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editor’s note

Jenni Laidman

Editing the calendar for this issue of Lee Magazine, I was once again amazed at the choices we have in Lee County. We have Elvis impersonators (June 22, 7 p.m., at Opelika Municipal Park), a Neil Diamond tribute artist (June 1, 7 p.m., Opelika Muni Park), Soviet propaganda posters (June 5 through August 14,

June Collin Smith Museum) and Welcome Home celebrations (all day July 17, Opelika). There are art shows, farmers markets, and learned lectures. Then there are all the unscheduled pleasures of summer like early morn-ings in the garden, walking the dog after sunset, grilling in the backyard, and writing poems about plutonium.

OK, just kidding about plutonium. The heat’s getting to me.But I confess, one event in the calendar this issue stood out above all others for its zaniness, for its do-not-miss

silliness, and for its winning inventiveness and that’s the Second Annual Doxie Palooza at Kiesel Park June 19 at 11 a.m.

Andrea Jackson, an accountant for the city of Auburn, created Doxie Palooza last year after visiting the Doxie Races in Montgomery when her two-year-old dachshund, Piper, was just a pup.

“It was just so much fun I said, that sounds like something we can do here.”If we play our cards right, Alabama could become the Dachshund Capital of America. Think about it.

So last year Jackson arranged to use Kiesel Park, hung some posters around town, and held her breath. The morning of her first Doxie Palooza, “I thought, we’re going to get out there and there will be three dachs-hunds.” But when she, husband David McAllister and son Jonathan Shoff showed up an hour early to set things up, a man and his dachshund were already there waiting. It was a sign.

Before the dog show began, fifty dachshunds scampered around Kiesel Park.

Dachshund owners can find the registration form for the free event on-line at doxiepalooza.net and they can also fill out the registration on the day of the event. Dogs can come in costume or appear “bare naked.” Jackson is no snob. Dachshund mixes are also welcome to Doxie Palooza and are full participants. The show is followed by the dachshund dash, a series of heats to establish the champion wiener dog.

I grew up with dachshunds. I can’t imagine one of ours running in a straight line or caring about winning. “They don’t,” Jackson says. “It’s hilarious. It’s a totally hoot. There might actually be one or two that do but

mostly they’re walking around, playing with each other.” It usually takes two people to manage a racing dachs-hund, one at the starting gate, and one at trying to entice the animal to the finish line. It’s a big responsibility.

Last year, just as the Doxie Palooza dog show finished, a storm moved in, canceling the race. So this year, Doxie Palooza has a rain date. In the event of downpour, Doxie Palooza takes place June 26.

“I hope it will be a little bigger every year,” Jackson says, “and I hope we have volunteers to help us as we grow bigger.”

I can’t think of anything better than watching dachshunds race on a Saturday in summer. This event sounds like a wiener, er, winner. If you’d like to lend a hand, or have questions about the event, you can call Andrea Jackson at 524-3694.

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Published by Pickwick Papers Publishing, LLC. Copyright ©2008 Lee Magazine. All rights reserved. Reproduction and re-distribution prohibited without approval. For more information, contact editor@lee-magazine.com.

Publisher: Beth Snipes

Editor: Jenni Laidman

Sales manager: Meg Callahan

Sales reps: Betsy McLure Blake

Copy Editor: Joey Harrison

Web Designer: Brock Burgess

Distribution: John Snipes

Contributors

Food: Heida Olin

Fashion: Taylor Dungjen

Fitness: Lisa Gallagher

Garden: Connie Cottingham

Momitude: Kelly Frick

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contentsJUNE/JULY 2010

12

6

22

6 Food� ������������� Light your fire Sizzling summer meals

10 Garden����������� Adding your personal pizzazz� 12 Fashion Canny camouflage

14 Momitude Don’t Make Me Stop This Car!

16 Smarts Falling in love with words

18 Brawn Cellulite Fight

20 Brain Positively transformative

22 Cover Story Mean Girls Rule!

The SURPRISING Burn City Rollers

24 Calendar Lots of Doings in Lee County

18 10

12

10

PHOTO BY BETH SNIPES

ON THE COVER From left, Babe E. Quakes, aka, Amber LeCroy,

and Cho Cold, also known as Carrie Hozmeister, put on their game faces.

6 LEE MAGAZINE

By Heida Olin

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It’s Hot! Who wants to put a pot of spaghetti on to simmer or heat the oven to bake a casserole when the tempera-ture hovers around ninety degrees? So I make a pitcher of sweet tea, do a little gathering and chopping, and head to the deck to sip tea and enjoy the delicious aromas from my grill.

I can do everything but maybe make a salad on my grill. Well, OK, rice would be tough, but it just about cooks itself, so if dinner calls for rice I’ll put on a pot before heading outside.

I own a gas grill. As far as I’m concerned charcoal is for camp-ing and maybe tailgating. Gas grills usually come with a thermom-eter and have temperature controls, so there’s not much guessing about when the heat is medium and when it’s way too hot.

The grilling season prompts me to stock up on heavy-duty alu-minum foil and my favorite meat rubs. There are many commer-cial marinades on the market but I tend to keep it simple prefer-ring buttermilk, citrus, and oil-based marinades. Worcestershire,

soy sauce, and teriyaki are mainstays for many grilled things, so I keep those on hand as well.

The farmer’s markets are in full swing and fresh produce like zucchini, corn, peppers, peaches, and other stone fruits are all great for the grill. Be adventurous. Have you ever grilled bananas, tossed them with a shot of spiced rum, and served it over grilled pound cake? Just grilling fresh fruit like mango, peaches or pine-apple adds a caramelized finish without making them mushy. Just add a scoop of ice cream and you’re in dessert heaven.

ALABAMA BURGERSOriginally I called these Cajun burgers because I included andou-

ille, a spicy sausage indigenous to Louisiana Cajun country. Oma’s frikadellen inspired this burger. She made the dish from ground sausage and ground beef. I use ground beef and Conecuh sausage from right here in Alabama, thus, Alabama Burgers.

Summer sizzleIF YOU CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT, FIRE UP THE GRILL

LEE MAGAZINE 7

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on the grill, stirring occasionally until the color suits you.

PRESSED HENS I was skeptical when I first tried this recipe.

I’d read that the Tuscans liked to put bricks on their chickens, so I wanted to see how that would affect the chicken. I was pleasantly surprised! Cornish game hens shine with this cooking method and a regular fryer does great as well. It just takes longer to cook. I haven’t tried it but I think it would be a good way to cook quail or dove.

2 Cornish game hens

Your favorite poultry seasoning or con-

coct a blend with fresh herbs, lemon

zest, and olive oil.

2 bricks that have been washed and

wrapped in foil, preheated on the grill

Remove the giblet bag from the bird cavity and freeze the giblets to make stock another time. Remove the spine by plac-ing the hen breast down on a cutting board with the tail pointing at you. Using poultry sheers, cut along the spine on both sides up to the neck. You’ll cut through all the small bones along the spine. (Add this to the giblets for that future stock.) Turn the hen over, breast side up, and press on the breastbone to break it and flatten the breast pieces. Sprinkle liberally with poul-try seasoning on both sides of the hen and spray with cooking spray. Place bird on a platter and refrigerate until ready to grill.

Heat grill to medium heat. Make sure your bricks are hot as well. Place the hens, skin side down on the grill, and top each with a brick. Cover and grill for 15 min-utes. Remove the bricks, turn the hen Summer sizzle

COOKING WITH CHARCOAL

If you use a charcoal grill, you can test the temperature with your palm. Be careful now! With the grill top removed, hold your palm above the coals at the same height as the grill. Count the seconds that elapse be-fore you must pull your hand away.

2 seconds, high temperature

3 seconds, medium high

4 seconds, medium

5 seconds, low

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1 pound ground round

½ pound Conecuh spicy smoked sau-

sage (half a package)

Slices of pepper jack cheese (optional)

Grilled onions (optional)

Petite French rolls

Remove sausage casing, cut sausage into 2-inch sections, and grind in food proces-sor until the consistency of the ground round. With clean hands, lightly mix the sausage and ground round until combined. Use a light hand so the juices can flow through the meat as it cooks; don’t squish it together. Divide and make 4 to 5 pat-ties. Cook over a medium grill 6 minutes on each side (or to your desired doneness). Top with a slice of pepper jack cheese and serve with grilled onions.

