FEATURES 51 Healthcare in Central Kentucky 52 Defining Healthcare 59 Meet the Medical Professionals 115 Behind the Lense: Alicia Fierro 121 KET’s Summer Celebration 25th Anniversary 131 Community Spotlight: High Street Neighborhood Center 143 TOPS Tour of Homes: The House on the Water 170 WOW Wedding: Brooke & Nathan Vinson
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All in the Family: Mill Ridge Farm
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Fasig-Tipton / Churchill Events Events
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Governor’s Downtown Derby Celebration
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Fillies in the Workplace: Laura D’Angelo
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How Much Green for the Best Bluegrass
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Horse Park Happenings
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Historic Gainesway Farm Taps into the Future
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Featured Artist: Jean-Bernard Lalanne
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TOPS AROUND TOWN 27 Out & About 28 Art of Entertaining, Seasons Catering & Lexington Ice 30 Dream Factory Gala I 32 Dream Factory Gala II 34 NAWBO Winners’ Circle Awards I 36 NAWBO Winners’ Circle Awards II 38 TOPS April Preview Party I 40 TOPS April Preview Party II 156 The Fayette County Democratic Party Fundraiser 158 Member Mingle for HBA of Lexington 160
Blue White Game
162 College Scholarship Day at Keeneland 164 Horses and Hope Pink Day 166
De Wet’s Toast of Kentucky Tradeshow
168 Gallery Hop 178 TOP Shots
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IN EVERY ISSUE 24 Up & Coming 42 Dining: Guiseppe’s Ristorante Italiano 44 Etiquette & Entertaining: Something Old, Something New 46 Sports: 40-0 49 Finance: Independent Thinking 134 Family: Mothers & Daughters 135 Parties: Host an Empowering Tween Girl Birthday Party 136 Posh Paws: Pet Allergies 138 Gardening: Rain Garden 140 New Businesses 176 Weddings: Take it Personally
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Up & Coming
3 FRIDAY Oaks Day at Keeneland
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MAY
9a-7p Keeneland keeneland.com
2p-5p Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate henryclay.org
Bluegrass Youth Ballet: The Little Mermaid
6 MONDAY
The Gala on Derby Eve
7:30p Norton Center for the Arts nortoncenter.com
7p Lexington Opera House bluegrassyouthballet.com 7p Armed Forces Reserve Center hospicecp.org
Poor Man’s Derby Party 6p The Signature Club
JustFundKY Derby Eve 8p-1a Grand Reserve justfundky.org
4 SATURDAY Derby Day at Keeneland 9a-7p Keeneland keeneland.com
James Gregory
7p & 9:45p Comedy Off Broadway comedyoffbroadway.com
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5 SUNDAY Artful Sunday: Mother’s Day 2p-3:30p UK Art Museum finearts.uky.edu
Sweet Blessings Fodant 5K & 1 Mile Cake Walk 3p Keene Barn, Keeneland keeneland.com
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Ashland Garden Tour & Peony Sale
Central Kentucky Concert Band
3p Lexington Opera House ckcb.org
Sherrie Austin
Taylor Swift
7p KFC Yum! Center kfcyumcenter.com
0 9 THURSDAY Central Bank Thursday Night Live: Thumper Rewind 4:30p-8p Fifth Third Bank Pavilion at Cheapside Park downtownlex.com
Lexington Legends
7p Whitaker Bank Ballpark lexingtonlegends.com
movement-continuum
7:30p Downtown Arts Center lexarts.com
1 0 FRIDAY Rach 3
7:30p Singletary Center singletarycenter.com
Chris Kattan
7p & 9:45p Comedy Off Broadway comedyoffbroadway.com
Purses, Pouts and Pearls 6p Hyatt Regency pursespoutsandpearlslex.org
Lexington Legends
7p Whitaker Bank Ballpark
Our photographers are everywhere! Please check our website for updated event information and please be aware of the changing nature of events. 24
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Dining
W
hen it comes to Italian restaurants, it seems like they often try to do two seemingly opposite things at once. With its ambience and flavors that either come from or are inspired by the “Old Country,” they want the diner to be able to escape to Italy with every bite. Then again, with a welcoming spirit and hospitality, they also want you to feel less like a guest and more like la famiglia.
