Latest featured videos from Journal-News.com

Home > Blogs > Seen and Overheard (Skip to blog navigation.)

Dayton’s ‘Project Runway’ runner up preparing to sell collection

What do you do after “Project Runway”?

If you are Oakwood High School graduate Althea Harper you continue to work hard.

Harper is preparing to sell her spring/summer collection.

“Everything is going to start being for sale in February on my website,” said Harper, who placed second on the Lifetime fashion design reality show. “I have a lot on my plate.”

The University of Cincinnati School of Design grad said she is still happy with the collection she showed in Bryant Park during the 2008 Fall New York Fashion Week.

The season finale with her 13 piece collection air Thursday, Nov. 19.

The futuristic collection reflected the economic times, said Harper.

Harper says she was also happy with how she was depicted, but regrets seeming a little bratty at one point when she criticized another designer.

She said the tension between her and season winner Irina Shabayeva was also played up during the show’s editing process.

“I really wasn’t trying to get into a girl fight with this girl,” Harper said. “I was trying to stick up for myself.”

Seen & Overheard runs daily in the Dayton Daily News. Twitter with me at DDNSmartmouth.

Seen & Overheard runs daily in the Dayton Daily News. Twitter with me at DDNSmartmouth.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: People you know

Ball, Game Boy, and Big Wheel make hall of fame. What’s your favorite toy?

The ball has finally got its due.

The bouncy, round wonder has been inducted into The National Toy Hall of Fame at Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, according to a press release.

The ball out dribbled nine other classic toys, including Cabbage Patch Kids, Game of Life, Hot Wheels, paper airplane, playing cards, the Rubik’s Cube, sidewalk chalk, toy tea set, and the Transformers.

It was joined by the Big Wheel and Nintendo Game Boy.

Forty four toys are in the National Toy Hall of Fame, including G.I. Joe, the baby doll, Barbie, Candy Land, the Easy-Bake Oven, roller skates, the jump rope, Frisbee, Atari 2600 Game System, checkers, alphabet blocks and the bicycle.

How was the ball not inducted years ago?

Balls and halls of fames go hand-in-hand - there’s the Football Hall of Fame, Baseball Hall of Fame, etc.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment More: Good to Know

50-year Thanksgiving weekend tradition canceled

The elegant flair that is the Ebony Fashion Fair will not transform the Dayton Convention Center into a fashion lover’s paradise this Thanksgiving weekend as was planned.

Johnson Publishing canceled the traveling fashion show’s 2009 national stops for the first time in 51 years, local organizers learned recently.

slideshow_845582_YBS-EbonyFashionShow-H6158.jpg
2008 Ebony Fashion Fair in Dayton Click here for more photos. (Peter Wine for the Dayton Daily News)

See photos of last year’s Ebony Fashion Fair here.

“The company is reorganizing,” said Jean Redden, second vice president of the Dayton section of the National Council of Negro Women, noting that cancellation came as a shock.

“Its been very well-attended for the last 50 years,” she added.

The Dayton council was among the first organizations to host Ebony Fashion Fair, a division of Johnson Publishing Co.

The company has been hit hard by declines in advertising sales.

“In light of the overall economic challenges that are affecting many, including our potential corporate sponsors, we have arrived at a most difficult decision to cancel Ebony Fashion Fair’s fall 2009 season,” a message on the Ebony Fashion Fair website says. “In the coming months, we will develop a new business model to ensure that the show is a mutually beneficial endeavor. Our primary goal is to build Ebony Fashion Fair and our other brands in ways that will continue delivering meaningful insight and inspiration to the African-American community.”

The show has become a Thanksgiving weekend tradition for many Miami Valley families, attracting as many as 3,000 spectators with its dazzling garments and over-the-top stage production.

Redden said the council hopes the fashion show returns to Dayton this spring and returns to a Thanksgiving weekend schedule in the years that follow.

It was the council’s major fundraiser, raising about $10,000 to $12,000 for college scholarships and other programs annually.

Twelve to 14 area girls typically receive college scholarships each years as a result of the event.

The service organization is planning a holiday gala 6 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 20, at Miami Valley Golf Club, 3311 Salem Ave., Dayton, to raise funds to assist seven girls, all high school seniors, and nursing homes. Gala tickets are $40. For tickets, call Fannie Moore at (937) 268-5500.


What do you think? Seen & Overheard runs daily in the Dayton Daily News. Twitter with me at DDNSmartmouth. Have an item for Seen and Overheard? Click here.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: Good to Know

Oakwood native in Cameron Diaz movie

Oakwood native Danielle Heaton is not the star of “The Box,” but sometimes the smallest roles are the biggest.

