Ambitious women in business are often advised to learn to play golf, for greater success in law, banking and such careers. Julia Forbes used her lifelong passion for the sport to move up in the museum world, by curating the new exhibit at Atlanta’s High Museum, “The Art of Golf.”
Category: Archived Columnists
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Chris White’s IBM Moment started his lifetime mission to lead men to God
If a boss in Philadelphia hadn’t called Chris White into his office one moment 35 years ago, hundreds and perhaps thousands of men in Atlanta would be a lot more spiritually adrift today. Count me as one of them.
Within a few years, a hundred men were walking into an Atlanta restaurant at 7am each Friday to hear Chris lead them through a a few passages of the Bible. Chris can look back on a brilliant case study of word of-mouth marketing, counseling men to be leaders in the office and servants to their wives and children at home.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
Off the rollercoaster, Ben Dempsey loses 165 pounds
Ben Dempsey says of his lifelong battle against overeating,
“I had done all kinds of strange diets, like eating tofu straight for six weeks, but when I lost 30 pounds, I would gain 40. At the rate I was going, I would have weighed 420 pounds today.”
From his work in physical therapy, he knew change was possible if he could just slip that elusive mental switch.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Josh Starks’ Moment helped him find ‘you have to be present to be blessed’
The economic downturn has been tough on millions of Americans and 24-year-old Atlantan Josh Starks was just one of the recession’s many casualties. By the afternoon of October 13, 2010, Josh said he had “pretty much lost everything that I worked hard for in life. You name it I lost it, or had to get rid of it to pay a bill or because I couldn’t find any work.”
When he woke up that Wednesday morning, Josh didn’t plan on that being his last day on the planet and he certainly didn’t plan to be on that night’s TV news, attracting headlines around the world.
To view Josh Starks’ Moments HD video, click here.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Ryan Gravel’s Moment wasn’t conceiving the BeltLine, it was when others embraced it
I thought BeltLine visionary Ryan Gravel would say his Moment was when he looked at a map of the city of Atlanta, saw the 1800s-era railroad tracks outlined and had an “ah-ha” moment. He says he’s often asked if the idea came to him all at once, but it actually marinated slowly, sparked during his senior year in college when he rode trains all over Paris and later when he returned to the traffic-clogged streets of metro Atlanta.
“My moment was in 2003, when I realized we might actually build the BeltLine,” he said.
Please view our HD Moments video with Ryan Gravel.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
Mitchell Anderson’s method of success: From actor to chef to actor
Last fall, Mitchell Anderson decided to revive his acting career in “Next Fall,” now playing at Actor’s Express on Atlanta’s west side.
After a successful TV and movie resume – you may have seen him in the series “Party of Five” or as Richard Carpenter in “The Karen Carpenter Story,” or as the kid who got eaten by a shark in “Jaws” — Anderson had left Hollywood to settle into a new life in Atlanta.
An apprenticeship in the kitchen of Jenny “Souper Jenny” Levison led to him opening his own restaurant, Metrofresh in Midtown, and a spin-off bistro at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
At 50, his culinary stage kept him plenty busy – but what pulled him back to acting was what he loved about cooking, too: friendships and a unique, exquisite creation.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
When Sam Massell got fired, it set him on a path that helped shape Atlanta
SaportaReport is re-running Season One of Moments for your enjoyment. This column originally published in January 2012.
When a young Sam Massell went in to see his boss, the future mayor of Atlanta thought he was in line for a big raise. Instead he got fired for all the right reasons and it was one of the best things that ever happened to him – and our city.
As Sam recalls, “I went in shock. At 24, those were heavy words.” He tried talking his boss into keeping him, reciting all his excellent work, but it was all for naught. Instead his boss urged him to go into real estate, “the real market in this city.” Please watch our 2-minute video of Sam’s Moment.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
A cold January Monday, a family journey to Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in D.C.
Describing a recent, resonant visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington D.C.:
“Against a brilliant sky rose King, almost three stories high, partially emerged from the stone, his arms crossed and eyes to the horizon. The chill seemed to bring him even more in relief, the sculptor’s lines more edgy, bare as the young trees nearby.”
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Shirley Franklin’s most amazing Moment just might be her next one
SaportaReport is re-running Season One of Moments for your enjoyment. This column originally published in January 2012.
When we sat down with former Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin in the conference room of her new office at Purpose Built Communities where she is now the CEO, she was clear she wanted her Moment to be “strategic.” It wasn’t until we were packed up and leaving a little later that we truly understood her meaning – giving us a sense that she’s been strategic since she was a young child in a Philadelphia dance class.
Video Shirley Franklin’s HD Moments Video.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Clark Howard’s teenage Moment changed his life and saved millions
Consumer advocate Clark Howard came home for Thanksgiving from his sophomore year in college and faced a very grim household. From the sad faces he found around his family’s dinner table, he knew something bad had just happened.