GRILLED ONIONSYou can also grill peppers, potatoes, carrots,

sweet potatoes, and even beets.

1 large Vidalia onion, peeled and sliced

Drizzle of olive, canola, peanut, or sea-

soned oil

Toss the onion with a drizzle of oil. Sea-son with salt, pepper, and seasoning, if de-sired.

Tear off a 2-foot to 3-foot size piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil (I like the wide kind). You’re going to make a packet for the onions. Spray one side of foil with cooking spray — no need to spray to the edges. Put the sliced onions in the center of the sprayed foil, bring the torn edges to-gether, and fold down two or three times. Roll the open ends toward the center just enough to seal and form a rough rectangle. There needs to be room inside the packet for air to circulate. Shake the packet a few times during cooking to redistribute the vegetables for even cooking.

Put packets on the grill for 20 to 30 minutes. Open carefully because of steam build up. The vegetables will be done, but to brown a bit more, leave the open packet

over. Finish cooking without the brick, 10 to 15 minutes more. Remove from grill and let the hen rest 10 minutes before serving. Cut the hen in half to serve.

GRILLED FRUIT SALADThis is light and delicious and goes well with any meat. It would even

be a good side dish for brunch. You could keep this as simple as peaches, plums, and bananas. Stone fruits and tropical fruits work great here. Keep the fruit pieces large to grill. Later, cut to a more manageable size to toss with dressing.

1 mango, peeled, pitted, and sliced (not too ripe)

2 peaches, pitted, cut into 8 sections

4 spears pineapple

1 banana cut on sharp diagonal into 6-8 pieces (depending on

size of banana)

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons extra light olive oil

1 teaspoon poppy seeds

Place a large piece of heavy-duty foil on the grill and spray with cooking spray. Heat the grill to medium. Place the fruit evenly on the foil and watch it carefully. You don’t want it to get mushy. The bananas will be done first; just sear them. Put all the grilled fruit into a bowl and cut fruit to about 1½-inch pieces. In a sepa-rate container whisk together the vinegar, honey, olive oil, and poppy seeds. Beat until emulsified. Pour over fruit and serve.

PORK CHOPS DIVINEThis is a Sunday dish in my house because of the long prep time. I

put the chops in brine early, before church, which gives them just the right amount of soaking by dinner. This is wonderful served with a pasta salad and grilled pineapple rings.

4 center-cut pork chops — a thick cut is nice and the bone is

optional

For the brine (good for as many as 8 chops)¼ cup Kosher salt

¼ cup granulated sugar

5 cups waterWhisk the ingredients together until the salt and sugar dis-

solve.

Marinade:

2 garlic cloves, minced fine or pressed

1 tablespoon fresh thyme — strip leaves from stems and chop

to release flavor, or 1 teaspoon dry thyme

1 tablespoon fresh rosemary — chop fairly fine, or 1 teaspoon

dry rosemary

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

Whisk ingredients together.

Place the pork chops in a large bowl and cover with brine, mak-ing sure they are submerged. Refrigerate overnight or at least 6 hours. Drain the brine, rinse the chops, and then soak in clean cold water for 10 minutes. Pat dry.

Brush both sides of pork chops with marinade and place in a shallow dish. Pour any leftover marinade atop the chops. Mari-nate for 1 hour.

Heat the grill to a low heat (about 325 degrees). Grill chops turn-ing after 6 to 8 minutes, depending on the thickness of your chop. The meat should register 145 degrees in the center when cooked. Remove from grill and let sit about 5 minutes before serving.

Heida Olin is a local caterer and educator. You can reach her at heida@lee-magazine.com.. Please visit her blog at www.lee-magazine.com

COOKING WITH CHARCOAL

If you use a charcoal grill, you can test the tem-perature with your palm. Be careful now! With the grill top removed, hold your palm above the coals at the same height as the grill. Count the seconds that elapse before you must pull your hand away.

2 seconds, high temperature

3 seconds, medium high

4 seconds, medium

5 seconds, low

8 LEE MAGAZINE

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10 LEE MAGAZINE

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I once heard a garden designer proclaim that any garden should have only one or two pieces of

fine garden sculpture to command the gar-den and add class.

I cringed. I have garden ornaments aplenty, many of which have sentimental value. Then I got a bit huffy — how dare she think my garden would be better with

one marble statue than with the spinning ornament given to me after speaking to a garden club, or the bouncing heart stake I bought while on a nursery excursion with Brenda, or the license plates from all three states where we have lived nailed onto the raised herb bed, or the Ertl car I played with as a kid.

Since then I have heard other designers

speak warmly about adding garden orna-ments. And on garden tours, the most en-chanting include ornaments that bring the owners’ personality and sense of humor into the garden.

If your personality responds to classical order and discipline and that marble statue

speaks to you, then by all means it should be in your garden. If another style is you, then express that. A gardener’s world is a very personal place, yet one that is freely shared. Plants and the ornaments are usu-ally added a few at a time and often come with memories. Iris from your grandmoth-er’s garden, a native tree bought during a conference, a birdfeeder given by a friend all help create your garden and your story. Celebrate them — tastefully.

How many times have we put an orna-ment in the ground, and then just left it there for years? Take a stroll around the garden and look at your furniture, garden ornaments, birdbaths, and feeders. Then consider some maintenance and rearrang-ing. Are they still in good shape? Is one now hiding behind a shrub? I found both an ornament and a kneeling pad under over-grown rosemary this spring. Is the furniture safe, attractive, the right color? If you have a tendency to collect dog statues, would an eclectic pack be an amusing display? Could the bird feeders be clustered outside your window to create a feeding station? Would

TREASURES IN THE GARDENAdding sparkle with those personal touches

A gardener’s world is a very personal place, yet one that is freely shared.

By Connie Cottingham

When details matter

a coat of bright paint or a new planter en-liven a seating area? Is there something in your house or shed that could be displayed outside?

Mother Nature makes sure that your garden is fresh and new in spring with lots of blooms and green leaves. But once July and August hit, the garden can look a bit worn, and it’s up to us to revive it a bit. One way to do this is by reevaluating all the stuff in our gardens. We have declut-tered, redesigned, painted, and added fresh flowers inside our homes — don’t our out-door living spaces deserve attention too?

One way to start looking at your garden is through a camera lens. Take some pho-tos, then go inside, pour a glass of tea, and look at the photos as if they were maga-zine shots. What is working in this garden? What great plants and ornaments deserve more attention? What would you change in this garden? OK — let’s do it!

Connie Cottingham is licensed in three Southern states as a landscape architect. You can reach her at connie@lee-magazine.com.

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12 LEE MAGAZINE

By Taylor Dungjen

F A S H I O N

The advice and suggestions Lisa Gallagher gives Lee readers ev-ery issue are great and usually

pretty simple. But what if there was a way to help camouflage while you’re on your way to tightening and toning?

Clothing isn’t just “cover up.” The right clothes draw attention to your best fea-tures and hide anything you’re uncomfort-able with. From head to toe, you can dress yourself ten pounds thinner.

The first, most obvious, and most bro-ken rule: Make sure your clothes are the right size. Women trick themselves into believing that bigger, baggier clothing will hide everything and will make them look smaller. In reality, the opposite is true. Big clothes make you look bigger and more unkempt.

TOP HEAVYIt’s best to start from the inside out. The

most basic and necessary layer? Under-wear. Start with a bra that fits and has un-derwire to lift the girls up and out — you’ll be amazed how much of a difference it makes. There are experts in this. Go have a proper fitting.

Find a shirt that is fitted just under your breasts. It will accent the narrowest part of your body, making your upper half look thinner. Make sure the shirt then skims your belly, and is not fitted.

To make your arms look slimmer, opt for a loose sleeve. Also avoid sleeves that end at the widest part of your arm, especially if the color contrasts your skin color.

BOTTOM BALLASTAgain, start from the inside out. They

might not be the sexiest of undies, but a pair with heavy elastic that comes up to the ribcage can smooth out and hold in.

To minimize your hips, opt for boot cut

SUBTRACTION BY DESIGNFINESSE�THE�THINNESS

Photos by Beth Snipes

Opelika native Taylor Yates, who works at Ellie’s in Auburn, shows how to pick clothes that flatter.