Heaton’s small speaking role and close ups in the Cameron Diaz lead horror-thriller were more than enough to make her family stand up and cheer.

ddn110609gomgTheBox.JPG.jpeg
James Marsden and Cameron Diaz in a scene from, “The Box.” (AP Photo/Warner Bros., Dale Robinette)

“There were five people in the theater and four of us were family,”Linda Heaton, now of Kettering, said of seeing a late night screening of the film Thursday, Nov. 5, at Regal Hollywood 20 in Beavercreek.

Danielle Heaton, 23, now lives in New York, but began acting and singing locally, her mother said.

The 2005 Oakwood High School grad preformed with the Muse Machine and dragged her parents to countless early morning community theatre auditions.

She is a recent graduate of Boston’s Emerson College earning a degree in musical theater.

The Box is about an unhappily married couple that receives a deadly wooden box on their doorstep.

Seen & Overheard runs daily in the Dayton Daily News. Twitter with me at DDNSmartmouth.

Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment More: People you know

You may be a redneck if you bank here

Yup, you may be a redneck if you deposit your money at Redneck Bank.

Nope, we aren’t joking.

Redneck Bank is the Internet banking division of Oklahoma-based Wichitas. That institution was established in 1913 and is insured by the FDIC.

The bank offering checking and money market accounts comes with the trademarked tag line “Where Bankin’s Funner.”

It promises no minimum balance “good old-fashioned service,” high interest, and no monthly maintenance fee.

One of the bank’s bright red debit cards features a picture of a smiling horse.


What do you think? Seen & Overheard runs daily in the Dayton Daily News. Twitter with me at DDNSmartmouth. Have an item for Seen and Overheard? Click here.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: Just Funny

Controversial activist to speak at UD Friday

A woman with one of the most recognizable faces from the 1970s will speak 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, at the University of Dayton’s Kennedy Union Ballroom.

0405 ANGELA DAVIS_58079.JPG
Angela Y. Davis in the 1970s

Controversial political activist and history of consciousness professor Angela Davis will be the keynote speaker at the Annual Richard R. Baker Philosophy Colloquium hosted by the university’s philosophy department and The Concerned Philosophers for Peace.

Angela Davis.jpg
Angela Davis

The speech is free and open to the public.

Davis first gained national attention when then California Gov. Ronald Reagan removed her from a teaching post at the University of California-Berkley.

The feminist activist associated with the Black Panthers black power organization gained worldwide attention after being accused in the 1970 abduction and murder of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County, California.

Her arrest sparked the international “Free Angela Davis” campaign.

She was found innocent and has since rallied against racial injustice and been an advocate of abolition of the “prison-industrial complex.”

An author, Davis ran twice in the 1980s as vice president on the Communist ticket. She is reportedly no longer a member of the Communist Party.

Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment

Local students to dance 12 straight hours for charity

More than 400 University of Dayton will make Athena proud Saturday, Nov. 7, as part of the 11th annual Dance Marathon at the university’s RecPlex Center.

The 12-hour event will raise funds to purchase equipment for The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton’s newborn intensive care unit.

Spectators are welcome.

Feet start to move at noon and will surely be exhausted by midnight.

The Marathon features , live music, contests, food, stories from Children Medical Center patient families and theme dance hours.

Ellen Bryan, Miss Miami Valley, will sing during the “oldies and one-hit wonder” hour and the Dayton Parrott Heads dance with students during the “vacation” hour.

The university’s dance and Irish dance teams will perform.

This year’s theme is “Be a HERO. Saving Lives One DANCE at a Time.” Each dancer will receive a bright blue T-shirt with a superhero design.

The UD’s Dance Marathon’s have raised more than $150,000 for Dayton Children’s since 1999.


What do you think? Seen & Overheard runs daily in the Dayton Daily News. Twitter with me at DDNSmartmouth. Have an item for Seen and Overheard? Click here.

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: People you know

Back to top

More entries...

Home | News | Sports | Entertainment | Opinion | Life | Recreation | Jobs | Cars | Homes
Advertising Media Kit | Online Ad Studio | Advertiser Tools | Customer Service | Our Partners | RSS | Site Map

Copyright © 2009 Cox Ohio Publishing, Dayton, Ohio, USA. All rights reserved.

By using this site, you accept the terms of our Visitors Agreement and Privacy Policy. You may wish to note our other business policies.

This website is ACAP-enabled