As far as Italian restaurants in Lexington are concerned, one could argue that Giuseppe’s Ristorante Italiano has built its reputation by doing this better than anyone else in Central Kentucky. Before I proceed, a confession must be made. As TOPS’ resident foodie, I’m sent to plenty of restaurants. Some I’ve been to before. Others are newly opened and/or I’m experiencing for the very first time. Giuseppe’s falls into the latter category, and for some strange reason, I felt guilty because of it. The years I’ve spent off-and-on living in Lexington, I’ve seen the restaurant’s eye-catching billboards with Renaissance art. I read where they have live jazz, a fact that made me even more curious. I’ve even heard good things about the food from friends who have dined there. Yet, I never got the full motivation to seek it out and try it for myself. If anybody has been to Giuseppe’s, saying you have to “seek it out” is a bit of an understatement. The restaurant is discretely tucked away on Nicholasville Road like it’s playing a game of hide-and-seek. This is where owner/chef Steve Olmstead opened the restaurant 19 years ago, when it was called the aptly named Hidden Cove. For nearly two decades, Giuseppe’s wiggled its way into a special place in the hearts of many Lexington diners. With its capacity to seat large parties and its private dining room, it’s where many a special occasion is celebrated. There is even a particular table in the restaurant, Table 5, which is the most reserved spot in the house. It’s a place where marriage proposals are made and then gets reserved down the road to celebrate the couple’s wedding anniversary. Part of Giuseppe’s charm for some is how much the restaurant’s interior hasn’t changed. When it comes to the menu, whether you’re trying one of its most popular dishes or a new item, Olmstead and the other chefs in the kitchen make sure consistency in quality and flavor is key. There was an insistence on trying the restaurant’s calamari fritti. I’ve had my fair share of this appetizer, and Giuseppe’s ranks right up there, with just the right amount of perfectly-fried breading, the tangy heat of sautéed banana peppers and a chunky and hearty marinara dipping sauce whose recipe I’m willing to bribe someone on staff to get. There was plenty I liked about one of the house favorites: Tortellini alla panna e pesto. When it comes to Italian, cheese-filled pasta puts me in a happy place, but it was further enhanced by the salt of Prosciutto ham, sautéed asparagus tips and a wonderful pesto cream sauce topped with the welcome crunch of toasted pine nuts. Despite its winners on the pasta and land-bound protein portions of the menu, Giuseppe’s has taken particular pride of late with the freshness of its seafood. The oven-roasted sea bass with lobster chili butter sauce is quickly starting to gain a legendary status amongst the regulars. This particular evening, I had a pan-seared red snapper special, cooked perfectly with a white wine lemon butter sauce served with sautéed spinach and garnished with bay shrimp. It may be one of the few occasions where I had a pasta-less Italian meal and felt totally content. Finishing things off with the restaurant’s tiramisu certainly isn’t a bad way to cap off the night. This lighter, creamier take on the popular Italian dessert is also popular among Lexington diners. As I was wrestling with saving half of it to take home to my wife or giving in to my primal urge to lick up every last morsel, I could see why. When a restaurant gets it right, it shows in a number of ways. At Giuseppe’s, it shows in the delightful dishes that come from the kitchen and a staff that tries just as hard to make both new guests and old friends feel like they are on equal footing within its walls. I, for one, felt right at home. Grazie.
859 272 4269 4456 Old Nicholasville Road guiseppeslexington com
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Etiquette & Entertaining
SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW by Sue Ann Truitt Etiquette & Entertaining Consultant
The height of the wedding season is upon us. Soon after an engagement ring slides on a finger, wedding plans begin. Flowers, cakes, dresses, photographers and registry decisions explode! A bridal registry includes the selection of a china pattern which will be cherished by the couple and enjoyed for many years. Brides often choose a white pattern edged with a gold or platinum band. But as design options come and go, so do personal preferences. As a result, the white wedding china makes its way to the back of the shelf. Trends and styles are rapidly changing. Currently, the trend is to mix colors as well as patterns. Styles have gone far beyond white china on white linens. For a dinner party, the hostess might create a table setting with the white wedding china partnered with a colorful patterned salad plate from another set. Then it is placed on a buffet plate of a color found in the salad plate. Interesting layers and mixes of china, linens and silver give an individual up to date ensemble far from the monotone five piece place setting of yesteryear. In reality, the white china selected by many brides probably is the best choice because of its versatility. The salad plates on a table could each be of a different pattern. This plate is a good choice for beginning a collection. It is a plate which can have many uses in addition to salads, such as a dessert plate, a breakfast plate, a cocktail plate or the plate under a soup bowl. It is a useful investment. As future, present, past and long ago brides practice mixing their patterns, quite another challenge presents itself. Repurposing is actually getting out of the confined sand box of tunnel vision—thinking of an item only to be used for the purpose for which it was intended. Using your imagination, you can give new life to items by repurposing them.
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The following are examples: • Float a flower blossom in a tea cup and group the cups in the center of the table or position one atop a stack of books on the coffee table. • Rustic iron lanterns can be brought inside from the garden for a centerpiece. • Write each guest’s name in calligraphy on a card. Tie the card to the back of the chair with a big bow instead of a place card at the head of the place setting. • In a more casual setting, simply place fresh fruit in a basket or bowl with a few leaves of the current season. A little butter rubbed over the fruit will give it a nice shine especially reflective in candle light. • A footed cake plate can be used upside down. Fill the hollow stand with a dip or flowers and surround with chips, veggies or cookies. • A candlestick can be much more than something to hold a candle. Place a small bowl on top of a candlestick and fill with a variety of flowers. Cluster several heights on a mirror in the center of the table. • Silver julep cups can contain the greatest drink in the world on the first Saturday in May in Kentucky. But after that…what do you do with the cups? Be creative and fill with pencils beside the phone, carrots and celery sticks for appetizers, toothbrushes in the bath, small guest soaps in the powder room and certainly to be filled with flowers preferably roses until next May.