FACE VALUE

Stewart Dermatology 25 Medical Arts Center, Opelika • 334-749-5604

Taylor Dungjen is a freelance writer who often covers fashion. Write to her at taylor@lee-magazine.com.

denim in a dark wash. In the denim, avoid whiskering — shredded fibers — on the thighs. It only highlights the largest parts of your lower half. Take it one step further and wear a pair of pumps with your denim to help elongate your legs.

Pencil skirts are always in and, lucky for us, always helpful. A shapely pencil skirt that shows curves and still narrows your lower half will do all sorts of good things for your body (and booty).

FOOT PATROLDepending on the style of shoes, there

are about 1 billion different rules. Wear boots that are tall enough to go

over your calves.Backless shoes make ankles look thinner

and, thus, your legs more shapely.Wear taller pumps (so long as you can

still walk). Kitten heels – the very short, thin heel that curves in from the back of the ankle — make legs look stumpy.

Shoes with a little bit of toe cleavage are ideal, too. The more skin you show, the

longer your legs will look. Shoes with a T-strap or in the Mary Jane

style were probably really cute when you were seven. Now, they aren’t doing any-one any favors. Avoid both if possible.

If you’re not wearing tights or panty-hose, wear nude heels. Your legs will look like they go on for days.

THE LITTLE EXTRASI never really

thought accessories could make that much of a differ-ence until I started to experiment.

Earrings: If you have a wide neck, avoid studs and go for a chandelier or dangle style.

Bracelets: Find balance by rocking deli-cate bracelets. Chunky jewelry is fun, but wearing it all the time can make your body look heavier.

Rings: The size of your fingers and hands will determine how big your rings should be. A good rule: the ring should not take up

more than half the space from your palm to your first knuckle. Big rings on small hands will only make hands look smaller.

THE BIG PICTURE Wear red. Red highlights

and reflects light so you look more curvaceous and boda-

cious.Find a sassy wrap dress.

Fabric choices mean everything. Look for matte silks, which can

drape beautifully. Also ideal are crepe fabric, its soft ribbing adds a flattering touch. Denim and linen garments are good when they’re structured.

It doesn’t sound that hard now, does it? Get on with Lisa’s workouts, try on some slimming clothing, and you’ll be looking better than ever. Don’t worry, you can thank us later. -lm

Dear Rhonda,I had clear skin as a teenager, but now my skin looks horrible! At first my nose and cheeks

flushed uncomfortably after exercise class, but now any time it’s hot my skin burns for up to an hour. My skin isn’t just blotchy; it’s red, with small veins and what look like white heads. It’s embarrassing! The face wash and moisturizer I’ve used for years make my skin burn, too. What is this? What can I do about it? Please help! Embarrassed in Auburn

Dear Embarrassed,Don’t be! This is very likely rosacea, a disorder of the facial blood vessels. Blood vessels are hypersensitive to both external and

internal stimuli with rosacea. As you’ve discovered, heat, humidity, and exercise can trigger an outbreak. Other common triggers include spicy foods, alcohol, hot beverages, and some skin-care products. We can help. Treatments for rosacea vary from person to person just as the triggers vary. It is important that you establish a gentle cleans-

ing regime and avoid chemicals that aggravate your skin. Make sure your mineral foundation doesn’t contain dimethicone, which can cause breakouts in sensitive skin. The sun is a strong trigger, so use a non-irritating physical sunscreen such as zinc oxide or titatinium oxide, daily. Chemical sunscreens can cause irritation, but physical sunscreens rely on the reflective properties of the main ingredients.Every rosacea patient is unique and needs individual treatment. At Stewart Dermatology we will help you have better looking skin

quickly. Our team includes dermatologist, Dr. John A. Stewart, and me, Medical Aesthetician Rhonda Trammell. We provide both medical intervention and medical spa services and products that will work for you.June is GloProfessional skin care month at Stewart Dermatology, and all GloFacials are 10 percent off. Make an appointment for

June 22 and a Glo consultant will be on hand for makeup and skin-care consultations. Glo Mineral and GloTherapeutics products are 10 percent off that day only.Please send skin care questions to stewartdermatology@bellsouth.net, or visit our website www.stewartdermatology.net.

R honda

Q

M O M I T U D E

14 LEE MAGAZINE

By Kelly Frick

ARE WE THERE YET? Each summer, we try to plan a Big Fam-

ily Trip. Pretty typical I think, consider-ing most parents of school-age children get three chances at time off: Christmas, spring break, and summer vacation.

The Big Family Trip is the time when you reconnect, make memories, and maybe even relax. Or at the very least, not come home more exhausted than when you left.

In my experience, the family trip also teaches you that:

1. Hotel rooms, tents, and guest bed-rooms get smaller as the week goes on.

2. DVD players in cars limit the number of “Are we there yets” by 15 or so, and,

3. There is a limit to how much family togetherness one can stomach.

Case in point: Our recent Big Family Trip to Washington, D.C., a guaranteed way to combine fun and education.

When we arrived, we hit the Lincoln Memorial first. As my husband and I stood, marveling at how this great man led our country through its most tumultuous pe-riod, our first-grade son John said the line that would become his mantra for the trip: “I’m hungry.” (Why isn’t there a McDon-

ald’s on The Mall? I bet I’m not the first parent to ask that.)

On Day Two, Emma, my 10-year-old daughter, said the subway was cool, but not quite as good as the roller coasters at Disney. When I explained it was a transportation system, not an amusement park ride, she fired back with her own trip mantra: “What-ev.” (Which is short for whatever. Emma in-cludes an eye roll for effect. It works.)

On Day Three, we hit the National Air and Space Museum. (The cafeteria is a McDonald’s! Brilliant.) The kids loved it — There are planes! And rockets! And a

When staying at home with bickering kids just isn’t enough VACATION VEXATION

Photo by Kelly Frick

John Frick takes aim on Capitol Hill.

LEE MAGAZINE 15

M O M I T U D E

Kelly Frick is a writer and mother of two.

gift shop! At the end of Day Four, we stopped for a

photo opportunity in front of the Capitol.“Emma,” John said as I pulled out the

camera, “if you touch me, I’ll hit you.” “I’m not touching you.”“But you always do in pictures. You grab

me and make our cheeks touch.” “No, I don’t.” Me: “Kids, just be quiet and look at

me.” Then Emma kicks John in the shin. John

returns with a fist to her shoulder. And that’s what I caught on film. (In

hindsight, a fight on Capitol Hill is fitting. But at the time, I was mortified as a tour group watched my children beat each oth-er and my husband and I pry them apart.)

This was the point in the trip when I realized a) Four days is about my limit of being able to spend time exclusively with my family, and b) Next time we go to the beach where my children won’t learn any-thing, but they serve daiquiris on demand.

We went to bed early that night and woke up in better spirits. We spent Day Five walking around the monuments until

-lm

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the kids were too tired to complain. On our last day, we took a tour of The

White House, where John asked enough questions about the Obama girls to put us on a national security watch list. (Do they play soccer on the lawn? Do they do their homework in the library?) He was also fascinated with the “bomb-smelling” dogs outside, and saying the word bomb as often as possible, which I’m pretty convinced he did just to see Chris and I look incredibly uncomfortable.

“I think it’s time to go home,” my hus-band said.

As the kids put on their headphones to hunker down for the drive home, I asked Chris if he thought the kids learned any-thing. Just then Emma says, “You know, I never knew how cool Thomas Jefferson was. I think he might be my favorite president.”

John chimes in with, “I like Franklin Roosevelt because I like World War II.”

Chris and I smile. Another successful Big Family Trip.

I pop in a DVD for the kids and enjoy the silence.

THERE IS ANOTHER CHOICE IN NOVEMBER

SAVE THE DATE!

Opelika Main Street Farmers Market

Now open Every Tuesday 2:00-5:00 p.m.

2nd Annual

Touch-A-TruckSaturday, June 5th 9-1p.m.

Rain date: Saturday, June 12th

Welcome Back to Opelika Celebration

Saturday, July 17th10 a.m- 4 p.m.

