond King remembers the Moment the doctor looked him in the eye and said, “You’ve got lymphoma.” Today, he looks back on it as a blessing.
“I often joke with people that if you can be guaranteed of surviving it, then I would recommend cancer to you because of what it does to your outlook on life and how it allows you to see how blessed you are,” Raymond said.
By Chris Schroder
Most people wouldn’t subject themselves to ridicule on their birthday – but then again, Jerry Farber and other professional comedians aren’t like most people. The veteran Atlanta entertainer and nightclub owner will celebrate his 75th birthday and career as a comedian with a traditional comic roast this Saturday night, March 2 at his Buckhead club.
Had it not been for Jerry’s Moment 62 years ago – when a terrible band and even more terrible comedian were losing the attention of 300 guests at his own bar mitzvah – Jerry may never have become “Atlanta’s Stud Muffin of Mirth” and “The Cowboy of Comedy.”
By Chris Schroder
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Sally Bethea began her work with environmental conservancy groups in the 1970s, but it wasn’t until hearing Robert Kennedy Jr. make a stirring speech that she had a Moment that ignited her deep enthusiasm to focus her efforts on Atlanta’s waterway.
“I was looking for something that would get me involved in giving back and doing environmental advocacy in a more place-based and specific results sort of way,” Sally said.
By Chris Schroder
In 1979, Ken Thrasher was enjoying a successful career at what is now PricewaterhouseCoopers in Atlanta when he and his wife heard a Sunday sermon that prompted him to re-evaluate his life and to start his own business. Today, Bennett Thrasher is the ninth largest accounting firm in the city and its origins can be traced back to Ken’s Moment in the pews at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Snellville.
Ken and Cathy – then his wife of three years who was succeeding in her own career as a sales representative – were not unlike other couples: Busy climbing the corporate ladder without much perspective on their long-term paths.
As the couple listened to Pastor Fred Moore describe the importance of setting priorities in life, recounting how people often get so caught up in their careers that they neglect more important things such as family, Ken began to recall a Friday night during his high school years.
By Chris Schroder
Three weeks ago, Herb Nelson sat in the bleachers as he watched his 12-year-old son playing on his all-star basketball team when he had a Moment that changed everything – his son signaled to his coach that he needed to be taken out of the game. A minute later, his son slumped to the floor and didn’t get up.
“He took a shot, kind of looked like he was tired, and asked to come out of the ball game,” Herb said. “About a minute later, he collapsed on the sideline.”
Herb and other family members rushed over to Jeremy Nelson and worry struck, as it would strike any parent. They watched as a doctor – also in the stands that night – check Jeremy’s vital signs.
I seem to remember Moments. I can’t tell you the name of the movie I saw last week, but my friends look to me to remind them of scenes from our childhood and high school years. I also remember the day I came up with the idea for this Moments column that we’ve been publishing since last January.
It was on September 7, 2011 – just a few weeks after Maria Saporta asked me to join in the fun and contribute a weekly column to this increasingly popular journey in journalism that we call SaportaReport – that the idea first struck me. I was sitting quietly at a table at On the Border restaurant in Buckhead as my Friday Morning Men’s Fellowship group. My weekly table-mates were discussing the Bible passage in which Saul was struck by lightning – and blinded – while on the road to Damascus.
By Chris Schroder
Retired CEO and Chairman of financial firm Montag & Caldwell, Solon Patterson’s Moment led him and his wife to dedicate the rest of their lives to trying to reunite two Christian religions that split nearly 1,000 years ago.
Solon and his wife, Marianna, married in 1960 – he was Greek Orthodox and she was Roman Catholic. That difference would present challenges to their new life together, although on their wedding day, they didn’t realize how many challenges there would be.
As Solon told us, the vision of the two churches coming together will probably not happen in his lifetime. But his Moment when he and Marianna met the Catholic Pope and the Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople, he knew it was something that would ultimately happen and that he had to commit his life to doing whatever he could to ensure others saw this reality as well.
By Chris Schroder
Real Estate Developer and Founder of Ackerman Security Systems, Charles Ackerman, had his Moment on a trip to a remote mountain range when he happened upon a third-world village.
While preparing to take a flight from London, Charlie came across a book on the Zanskar Range in India and became intrigued. In recorded history, only 100 people had been to the mysterious mountains. Upon asking others about the mountains, he found that it was even more elusive than he originally thought.
