UP AND COMING

Recipients flip the script, help host Night of Hope

Here's something heartwarming. On Tuesday, the Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Pulaski County has its annual A Night of Hope, this time at Pulaski Technical College's Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute. (Tickets are $100.) For the first time, scholarship alumnae have pitched in to "sponsor" the event at the $1,000 level.

Former scholarship students are now event sponsors.

I'm telling you, if you don't "have" a charity, consider this one. And don't think of it as charity, if that word raises Milton Friedmanite, free-market questions for you. Think of it as Ayn Rand social engineering, just with a human soul. That's how I think of it.

"We are very much a fill-in-the-gap scholarship," says Karin Bara, outgoing director of the charity for students who are parents. A tire blowout or suddenly more expensive day care -- or hunger, that's a big one -- and the fund will be there with timely cash, but really, more often than that, resources and solidarity. It really is more like a coach than a booster, though with a budget of roughly $400,000, there's some boosterism, too.

So many college students leave school because of a sudden, relatively small debt, or a bad week -- about the size of the net the charity can afford to cast each semester for its three dozen recipients.

SURVEY SAYS

Last week's High Profile subject said the one word that summed him up is "irritating." I liked that. I've always said my one word would be gassy. See how it plays.

I went to the vault, the morgue, we call it, to look up responses to this prompt over the first three years of High Profile and compare it to the last three years. Turns out the very first profile we did -- Anna Belle Williams, Jan. 5, 1986 -- wasn't asked for a word. (Today, it's very nearly required questioning.) We did ask her everyone's favorite Self Portrait box question: Who would you invite to your fantasy dinner party? Washington, Kissinger, Kennedy-Onassis, she said, and Gandhi, but not the Gandhi you're thinking of.

The first person to answer the "one word to sum me up" prompt was Gus Walton, on March 30, 1986. "Lucky."

The question wasn't a mainstay until about halfway through that first year. Right away, we see some popular choices -- committed, fortunate, dedicated. We joke here that about half our covers are "passionate," "dedicated" and "driven" people. The other half are actively trying to avoid a cliche. The truth is, those three words -- passionate, dedicated and driven -- if objectively self-assessed and applied over time, make you a likely pick for High Profile. If bank president is your next promotion, you probably aren't laid-back, insouciant and hourly.

You know one word hardly anyone wants to be anymore? Organized. That was a popular choice back in the day, but in the last three years, just one (Sharon Lamb). Are we really so much more organized these days? We carry devices that keep our dates and phone books and calendars, but do we not have a whole lot more stuff to organize? (For instance, remember when retirement investing was something our employers did for us?)

In the main these one words haven't changed that much. These people are determined and tenacious and satisfied. And motivated and loyal and consistent.

Back then, people were a bit more likely to choose altruism. I mean words like caring, friendly, considerate, helpful, loving. Recently, there have been three loyals, two lovings, and a servant-leader, but in the main the words they choose betray ambition, accomplishment. Three each for focused, hard-working, enthusiastic and fortunate. Two each for energetic, persistent, purposeful and intense -- and, OK, humble.

I suspect that what has happened is that life's simpler rewards today seem indolent. Laid-back? Start a nonprofit. Laughing? What, all the time? Three of the early folks said they were "concerned," which, from the people profiled, I take to mean ... for others. Today, it would be ... about the country and where it's headed.

Similarly, I can't help but read into the fact that seven people in the early years said optimistic/positive. Recently, no one said optimistic, a word that seems to speak as much about the collective as the individual. Only two said positive.

One word that didn't come up at all in the last three years? Ambitious. Too artless, post-Recession.

One gentleman from the early issues chose straight. I think today he would choose to hyphenate it -shooter or -talker.

I'd love to hear your word and why. Write in the comments or email me.

O'Nelly!

I have a good mind to start curating Craig O'Neill's stage comedy. By that I mean the one-liners the KTHV-TV, Channel 11, anchor slings from behind the microphone as master of ceremonies at fundraising events all over town. Last month, for instance, at Dancing With Our Stars ...

"One of [the silent auction items] is an incredible selection of men's clothes donated by Bruce Jenner."

Now, I know that, without the benefit of a crowd and a couple of Crowns, it falls a little flat, but in the context they're howlers. He's doing what other DJ's dare not -- he's jeopardizing future gigs. I once heard him harpoon then-Rep. Tim Griffin and Sen. John Boozman before a packed Wally Allen Ballroom that included Griffin and Boozman. He's darn close to uncensored. (Now, he's close, but he's not, of course.)

This night he turned to a bushy-headed teenage boy who'd just shared the stage to offer a short testimony and said, "Kid, if I had your hair I'd be working at Channel 7."

Some of these are twice-told jokes, and he's gotten away from rapping a cappella, perhaps because, as he used to sign off, "a 62-year-old rapping just ain't right, and on top of all that I'm tragically white," but I promise you listening to O'Neill scat is special. He's indecorous in a crowd dolled up and behaved.

I'll try to report more of these as I hear them.

Craig, keep 'em coming.

Gimme what-for:

bampezzan@arkansasonline.com

High Profile on 10/04/2015

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