Evening concert

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Be a fan on Facebook

Happenings alongSouth Railroad Avenue

16 LEE MAGAZINE

Summer is a great time to plant a seed for the next school year. A child in

love with words is a child in love with learning. Here are some tips we’ve gleaned from a number of sources on turning your kids into readers this summer.

Togetherness: Pick a popular chil-dren’s book and read it together. You can gear this for the age of your child, either letting her read to you, or each reading the book at the same time. Then plan a special outing —– a picnic in the backyard perhaps —– and discuss what you’ve read so far.

Book Club: Form a parent-child book club, inviting your children’s friends and their moms.

Make It So: Set aside twenty min-utes a day for family reading —– and this

means you and dad too. Ask a librarian to help pick books with your child’s interest at heart.

Library Prizes: Lewis Cooper Jr. Memorial Library in Opelika hosts a “Make A Splash” family reading program. Kids can pick up a sheet at the library of the seven fun reading tasks they can com-plete for goodies such as certificates for ice cream. The Auburn Public Library has a similar program.

Author! Author! Save this for the day you’re hearing, “I’m bored!” Grab some family snapshots —– photos with the child in them work best —– and some construction paper. Let your child write a book about the photographs. Punch holes in the pages and bind it all with yarn. En-list an older child in this effort, having him help the little one and double the payback.

Another possibility, help your child write a simple story, and then illustrate it with digital photographs on the computer.

Blog Baby! It’s a snap to start a blog, and your child could too. Using free blog-ging sites such as blogger.com, livejournal.com, wordpress.com, or vox.com —– and there are dozens of others —– your child can create his own website. Send the web address to aunts and uncles. Their feed-back can be incentive to keep writing.

What’s Cooking? Have your child read a recipe to you and help retrieve the ingredients. Even let them measure. In the process, you tackle reading, math, and following directions. Take pictures along the way for a future Author! or blog proj-ect. Pick a tasty recipe that comes together easily. Licking the beaters is always a good reward.

Stay Up Late: How about a little Midnight (or almost midnight) Reading Madness. Issue flashlights and read in the dark for a special stay-up-late night. Make sure you have fun books on hand. Don’t forget to break for snacks.

Movie Research: Before you watch Jurassic Park, hit the library for some good dinosaur books to inspect to-gether and separately. Try to pick books with themes of your movies.

Comic Adventure: Buy comic books. Not educational comic books, just regular ones. (Tread a little carefully here. Not all comic book content is kid friendly). You want to make a reader and there are millions of entrees into the reading world. This is one.

Set the Stage: Have books and magazines around the house. It helps if children see you engaged in reading. It can be anything from a beautifully illustrated edition of the Bible to hunting magazines, art books, and how-to manuals.

HOW�TO�GROW�A�READER

Just add fun

-lm

S M A R T SIStockPhoto

LEE MAGAZINE 17LEE MAGAZINE 23

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Say (Cottage) Cheese (Thighs) !In the battle against heredity, exercise is your best revenge

Cellulite is fat that is just under the skin, pushing up through the connective tissue. Heredity plays a part in whether you have firm, smooth, cellulite-free thighs, but so does body composition. If we don’t effectively strength train, women lose muscle and gain fat. The average woman loses five pounds of muscle in her thir-ties, another five pounds in her forties, five more in her fifties, and likely ten pounds in her sixties. This muscle loss reduces metabo-lism by three percent each decade, the overall result being that the average American woman packs on fifteen pounds of fat ev-

ery midlife decade. A typical sixty-year-old woman has less than half her original muscle and has fifty percent body fat (Westcott, Hudson Sun, 2009).

If you don’t want to say goodbye to shorts and sleeveless tops, forty minutes of exercise three times a week is the most effective and affordable solution. Your exercise program should include a variety of cardiovascular exercise options, like walking, jogging, cycling, or Zumba — a Latin-inspired workout. Including dif-ferent types of exercise will keep you motivated. Plus, you don’t know what you’ll enjoy until you try it.

Strength training is an often ignored, but extremely important

It was my seventeenth birthday and my best friend, Laura, gave me a gift. As she presented it, Laura told me that her Mom

said it was, “Too personal.” What in the world is too personal between best girlfriends?

My present was some fantastic smelling herbal soap, a hard, bumpy, plastic applicator, and body lotion. An anti-cellulite kit! The instructions said to rub the soapy applicator over your thighs and buttocks for five minutes each time you shower. After showering, massage the lotion in a circular pattern and you will reduce the appearance of cel-lulite.

I spent an extra ten minutes in the shower for six months, soaping, rubbing and moisturizing, and It worked! In hindsight — and truly, this was hind-sight — this was probably because I didn’t have any cellulite to begin with, and didn’t gain weight eas-ily. But even back then I was a believer in preven-tive medicine, and hey, the soap smelled nice.

Can you rub off, or smooth out that layer of fat that has been referred to as orange peel thighs, cottage cheese butt, hail damage, or my per-sonal favorite, cat in the bag? You may enjoy the soap, but smoothing out the fat layer by rubbing in circles is highly unlikely.

B R A W N

Picking up a potato chip and bringing it to your lips is a bicep curl, but it’s not going to make your arm sleek and firm.

By Lisa Gallagher

IStockPhoto

LEE MAGAZINE 19

component of an effective program. To re-gain the muscle you’ve lost, and keep the muscle you have, you need to lift weights. The amount of weight matters! Picking up a potato chip and bringing it to your lips is a bicep curl, but it’s not going to make your arm sleek and firm. The correct amount of weight for you will fatigue your muscle within eight to fifteen repetitions. The last three reps should feel different from the first three. Give it a shot and you will see results in six weeks or less.

Don’t forget to stretch. Devoting some time to stretching after each workout will reduce anxiety, improve posture, and get rid of nagging back pain. Add a short stretch immediately after each strength exercise and you will gain more muscle.

You can’t get the time and money spent on chasing cellulite cures back, but you can get your muscle back. In addition to having a smoother, firmer physique, you will decrease your risk of serious health problems including diabetes, heart attack, and stroke.

Go ahead and buy yourself some great smelling herbal soap, for after your work-out.

Say (Cottage) Cheese (Thighs) !In the battle against heredity, exercise is your best revenge

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-lm

Les and LeAnn Tyer of Opelika were named Foster Parents of the Year by the Lee County Develop-ment Center Therapeutic Foster

Care program in May.Also recognized were Tarice and

Martin Bitzer of Auburn as Rookie Foster Parents of the year. Sonia

Francis of Loachapoka won the appreiciation award

Foster Parents of the Year

20 LEE MAGAZINE

“Be open.

Be appreciative.

Be curious.

Be kind.

Be real.”The above words do not come from the

Dalai Lama, a television feel-good evange-list, or even Oprah Winfrey.

They are the words of Barbara L. Fre-drickson, a scientist. Fredrickson, a profes-sor at the University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill, studies positive emotion. Her findings make me a little giddy. And that’s a good thing.

Her research shows that feeling good makes you smarter, more creative,

more attentive, more mentally flexible, and more efficient. A positive emotion now helps you bounce back more quickly when something bad happens tomorrow. In the face of tragedy, you’ll show resil-ience. You’ll be more skilled at stepping away from your problems and seeing them clearly from a variety of angles, and you’ll be better at solving them. You’ll handle stress better. Your world will expand, and you’ll have more resources to learn new skills and make new friends. You may even live longer.

In short, Fredrickson says, positive emo-tions feed flourishing lives.

If all this seems utterly crazy, let me add to it: Research by a guy named Marcial Losada led to a formula for flourishing. Losada’s specialty is working with industry to create high-performing teams. When he applied statistical observations to positive emotions, he discovered that experiencing three positive emotions for every negative emotion creates a crucial tipping point for flourishing. Fredrickson says when we reach a three-to-one ratio, positive emo-tions and the broadened thinking they pro-duce will lead to more positive emotions and broader thinking, until they produce “an upward spiral in which people become better able to cope and experience appre-ciable increases in their well-being.”

Notice that negativity doesn’t disap-pear. This isn’t about pretending to

be happy when you’re not. Research shows that pretending to feel good — pasting on a fake smile — may be bad for you. This is about noticing and cultivating good feel-ings, not pretending away the bad.

