Bonnie Bing's Blog

I'm thinking about renaming my blog in honor of Bonnie Bing since the past few posts have been all about her. Today, I attended the Sisterhood of the Divine Makeover luncheon hosted by Bonnie , The Wichita Eagle and Dress for Success.

Bonnie organizes this event each year to raise money for Dress for Success, which helps lower-income women get jobs by giving them professional clothes, counseling and emotional support. Bonnie puts out a call for women who would like a complete makeover, and then selects three winners. The luncheon reveals how the women look after their makeovers.

This is one of the makeover winners.

This is another.


More than 500 women attended the luncheon.

There was a looonnngggg line for the free bellinis with alcohol in them.


There was a short line for the non-alcoholic version.


During the event, the name of one woman is drawn at random for an on-the-spot makeover. This 19-year-old woman won the drawing. She had straight dark hair down to her back.



Here she is after the makeover. The hair stylist said she cut 15 inches from her hair.

Among those sitting at the Eagle's table were, from left, advertising exec Lisa Fetter, publisher Pam Siddall and Pam's daughter, Anika.


Lori Buselt, right, her mother in law, and me.

Camelot!

My friend Bonnie Bing invited me to sit with her at Music Theatre of Wichita's performance of "Camelot" on Thursday.

I have loved this musical for 25 years, and MTW did a fantastic performance. It starred Laura Griffiths as Guenevere, Edward Watts as Lancelot and Damon Kirsche as King Arthur.

But the real treat came after the show, when Bonnie took me backstage to meet the cast. This was my first backstage visit at MTW. Bonnie is friends with Ed Watts, and he was thrilled to see her and give her a big hug. And yes, he's unbelievably gorgeous.

This is Laura Griffiths, who was running around backstage in this skimpy shift and looking absolutely beautiful.

At left is Damon Kirsche, who was so sweet and chatted with me for awhile about the production.

Justin Robertson, left, played the role of King Pelinore. He's here with Wayne Bryan, who is MTW's producing director and also directed this show.

A parting show of Bonnie and her Lancelot.

Book club antics

Our June book club was one part discussing this month's book, Christopher Moore's wacky "Lust Lizards of Melancholy Cove," and one part laughing, eating, drinking and catching up with friends.

Our book club president Denise Neil with her trusty pen (and Katie Grover), compiling our list of nominations for next month's book.

Good friends don't mind close quarters: Shannon Littlejohn, our hostess Jaime Oppenheimer, prodigal-member-back-for-a visit Brenda Tretbar and Amy Devault.

Chris Seifers and the always serious Coryanne Graham.

Stacy and Kathryn Welch in a post-discusssion discussion.

Tess, Katie and Caryn, who is Tess's daughter and who nominated this month's book selection.

Bonnie Bing and Jaime gettin' jizzy.


Cory and Amy hug it out.

Lori Buselt, far left, strikes a pose in honor of the original poser, Denise. Also pictured are Peggy Smith, Stacy and Kathryn. Oh, yes, we liked the book but we liked the book club meeting even more.

Celebrity chef auction

Dale and I attended our first Celebrity Chef auction to benefit the Orpheum Theatre on Tuesday night.

My beautiful friend Bonnie Bing invited us to sit at the table that she and her husband, Dick Honeyman (you can see him in the tuxedo at the back in this photo) had purchased for the night. Dick is the Orpheum's board president. Bonnie's friend, Nancy Schwan, is with her, left.


Many restaurants from around the city set up serving stations throughout the Marriott and the food was superb. We ate too much and also helped ourselves to plenty of wine from the beverage stations. The tables included centerpieces like this composed of fresh produce and veggies, as per the event's theme.


Bonnie also invited her good friend Vicky Reiff, here with Dale.

Jeremy Wade was among the chefs participating in the fund-raiser.

This is the chef of one of Wichita's best restaurants, Chester's.



Chef Jason is always ready to mug for the camera. He cooks at Nouvelle Cafe, and he and his "celebrity chef", Eric Sexton, won the event competition.



More chefs at work.


I'm sorry I don't know this chef's name.


We coincidentally met our new friend Mark at the event. We attended Symphony in the Flint Hills with he and his girlfriend, Karyn, last weekend.



Karyn and I posing for the camera.


Dick Honeyman and Dale. Dick was the emcee for the event and, as always, did a great job and looked mighty good doing it.

Symphony in the Flint Hills

Just a few snaps from our second trip to Symphony in the Flint Hills on Saturday.

This year, the event was on the Doyle Creek Land and Cattle Company located between Florence and Strong City, south of Cedar Point, the closest it's been to Wichita in the four years it's been going on. Here is the concert shell where the Kansas City Symphony played.

The weather couldn't have been more perfect, warm but not hot, sunny, a little breeze. We arrived about 4 p.m. to relax, eat and drink before the music started about 6:30.


The event sells out every year, with about 5,000 people attending.


Tents like this are set up all over the event, with various activities going on most of the day. There's an art tent, a poetry-reading area, and one tent under which cowboys talk about their work on the ranch. They also sell food and beverages. This was the first year they didn't allow ticketholders to bring in their own wine, which was kind of disappointing.


We invited two couples who we wanted to get to know a little better, Jill and Tom Docking....


And Karyn Page and her boyfriend, Mark.

Jill and Dale have known each other professionally for many years.

Karen is president of the World Trade Office in Wichita, and works pretty closely with Dale.

I wish I had spent more time and energy getting some good photos, but I don't think I can do justice to the beauty of the landscape. And I was having too much fun to bother much with photos.