When the dishes were cleared from Clark’s holiday table, his father asked him to stay afterwards to talk with him alone. Clark’s first guess when he saw his relatives’ faces and his father’s “awful” face, was that his father was going to announce that he was dying, he told us in our Moments HD Video.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
Atlanta Muppeteer Peter Linz fulfills quest for identity with Walter’s fame
Atlanta native Peter Linz talks about finding his identity by becoming a Muppeteer:
“The character of Walter hits really close to home for me. I’ve always been an enormous Muppet fan who dreamed of one day working with the Muppets, and that’s basically who Walter is. How flipping crazy is that? It’s mind-blowing. I could have been cast as a monster or a chicken or someone’s right hand, but instead, I got cast to play the guy who is the world’s biggest Muppet fan who literally dreams of working with the Muppets. Apart from my wedding day and birth of my children, being cast as Walter, was one of the greatest moments of my life. I was beyond happiness.”
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Here’s to a Happy New Year, no matter how you ring it in
My brother Jack and Karen started a New Year’s Eve tradition a few years ago amongst their retired friends at Big Canoe in the north Georgia mountains that is unusual.
It’s perhaps the only New Year’s Eve party in America for which people call up the hosts all afternoon and ask, “What time does the ball drop?”
You see, Jack starts playing a videotape of the previous year’s Times Square ceremonies about 9:30pm so everyone can go home early and be in bed before anyone notices the “new” year looks a lot like the previous one.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
Atlanta Falcons, young dancers score points on sheer resolve
The work ethic and energy of the dancers from Moving in the Spirit is remarkable.
Every day they are moving against the tide of childhood obesity, too common in poorer neighborhoods. Their personal work ethic contrasts to the cheating educators in the Atlanta Public Schools, where many of these dancers learn.
Their Holiday Store helps teach them financial literacy and credit lessons that too few of us grasp.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
Atlanta Braves organist plays Broadway tunes in off-season
While Atlanta Braves and their fans break for the winter, the team’s quirkiest personality — Matthew Kaminski, the twittering organist of Turner Field — stars in another arena.
Kaminski moves from brushback pitches to Broadway when he plays a tribute to Cole Porter on Dec. 28 at Eddie’s Attic.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Sharing Clark Howard’s “Moment” recalled one of my own 20 years ago
A few weeks ago, I saw Clark Howard working out at the YMCA. He and I seemed to be on the same every-other-day schedule at the time. I try not to stop and talk to celebrities or well-known people. I have no interest in autographs and I try to respect their privacy. But Clark was a year ahead of me in high school and I had interviewed him once before for our school magazine in the early 1990s.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
Larry Munson’s last call a rally cry for a younger fallen hero
Munson’s final bequest was the latest resurrection of the memory of Noah Harris, who epitomized the passion for the red and black, and a commitment to do what he could to make a difference.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
You are invited to watch our 1-Minute Video: “Moments” on SaportaReport
Please watch our one-minute video preview of “Moments,” our new weekly glimpse into the men and women whose own personal moments have changed metro Atlanta: http://goo.gl/uc5h0
Two former mayors, Sam Massell and Shirley Franklin, former Georgia Tech graduate student Ryan Gravel who envisioned the Beltline, radio personality Clark Howard – and many others who aren’t so famous – will share their insights into a time when everything changed in their lives. The videos will last only a minute, but we’ll place them into context with an adjoining column.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Thought Leadership Will Connect Readers into a Lively Coffee Group
When I was an editor of my weekly paper in college, I was invited by Staige Blackford, the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, to join a lively morning coffee group. You never knew what the gathered professors or writers were going to discuss each morning, but you knew the conversation was going to be interesting.
When SaportaReport launches our Thought Leadership pages in January, readers of this website will be able to join a lively discussion on a wide variety of subjects over the course of 2012.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
Witnessing AIDS in Atlanta: Stories like this needed for living memorial
Atlantans are known for volunteering, but be careful when you help others.
You may instead end up helping change your own heart and mind. That’s what happened to a pair of volunteers who pitched in for the AIDS epidemic in the early 1990s.
The epidemic provoked an epidemic of fear, prejudice and isolation, and profound change in volunteers as well.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
SaportaReport to add “Moments” starting in January
For nearly three years, SaportaReport has brought you closer to the issues and the diverse personalities that comprise our metro area. Beginning in January, we’ll bring you a little closer with “Moments,” a new column featuring an interview with and a one-minute video of famous and not-so-famous metro Atlantans.
We’ll ask each to share a moment in their lives when, suddenly, everything changed. As we catalog these moments, we hope they’ll add even more value to the mosaic of metro Atlanta stories our team of journalists is weaving on this website called SaportaReport.