Here’s a simple experiment that dem-onstrates what positive emotions can do. Fredrickson offers this self-test in her book, Positivity, which came out last year. To take this self-test, you’ll need paper,

pen, and the back of your hand, because you’re going to study it. Spend some time noting the landscape around your knuck-les, your wrist, your finger bones. Notice how the skin stretches, how the knuckles protrude, or where the blue veins appear. Get to know it in great detail. When you complete your in-depth study, make a list of everything you would like to do right now if you had thirty minutes free to do whatever you wanted.

Did you do it? Don’t read on until you do. There is no wrong answer here, by the way.

OK. Good. Now onto part two of the test. You’ll need paper for this, too.

Remember a recent high point in your life, something that went incredibly right, or a moment that you enjoyed deeply. Re-live the moment in great detail, savoring the feelings it gave you. When you’re done, pick up your pen and write a list of every-thing you would like to do right now.

Which list is longer?

After I looked at my hand, all I could write on my to-do list was “mois-

turize.” My second list wasn’t super long, but it had four items. The point is, even reliving a brief happy memory had more creative power than a neutral contempla-tion.

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POSITIVELY FABULOUSThe triumph of feel-good science By Jenni Laidman

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POSITIVELY FABULOUSThe triumph of feel-good science

This self-test resembles an experiment Fredrickson performed with the help of one hundred and four undergraduate stu-dents. The research was published in 2005 in the journal Cognition and Emotion.

The students watched one of five brief film clips. In one, baby pen-

guins waddled about acting adorable, evoking the positive emotion of amuse-ment. Another film showed beautiful nat-ural scenes, creating feelings of serenity, another positive emotion. A third film, de-signed to evoke anger and disgust, showed young punks mocking and taunting Amish people. The fourth showed a dangerous

mountain climbing accident, which pro-duced anxiety and fear. The final film clip was a meaningless computer screensaver, the neutral “control” condition.

After the film, students wrote a list of what they’d like to do. The group who saw the penguins had the longest lists on aver-age, followed by the students who saw the nature scenes. Those who saw the films designed to provoke anger and anxiety had the shortest lists. The screensaver viewers were right in the middle.

The point: Even a brief film clip changes

your outlook.Other studies showed that positive emo-

tions eliminate racial bias, improve medical decision making, and elevate math scores. If only I had known this in ninth grade.

In one study, Fredrickson’s research team taught employees of a Detroit

company to perform loving-kindness med-itation in which one focuses loving feelings first on oneself, then on friends and fam-ily, and eventually on acquaintances and strangers. Participants in the study showed a slow, steady rise in positivity. After three months, participants who spent about ninety minutes per week meditating re-ported life was more satisfying, and showed fewer signs of depression. They also report-ed improved social relations, better ability to focus, and improved health.

Fredrickson’s research shows we can build our positivity through a variety of means, including meditation. But Fre-drickson says you can start by the words that begin this column as your guideline: Be open. Be appreciative. Be curious. Be kind. Be real.

And, eventually, be flourishing. -lm

22 LEE MAGAZINE

SLAM & SASS!

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8

11109

Lucy FerociousPaina Skully

Saintly Vicious

Ziggy Blood Lust Grace Less

Cuban CrushHer

9LB Hammer Amyn Atcha

Sabrina Straight Razor

Cho Cold Babe E Quakes

CALL HER BABE E. QUAKES.And call her teammates by their cho-

sen roller derby names, each carefully constructed from a pun and an attitude. Amyn Atcha (sound it out). Nine-Pound Hammer. Cuban CrusHer. Cho Cold (say it fast).

Paina Skully. She stole the name from Agent Dana Scully of “The X Files” and combined it with her plan to put the hurt on opposing players. It’s a goal she shares

with every member of the Burn City Roll-ers, the only roller derby team in south-east Alabama, dreamed up and essentially willed into existence two years ago by Car-rie Holzmeister, aka Cho.

These women don’t just like to skate. They like to hit. “Last bout, I made a girl squeal,” says Holzmeister/Cho, a slender, polite woman whose derby name reflects her Korean birth in a way her married name doesn’t. She says this modestly,

but can’t help adding, “I’m really proud of that.”

Nine-Pound Hammer (Suzanne Sam-ples) drew inspiration for her name from an old coal miners song, her West Virginia roots, and the fact that she barely measures five feet tall. She’s just as plain-spoken. “I like to hit,” she says.

She’s taking a break during practice at Gr8 Sk8 in Phenix City, one of the two venues the Rollers use. (The other is Lam-

They’re HELL on wheels

Jennifer Lisenby Suzanne SamplesRachael Nalder

Nodya Boyko Kayleigh Durkan Laura Bank Tatiana Fernandez

Holly Daniel Amy Baker

Carrie Holzmeister Amber LeCroy

STORY BY JUDITH SHEPPARD PHOTOS BY BETH SNIPES

LEE COUNTY’S ROLLER DERBY DIVAS

24 LEE MAGAZINE

bert Skate Center in Auburn.) From the outside, Gr8 Sk8 is a scary place, low and dark and perched like Bates Motel on an unlit hill, the kind of place where a lone woman hesitates to leave her car. Inside, though, the rink is lit, and ten or twelve women are laughing and wheeling by in wide ovals.

“It really gets aggression out,” says Samples, who attributes some of hers to a Napoleon complex. She takes a swig from the water bottle in her gym bag. The girls practice for two hours straight, and it’s exhausting. When Samples takes off her shiny helmet, her hair is soaked with sweat. “I’ve never told anybody this, but I picture my ex-boyfriend’s face on the other team members’ when I hit,” Samples says. “Yeah. I like it.”

We all know that men find it sat-isfying to form teams and assault

each other, all in pursuit of ultimately meaningless trophies and titles, forging deep lifelong friendships along the way.

But women? And, in particular, these women?

Get this. At least four of them have earned or are working on graduate

degrees in English at Auburn University and are experienced instructors in com-position and literature. Samples is in the doctoral program; Holzmeister and Skully (Nadya Boyko) have master’s degrees. Red RumBlur (Trish Campbell) is work-ing on hers. What’s more, Groovy Hott LoveyCakes — Brittany Green — is working toward a master’s in engineering. Amber LeCroy — Babe E. – is working on her bachelor’s degree in physical educa-tion. Cuban (Tatiana Fernandez) is put-ting her AU criminology degree to use as a correctional officer in the Lee County Justice Center jail. Amyn (Amy Baker), a part-time student at Southern Union State Community College, plans to get the same degree and become a forensic detective.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, the governing body of the sport, reports that 91 percent of derby girls claim at least some post-secondary education. It makes sense that in a college town, at least some

of the derby girls would come out of aca-deme.

Still, a fleet of pointy-headed intellectu-als on wheels? Even other Rollers think it’s a hoot.

Baker is one. She just returned to the workforce and school after three years as a stay-at-home mother. “Yeah, all these oth-er women are, like, ‘I’m a college profes-sor,’” she says with a laugh, “and I’m like, ‘Well, I work at Cracker Barrel.’”

Holzmeister finds it intriguing how many rollers have come out of the

English department. “I think maybe Eng-lish (studies) have a lot of people who have a lot of sides to them.”

Or, as scholar/skater Campbell says, with a mysterious smile: “We have a lot of pent-up rage.”

PROFESSORS OF POUND ‘EMThe Rollers are one of four teams in the

state but will travel as far away as Baton Rouge, La., and Austin, Texas, to play. So far this season, which runs roughly parallel to pro baseball’s, they’ve won one and lost two.

Amber LeCroy uses hip action to make it past teammate, Brittany Green, during practice.

LEE MAGAZINE 25

Holzmeister said the Rollers came about because “I was bored and I was looking for my niche in Auburn.” She’d received her master’s in English and was teaching literature and composition at AU and at Columbus State Technical College.

“I saw an article in USA Today about the revival of roller derby,” she says. “I thought, well, I like hitting people, and I like roller skating.”

Her husband, James, who is working on his Ph.D. in English, received

the news that she wanted to be a derby girl calmly.

