PAPER TRAILS: White girls can jump, step, dance

— WINNING MOVES: Remember that dance team of nine Zeta Tau Alpha members from the sorority’s Epsilon chapter at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville?

They’ve recently won MTV2’s “Sprite Step Off” national step-team competition, landing $100,000 in scholarships.

Stepping, a form of dance incorporating cheerleading, military and drill-team moves, has African roots and was popularized by the National Pan-Hellenic Council’s historically black sororities and fraternities.

The ZTA team was the only white one competing.

The finale airs 2 p.m.

CST March 7; to preview, go to tinyurl.com/ zetastep.

A WEDDING TO REMEMBER:

Last Saturday, Jeff Pride attended a wedding that cost him ten grand. The bride wasn’t his daughter. The bridegroom wasn’t his son. He didn’t even pay for the wedding.

The story? The retired Realtor from Little Rock is an avid Oaklawn attendee.

During the season, he’s at the Hot Springs track each Thursday through Sunday.

But earlier, he and wife Cheryl accepted an invitation to attend the wedding of friends Gay and Randy Wyatt’s daughter Sara on Feb. 20 in Little Rock.

Earlier this month, the track was to hold a drawing after each race with increasing prizes - $1,000 following the first race, up to $10,000 after the 10th, with winners having 10 minutes to claim their prizes.

But the drawing was postponed until the same day as the wedding. Pride was at the track until the seventh race but left to get back to Little Rock for the evening ceremony.

So while Pride was in Pulaski Heights United Methodist church as Jonathan Blair Leader and Sara Elizabeth Wyatt were joined in marriage, his name was being called over Oaklawn’s speakers as the $10,000 winner.

Turning his phone on after the wedding, he was deluged with calls from pals telling of his loss.

“My wife actually felt worse about it than I did,” he says. “She didn’t sleep at all that night.”

Nevertheless, Pride finds humor in his loss.

“One of my friends came up with the perfect epitaph for my tombstone: ‘He left too early.’”

But don’t shed too many tears for Pride. A few years ago, his name was called after the seventh race, scoring him $7,000. And, yes, that day he was there to collect.

DUGGARS’ DIGS:

Last Tuesday’s episode of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting showed the Duggars moving into the Cornish House in Little Rock. Next week’s episode shows them on the USS Razorback in North Little Rock.

OOPS:

It was careless of me to rely on the New York Post’s Page Six column to get the facts right.

The episode of CBS’ 48 Hours Mystery featuring actor Johnny Depp speaking out for the release of convicted murderers Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley airs at 9 p.m.

CST Saturday.

Paper Trails appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact Linda Caillouet at (501) 399-3636 or at lcaillouet@arkansasonline.com.

Arkansas, Pages 11 on 02/26/2010

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