“We’ve asked people, ‘have you ever heard of Zanskar?’” Charlie said in our accompanying Moments video. “And they would say, ‘No, there isn’t such place.’ ”
Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Santa Claus. He’s called by many names but his mission is always the same – deliver toys to children around the world.
We had the chance to catch up with the rosy-cheeked and eye-twinkling legacy while he was visiting Rhodes Hall, taking notes of children’s Christmas wish lists. As he told us in the accompanying Moments video, his Moment happened following one foggy Christmas Eve when some children nearly received their presents late.
By Chris Schroder
Mark McDonald and his childhood friends were bicycling to their favorite fishing pond nestled in a grove of trees outside their historically rich hometown of Montgomery, Alabama, when they made a startling discovery.
The future CEO of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation and his friends suddenly faced a harsh reality that had struck many historical southern towns before and since – development. The boys stood in silence as they watched as a large construction tractor bulldoze their beloved trees that had always shaded their favorite getaway.
“After I got out of law school, I realized that there were things that could be done about this,” he said in our accompanying Moments video. “The historic preservation movement was taking hold.”
By Chris Schroder
While President and CEO of Southern Bell, Frank Skinner began to take a leadership role in conducting the United Way Campaign for Metropolitan Atlanta. During the introduction to this new role in 1988, he began visiting and touring various facilities served through United Way to see the programs’ implementations firsthand.
Frank had been a community member dedicated to service for years, but it wasn’t until a visit to the Center for Visually Impaired that he made a profound connection in not only his aptitude – but also his responsibility – to serve.
By Chris Schroder
Tom Murphy had been in the restaurant business for years serving nutritious and high quality meals at Murphy’s, his iconic Virginia-Highland restaurant, but it wasn’t until his mother passed away from ovarian cancer that he realized there was a segment of the market that wasn’t being served well.
He decided to fill that void and, in the process, created a sustainable funding mechanism that has earned millions of dollars for the Atlanta nonprofit Open Hand.
By Chris Schroder
Matt Arnett had toured art museums across the globe, but nothing made a larger impact on his art career than the Moment he discovered a handcrafted quilt tucked away in a closet of an older woman’s modest home in Gee’s Bend, Alabama.
Matt had been researching and documenting African American art and culture in the South – tagging along for years with his father William, an art collector.
By Chris Schroder
If you watched as Kasim Reed was sworn in as the 59th Mayor of Atlanta in 2010, you saw his parents proudly standing beside him.
Their influence on Kasim’s life has been constant with only one major bump in the road – his decision to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C. Kasim was faced with one of the major pivotal decisions a young student must face – where to attend college. The decision is difficult for many, but for Kasim, the larger hurdle was informing his father, June, short for Junius.
“When I grew up, my dad – for many years, certainly since I was a boy – wanted me to go to the University of Georgia in Athens – the state’s flagship institution,” Kasim said.
By Chris Schroder
It was a Sunday morning, October 21, 1973. Alana Shepherd remembers this specific Sunday morning – not because it happened to be her mother’s birthday – but because it was the morning she received the “call from hell.”
“That’s the way every family describes it,” Alana told us. “And it’s true.” The call was to inform Alana and her husband, Harold, that their 22-year-old son James had been in a life-threatening accident.
By Chris Schroder
When Charles Driebe’s mom invited him to a mysterious meeting at her house in 1990, the 33-year-old Atlanta attorney had no idea that one Moment would alter his life – and the lives of many other people who struggle daily with addiction – for the better.
Addiction to alcohol or other mood-altering substances afflicts more than 23 million Americans. For the friends or family members I know who wrestle with these issues, I often give one simple piece of advice: “Call my friend Charles. He’ll point you in the right direction.”
By Chris Schroder
If Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron had not taken a Moment in 1952 to walk off the baseball field and take a long-distance call from his brother, Major League Baseball would have missed the humble and charming reign of its home run king.
“I wasn’t just homesick,” Hank said. “I was homesick,” he told us when we filmed his Moment two weeks ago at the Turner Field’s 755 Club. “I wanted to see my mother and go home to my brothers and sisters – I had never been away from home that long,” he said. “I was about to cash the few pennies I had in to go home because I just didn’t feel like I was wanted.”