“I said, ‘I’m going to play roller derby,’ and he said, ‘OK,’” Holzmeister recalls. “And then I said, ‘And I’m going to have to start a league.’” Neither knew how much time, energy, and money it would require. But Holzmeister quickly found herself immersed in not only the skating but the thousand small duties that create a dynamic team out of thin air: recruiting players, finding refs, setting dues (thirty-five dollars a month), locating places to practice and play, selling merchandise, publicizing the team, learning the derby association’s strict rules. Creating a league remains Holzmeister’s goal. She hopes enough skaters will catch derby fever to form several other teams, which can then constitute a league. Even after that, it’s tough getting derby association accredita-tion; only seventy-eight teams have met its rigorous requirements.

“I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was going to be,” says James. “I am endlessly impressed by her, by her ability to launch this thing and keep it going.”

Word spread through the English de-partment, friends told friends, campy, sexy posters went up all over Auburn, Rollers made public appearances at community events and held fundraisers and yard sales. Burn City is still struggling. But it’s claim-ing its place in a culture that’s as colorful and complex as it is fun.

Almost solely a women’s sport, roller derby was famous in the 1970s, but,

as a 2009 New York Times article noted, it “all but petered out” not long after. It’s back with a vengeance. The derby asso-ciation says the revived sport grew from

one flat-track team in 2001 to a current four hundred and seventy; the Times esti-mates that about fifteen thousand women are part of derby in the United States and Australia. Regulated by Women’s Flat Track Derby Association rules and stan-dards of sportswomanship, it’s becoming recognized as a legitimate sport, played by real athletes.

At its best, roller derby is a fun inter-section of feminism and flirty little

skirts, of physical prowess and fishnet hose, of personal confidence and bad-ass alter egos. Players take pride in their hits and moves, but they also love the pageantry. They choose their names carefully, being sure not to duplicate any of thousands of registered names. (“Snarking another roll-er girl’s name,” says one Web site offering help on nom de skates, “is just not cool.” But many are tempting — Pocahuntress and Killary Clinton or Ann T. Christ, say). They personalize their gear — their “bout-fits” — with ruffles, sequins, tutus, colored tights, jeweled belts, brightly colored skates and laces, and Catholic schoolgirl skirts. They shovel on the paint and the lip gloss. “You can never have too much eyeliner,” a derby girl explains to a newbie in “Whip It,” the 2009 movie about the resurgence of roller derby in Austin. They feel like warriors, and their boutfits and make-up

are their armor. Yet almost all the Burn City Rollers

are small, slender women; some are even waifish. Many avoided sports all their lives, although Fernandez earned her AU degree on a full four-year softball scholarship, and Green played varsity soccer and basketball at Birmingham Southern. They are the ex-ceptions. Boyko recalls inventing “painful bunions” to get out of high school physi-cal education. “I was desperate,” she says.

“I didn’t need people yelling at me while I was running.” Campbell didn’t even know how to skate.

Even some of the Rollers were initially scared by the stereotypes. Goldie

Chop Chix (Brandy White) is still in the category the derby association delicately calls “fresh meat” — rollers in training who have not yet passed the lengthy, demand-ing safety assessment test. On the rink she falls often — hard. But her teammates cheer her on. “Don’t give up, Gold-EE!” one calls. Taking pain, as well as delivering it, is part of the pride.

“I was really nervous,” White says one night, standing on the rink sidelines. She wears her magenta-tinted hair short; her spectacles are scholarly, her piercings many. She’s an office manager at a beauty supply store. “I thought, ‘Will they accept me? Are they going to be a bunch of big

Photo by Sydney FagenThe derby pace is often lightning fast.

26 LEE MAGAZINE

women who are going to be mean to me?’ I hadn’t been on skates for years. But then I thought, that seems like a lot of fun.”

“The stereotype is all roller derby girls are mean and tough,” Holzmeister says. “Nobody believes me when I tell them I’m in roller derby because of how small I am. We’re all pretty small, or at least short, and we do play people who are huge and can just lay on you.

“But roller skates are the great equalizer. I know that that big

girl may be scary, but I can hit her just right and she’ll go down.”

The Rollers neither trumpet nor hide their alternate identities. They appear in public at fund-raising events, and their photos and biographies are on a team web-site and on Facebook. Samples says that any English lit class that knows she plays roller derby is a class that knows to pay at-tention. Boyko filled in her co-workers, but says, “It’s not the first thing I’d roll out on a job interview.”

Are they aware that for all their practice, pain, and effort, a lot of men — and wom-en — come just to see tightly clad women sweat, slam into floors and walls, show a lot of skin, shove and hit each other and maybe brawl? Absolutely. “Fast Chicks, Hard Hits,” says one poster enticing audi-ences to a “Down and Derby” fundraiser. Fernandez’ fellow sheriff’s deputies love it. “Oh, they think it’s exciting to see women hitting each other,” she says.

DON’T MESS WITH THE BESTEven most Rollers wince a little when

they repeat the term, but they almost all say it: It’s about empowerment. Women get strong and swift on their skates. And they get close to other women in a tight, blood-oath-loyal way that’s rare in this culture.

“It’s so unexpected to find women in a contact sport,” Boyko says. “It subverts people.”

Campbell, who looks a bit like Kirsten Dunst, but whose small, breathy voice is pure Marilyn Monroe, says becoming a Roller has transformed her.

“I have a lot more confidence as a wom-an. I feel a lot stronger,” she says. “It’s helped me embrace the strong side of me and showed me I can be simultaneously strong and sexy. I’m not afraid to be out alone at night. I feel like I can at least hold my own.”

Samples sees derby as a natural outlet for her drive. “If you’re going for your Ph.D., you already have a strong personality,” she says. “You have to be able to work hard and meet goals. It’s important, especially for a woman trying to make a mark in the world.”

She’s proud of her performance, though she’s working on it. “I’m not

the fastest skater or the hardest hitter,” she says, “but I’m working on endurance. And I’m an insulin-dependent diabetic. So it means a lot to me to do this.”

The sport is so swift and the players so tightly packed that it’s hard to see what’s going on, even at the level of the “suicide seats” a few yards off the edge of the rink. Two or three refs watch in the center, and

the bout is divided into halves which are then divided into “jams,” the derby equiv-alent of a down, which last a maximum of two minutes. One woman from each five-member team wears a star on her helmet; she’s the jammer, and only she can score points, which she does by passing as many opponents as possible. The others block for her. Sometimes even the skaters lose track of what’s going on. “You’re playing defense and offense at the same time,” says Green. “Sometimes you just miss it.”

There’s a penalty box for fouls and for dirty moves — using elbows, tripping, not “falling small” and causing a crash. Holzmeister says her team is especially careful about that. “Our thing is classy,” she says. “Even if I lose, as long as we’ve played well, I’m fine, as long as we’ve been classy. Other teams do a lot of trash talk-ing, but we don’t do that. It all comes down to: Do we respect them? Did they play well? Did we?”

Of course, they also feel an athlete’s high when they skate away from the thud of an opponent hitting the floor, or hear the air leave someone else’s lungs after a perfect hit, or show off bruises and bandages like trophies.

At practice they lap the rink over and over, thud to their knees in rehearsed falls, explode from the mark the way horses burst from the gate. Some concentrate on tricky moves; others blur by and try to score a hit at high speed. They practice game chat-ter, but good mood softens their ferocity. Instead, they yell nonsense. “Happy Birth-day to You,” two warble loudly. Another shouts random sentences: “These shorts are too tight!” Quakes begins a chant that trails off in a rueful critique: “Well, I was going for a rhyme, actually. I’m a little dis-appointed.”

ALL FOR ONE, ONE FOR ALLThe Rollers love the outrageousness of

it all. In polite society, particularly in the Deep South, their in-your-face sass can be shockingly unladylike. And in Auburn, which obsesses over contact sports played by men but prides itself on its collegial mien, the team is a real novelty. But re-peatedly and unprompted, the Rollers say

Amy Baker rides a teammates shirt tails to gain momentum.

this team gave them something more than the female version of cojones. It gave them “instant family.”

“Our team has something special,” says Samples. “I don’t know what it is. It’s camaraderie. We’re family. We’ve seen each other at our best and at our worst.”

“I honestly don’t know where I would be without it,” says Baker, talking on the phone over the sounds of her three- and one-year-olds. “My husband says I let it take over. It’s good to go hit on other people. And the friendships are incredible. We are all really, really good friends.

“It’s turned into something I’m really passionate about. Yeah, we’re a roller derby team, but we’re family. Sure, we have our ups and downs, dramas, stuff like that. But we’re making it work.”

LeCroy calls it “instant universal family.” They hang out together. The Rollers pamper L.B., Boyko’s thirteen-

year-old blind, diabetic cat. And Baker’s three-year-old is “in-fatuated” with Holzmeister. “When are we going to get there?” she asks in the car. “I’m ready to see Cho.” Their boyfriends or husbands sometimes step in as refs.

“Friendships,” summarizes Fernandez. “This is almost too good to be true.”

Campbell says Samples told her to be careful when she joined: “Derby is going to take over your life.” Sitting out a minute for an interview, she looks over at the rink, where, under the big disco ball, some Rollers are practicing their falls on well-padded knees. A song plays on the P.A., and Green and LeCroy start dancing, shouting the chorus: “She’s a brick ... HOUSE!”

The house where she grew up wasn’t a warm one, Campbell says, and she worries that, if she leaves Lee County after gradu-ation, she won’t find this kind of family again.

“These are my friends,” she says. “I love them more than I ever thought I could love anybody.”

Judy Sheppard is a freelance writer and an associate professor

teaching journalism at Auburn University.

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28 LEE MAGAZINE

JUNE/ JULY 2010

calendarAuburn City Public Library, 479 East

Thach Avenue, Auburn. Hours: Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 2-6 p.m. Information: 501-3190.

Jan Dempsey Community Arts Center Gallery, 222 East Drake Avenue, Auburn. Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission: Free. Information: 501-2963.

Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, 901 South College Street, Auburn. Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 4:45 p .m. Sat-urday. Admission: Free. Information: 844-1484.

Lee County Humane Society, 1140 Ware Drive, Auburn. Adoption hours: Tues-day through Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Drop offs strays or pick up found pets: Tuesday through Sunday, 8:30 to 5 p.m.; Tuesday, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Information: 821-3222; lchs@leecountyhumane.org.

Lewis Cooper Junior Memorial Li-brary, 200 South Sixth Street, Opelika. Hours: Monday and Tuesday, 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Wednesday, Thursday, and Fri-day, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Informa-tion: 705-5380

Lee County Historical Society, 6500 Stage Road (Highway 14), Loachapoka. In-formation: 887-3007, webmaster@leecoun-tyhistoricalsociety.org. Hours: Second Satur-day of every month, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Louise Kreher Forest Ecology Pre-serve, 3100 Highway 147 North, Auburn. Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission: Free. Information: 707-6512.

ONGOING: the Lee County Humane Society, 1140 Ware Drive, Auburn, offers Tuxedo Tuesday discounts for “tuxedo” wearing pets. All adoptions of black-and-white cats and dogs, as well as solid black cats and dogs, are $50. Information: 821-3222 or lchs@leecountyhumane.org. In cel-ebration of National Cat Adoption Month, the humane society is also dropping the adoption fee for cats to $50 and the kitten adoption to $70.

ONGOING THROUGH JULY 3: The exhibition, Ding Dong Daddy and Oth-er Fluorescent Prints by William Walmsley, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art.

ONGOING THROUGH JULY 3: The exhibition, Audubon’s Final Achieve-ment: The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, Jule Collins Smith Muse-um of Fine Arts.

ONGOING THROUGH JUNE 12: Twelfth Annual Juried Arts Exhibition of Lee County artists, Jan Dempsey Commu-nity Arts Center.

ONGOING THROUGH AUGUST 28: American Luster: Selected Examples of Contemporary Studio Glass, Jule Col-lins Smith Museum of Fine Arts.

JUNE 1 AND EVERY TUESDAY: Opelika Main Street Farmers Market, 2 p.m. through 5 p.m. along South Railroad Avenue.

JUNE 1 THROUGH JULY 31: Children can win prizes in the Summer Reading Program at the Auburn Public Library. There are two reading groups, one for children ages three through eleven, and another for children entering sixth grade to those entering twelfth. Children who wish to participate in either program must regis-ter at the Youth Services Desk.

JUNE 1 THROUGH JULY 31: The Make A Splash Puddle Prize Game is the summer reading program at Lewis Cooper Junior Memorial Library. Children can reg-ister and pick up a list of reading activities to complete for prizes. And don’t forget to register for Family Summer Reading, with prizes for the family.

JUNE 1 AND EVERY TUESDAY: Story time for babies six-months to eigh-teen months and their caregivers, 10 a.m., Auburn Public Library.

JUNE 1 AND EVERY TUESDAY through July: Tween Movies for children in fifth through eighth grade, 2 p.m., Auburn Public Library.

JUNE 1 AND EVERY TUESDAY IN JUNE: Almost Anything Goes, ac-tivities for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., at the Lewis Cooper Junior Memorial Library, Opelika.

JUNE 2 AND EVERY WEDNES-DAY: Story time for preschoolers three years to five years old, 10 a.m., Auburn Public Library.

JUNE 2 AND EVERY WEDNES-DAY: Children in kindergarten through fifth grade are welcome to attend Salmagundi at the Auburn Public Library from 2 to 3 p.m.

JUNE 3 AND EVERY THURS-DAY: Story time for toddlers eighteen months through three years old, 10 a.m., Auburn Public Library.

JUNE 3 AND EVERY THURS-DAY in June: Imagination Station, a program for children in third through fifth grade, takes place from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Lewis Cooper Junior Memorial Library, Opelika.

←continued

JUNE 3 AND EVERY THURS-DAY: Teen Café at the Auburn Public Library is from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. for eighth through twelfth graders.

JUNE 3 AND EVERY THURS-DAY through August 26: The Market at Ag Heritage Park is an outdoor farmer’s market featuring local and organic pro-duce as well as homemade products. The market on South Donahue Drive between West Samford Avenue and Lem Morrison Drive on the Auburn University campus also includes live music. Market hours are 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Information: 321-1603 or herrilm@auburn.edu.

JUNE 5 THROUGH AUGUST 14: The exhibition Views and Re-Views: Soviet Political Posters and Cartoons opens at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art.

JUNE 7 AND EVERY MONDAY: Story time with Tim takes place from 10 a.m. to 10:20 a.m. at the Lewis Cooper Ju-nior Memorial Library.

JUNE 8: Avery Jones & the F.U.N. Machine, a live musical-comedy for kids, takes place at 10 a.m. at the Lewis Coo-per Junior Memorial Library. Admission is free.

JUNE 7 THROUGH JULY 9: Photography Invitational I is a free ex-hibit of Alabama photographers at the Jan Dempsey Community Arts Center.

JUNE 8: Route 66 performs oldies, pop, and rock in Opelika Municipal Park as part of the Summer Swing Series. Music begins at 7 p.m. Opelika Band Boosters will sell Summer Swing Sack Suppers from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The vintage train, Rocky Brook Rocket, will give free rides.

JUNE 10: Arts and Hearts, a fundraiser for Alabama Rural Ministries, takes place 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Event Center, 614 North Railroad Avenue, Opelika. The fea-tures music by Martha’s Trouble, a silent auction, food. and a cash bar. Tickets are $25 and available at Magnolia Salon, 2408 East University Drive, Suite 110 in the As-bury Hills Plaza in Auburn. Information: 663-5165 or jen@marthastrouble.com; or 332-9088 or dawn.spurlock@gmail.com.

JUNE 11: John Wort Hannam per-

forms in the Sundilla Acoustic Concert Series, 7:30 p.m., at the Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 450 Thach Av-enue. Tickets: $10, students $8, children 12 and under, free.

June 12: Truel Watts Ride-to-Read Poker Run takes place at Big Swamp Har-ley Davidson in Opelika. Tickets to this fundraising motorcycle ride are $25 and in-clude lunch and a T-shirt. Registration be-gins at 8:30 a.m., with the first bike out at 9:30 a.m. All proceeds benefit Jean Dean Reading-is-Fundamental/Kiwanis. Infor-mation: 749-5631.

June 12 and July 10: Second Satur-day at the Lee County Historical Society features historic re-enactments of tradi-tional arts and crafts from10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Whistle Stop Pickers perform at 1 p.m. Admission is free. Information: 887-3007

JUNE 12: Children from kindergarten through high school work with plaster and pewter for sculpture from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Saturday Art Club at the Jule Col-lins Smith Museum of Fine Art. Instruction is tailored to each age level. Parents are en-couraged to attend and learn the principles and elements of art. Information: 844-1484.

JUNE 15: Kidd Blue performs eclectic rock, soul, and R&B in Opelika Municipal Park as part of the Summer Swing Series. Music begins at 7 p.m. The Opelika Band Boosters sell Summer Swing Sack Suppers from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The vintage train, Rocky Brook Rocket, gives free rides.

JUNE 15 AND JULY 20: Senior Bingo Lunch takes place 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Dean Road Recreation Cen-ter, 307 South Dean Road, Auburn. Bring a friend and a covered dish. Information: 501-2930.

JUNE 17: Abbott Gleason, professor at Brown University, discusses “The Art of Political Persuasion Reconsidered” as part of Third Thursday Late Night at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. Admission is free and the lecture begins at 5 p.m.

JUNE 18: SummerNight 2010 Down-town Art Walk: Auburn downtown mer-chants extend their hours, local artists show their work, and local musicians perform at Toomer’s Corner. This free event takes place

from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Information: 501-2963.

JUNE 19: Children from kindergarten through high school try batik and tie-dye from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Saturday Art Club at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts. Instruction is tailored to each age level. Parents are encouraged to attend and learn the principles and elements of art.

JUNE 19: Dachshunds and their fami-lies are invited to the Second Annual Dox-ie Palooza at Kiesel Park, 520 Chadwick Lane, Auburn, for an 11 a.m. dog show and 12:30 p.m. doxie races. Free registration is available at doxiepalooza.net. Advanced registration is recommended, but day-of registration will also be accepted. Informa-tion: 524-3694. In case of rain, the event takes place June 26.

JUNE 22: Bill J. Brooks performs his “ELVIS Lives” Concert in Opelika Mu-nicipal Park as part of the Summer Swing Series. Music begins at 7 p.m. Opelika Band Boosters will sell Summer Swing Sack Sup-pers from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The vintage train, Rocky Brook Rocket, will give free rides.

JUNE 24, 25, 26: Auburn University Theatre presents A Way With Words: Plays for a Summer Evening at 7:30 p.m. in the Theatre Upstairs of the Telfair Pete Theatre, Samford Avenue and Duncan Drive. The $5 tickets for this one-hour show are available at the door only. Infor-mation: 844-4748.

JUNE 26: Children from kindergarten

through high school try batik and book-making from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Sat-urday Art Club at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts. Parents are encour-aged to attend and learn about materials for children. Information: 844-1484.

JUNE 29: Auburn University Summer Concert Band performs at the Summer Swing Series in Opelika Municipal Park. Music begins at 7 p.m. The Opelika Band Boosters will sell Summer Swing Sack Sup-pers from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.. The vin-tage train, Rocky Brook Rocket, will give free rides.

JULY 1: Annual Freedom Celebration takes place at the Opelika High School football practice field. The event includes

30 LEE MAGAZINE

inflatable games for kids, live music by Muse, skydivers, food, and fireworks. Ad-mission is free. The event begins at 6:30 p.m., with fireworks starting after dark.

JULY 4: Annual Fourth of July Cel-ebration at Duck Samford Park featuring live music by Floyd the Barber, food and fire-works. The free event begins at 6 p.m. with fireworks at 9 p.m. Information: 501-2963.

JULY 6: Muse performs acoustic soft rock in Opelika Municipal Park as part of the Summer Swing Series. Music begins at 7 p.m. The Opelika Band Boosters will sell Summer Swing Sack Suppers from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The vintage train, Rocky Brook Rocket, will give free rides.

JULY 9: The Lewis Cooper Junior Me-morial Library in Opelika’s Friday After-noon Movie features “Horton Hears a Who,” at 1:30 p.m.

JULY 10: Children from kindergarten through high school explore projects in-volving planes and kites from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Saturday Art Club at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts. Instruction is tailored to each age level. Parents are encouraged to attend and learn about interdisciplinary art. Information: 844-1484.

JULY 13: Crossroads with Jessica Wil-son performs classic rock in Opelika Mu-nicipal Park as part of the Summer Swing Series. Music begins at 7 p.m. Opelika Band Boosters will sell Summer Swing Sack Sup-pers from 6:15 to 7:30. The vintage train, Rocky Brook Rocket, will give free rides.

JULY 16: The Lewis Cooper Junior Memorial Library in Opelika’s Friday Af-ternoon Movie features, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” at 1:30 p.m.

JULY 17: Children from kindergarten through high school learn about perspec-tive and landscapes from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Saturday Art Club at the Jule Col-lins Smith Museum of Fine Arts. Parents can attend and learn about judging art and asking questions. Information: 844-1484.

JULY 17- Historic Downtown Opelika will host the Opelika Summer Celebra-

tion from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The event fea-tures live music, barbecue, local artists, and children’s entertainment, including a bike, trike, and wagon parade at 6:30 p.m., hula hoops, and an inflatable obstacle course. Shops will open late for a sidewalk sale and there will be music by Crossroads along Railroad Avenue. Also available will be homemade ice cream, watermelon slices, and hotdogs, plus, the Museum of east Ala-bama, Avenue A and Ninth Street, will be open to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

JULY 17: Opelika invites anyone who has ever lived in the city, gone to school here, or worked in Opelika to come home for a special Welcome Back Home to Ope-lika celebration. At 10 a.m. on South Rail-road Street you’ll be officially welcomed home with a ceremony and the unveiling of a new historic marker for the city. The festivities continue until 4 p.m. downtown with entertainment, artist exhibits, a soap-box derby, food, special events for the kids, historic tours, and more. The Museum of East Alabama, the Darden House and the Cultural Arts Center – formerly the Brown School – will be open. At 7 p.m. there’s a concert on Courthouse Square as well as “A Taste of Opelika.” Opelika-born musi-cians Adam Hood and Brad Cotter will be special guests. More surprises are in store. Information: opelikamainstreet.org

JULY 20: The Fedoras perform as part of the Summer Swing Concert Series. Music begins at 7 p.m. The Opelika Band Boosters will sell Summer Swing Sack Suppers from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The vintage train, Rocky Brook Rocket, will give free rides.

JULY 23: The Lewis Cooper Junior Me-

morial Library in Opelika’s Friday After-noon Movie features, “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” at 1:30 p.m.

JULY 24: Children from kindergarten through high school create art involving musical instruments from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Saturday Art Club at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts. Parents can learn how to discuss difficult topics in art. Information: 844-1484.

JULY 26 THROUGH AUGUST

21: The puzzles and sculptures of Eric Harshbarger and the carved sculpture of Vernon Robinson will be featured at the Summer Invitational 2010 at the Jan Dempsey Community Arts Center. Infor-mation: 501-2963.

JULY 27: Martha’s Trouble performs in Opelika Municipal Park as part of the Summer Swing Series. Music begins at 7 p.m. Opelika Band Boosters will sell Sum-mer Swing Sack Suppers from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The vintage train, Rocky Brook Rocket, will give free rides.

JULY 30: The Lewis Cooper Junior Memorial Library in Opelika’s Friday Af-ternoon Movie features, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” at 1:30 p.m.

JULY 30: Auburn Arts Association Community Art Happening is a multicul-tural arts festival that features live musical performances, storytelling, visual arts, and dance. This free event will be held at the Jan Dempsey Community Arts Center from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Information: 501-2963.

JULY 31: Children from kindergarten through high school use the drawing tech-niques of the Old Masters from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Saturday Art Club at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts. Par-ents can discuss art history knowledge. In-formation: 844-1484.

JULY 31 THROUGH NOVEM-BER 6: The exhibition, Old Master Draw-ings from the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, opens at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art.

AUGUST 4: Southern Gospel acts Fred Jones and The Good News Trio per-form in Opelika Municipal Park as part of the Opelika Summer Swing Series. Music begins at 7 p.m. Opelika Band Boosters will sell Summer Swing Sack Suppers from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The vintage train, Rocky Brook Rocket, will give free rides.

August 7: Children from kindergarten through high school make and string glass beads from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Satur-day Art Club at the Jule Collins Smith Mu-seum of Fine Arts. Parents will talk about preparing for the school year. -lm

calendar continued

-lm

On This Day in History...

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