A bridal registry at L.V. Harkness, Photography by Wes Wilcox
Practice using your creativity instead of your credit card. You will be totally surprised that you have actually “Gone Green” and not even realized it. Repurpose items in your home and share your ideas with your friends. Then, we can all “Go Green” together!
Finance
INDEPENDENT THINKING by Tom Dupree, The Money Man
For a week in April, we were inundated with images of a fresh bombing by Muslim extremists at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The broadcast media were in full battle mode trying to report the details of what happened, what may have happened, and how we should think about what happened. It is my suspicion that it’s because the event happened in Boston, the center of liberal learning and the place where liberals learn. The media seemed incredulous that this could have been done by boys raised in the shadow of Harvard University. Didn’t any of that wisdom rub off on them? If you watch national TV news, you had to follow this whether you wanted to or not. If you want to think independently, you have to have different information sources than the major broadcast media, including the three major networks and MSNBC, CNN, and FOX. Most of my news comes from websites I check regularly for links to articles where I can find a more sensible perspective. These include drudgereport.com, realclearpolitics.com, freerepublic.com, zerohedge.com and standfirminfaith.com. There are many others. If you are stuck in the major networks, your world view will be formed by them. And that may affect the way you manage your money and investments. Sometimes a client will call in scared to death and ready to make major changes in his investment program. We ask if he has been watching the major media outlets. If the answer is yes, we begin a “detoxification” process that consists of a face-to-face meeting where we allow the person to air out all his fears. Many of the fears prove to be groundless; some are substantial and require action. Talking always helps. You cannot have different results from the crowd if you are always following the crowd. Successful investing and success-
ful living requires doing and thinking certain things that other people aren’t doing and thinking. In my life, the best things I have done are things the major news and media outlets never would have encouraged me to do. You won’t become healthy by only listening to the news. On my own, I study the Bible, learn about healthy eating, proper exercise, good music, and good literature. These things give me a perspective I cannot get anywhere else. They are hidden from view in our popular culture but can be found if you are persistent about looking for them. I try to discuss some of these perspectives on the Tom Dupree Show and Tom Dupree Sunday Mornings, both on News Radio 630 WLAP. If it does nothing else than get you thinking differently about things it has served its purpose.
Listen to “The Tom Dupree Show” Saturdays from 6-9 a.m. at News Radio 630WLAP or wlap.com.
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Healthcare in KY
Defining Healthcare
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by Megan Campbell Smith
rom the outset, I want to agree with you that healthcare is a complicated topic. When taken seriously, it’s up there with religion and politics as a real conversation stopper. Still, nothing comes up more frequently. The pleasant greeting ‘Hi. How are you?’ solicits a survey of ongoing ailments and ameliorations, and in any coffee shop you’ll hear patrons prattle on about doctor’s visits and new medication. It turns out there is no discourse more difficult, and yet so prevalent in our lives, than health and healthcare. Our commonwealth boasts a long history of healthcare pioneers, and you are right to think of these business people as part of that history. With our many advanced hospitals, our three medical schools that pull in big grants to find important, new therapies, our industry partners in insurance, pharmaceuticals, and device manufacturing, and our population that is pretty much tapped-in as healthcare consumers, Kentucky is an ideal proving ground for healthcare innovation. But this is not guaranteed, and the curmudgeons are right to point out how changes in insurance—public and private—are changing the way patients interact with the system. But remember this: medicine is science. It is tested and proven, not by making up stuff and seeing if it works, but through careful observation of fact. Our own Ephraim McDowell invented the sterile surgical field not because doctors look so cool in masks and scrubs, but because he noticed that using his ungloved hands to perform surgery resulted in patients succumbing to infection. He decided to wear gloves, and the next time he operated in a woman’s abdomen she survived the traumatic procedure. That’s medicine. Gradual improvement by connecting the dots. Anyone can do it. Indeed, in healthcare, there is no more vital dot than you. Now, here are the facts:
WHAT IS HEALTHCARE? Healthcare is complicated. Right? Well, no. It isn’t. Healthcare is simple; it’s the therapeutic process of altering the course of injury, disorder, or disease. Brushing your teeth is healthcare you administer to yourself. So, too, is diet and exercise, sleep, medi-
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tation, smoking cessation, and wearing your seatbelt. When you have strep throat, you can go to a neighborhood clinic, see a physician, and get a prescription for amoxicillin. After you sprain your ankle in Saturday’s 5K, you can go to the local sports medicine clinic and get it wrapped up for proper healing. When the condition is known, so too is the course for treatment. You should bear in mind that the profession of medicine is organized around the different body systems. If you’re like most Americans, you have at least one chronic illness, and you know it can take several specialists to treat the one disease. If you’re lucky, you have a good primary care doctor who directs you to the right specialists and checks your treatment plan for oversights and errors. This is where healthcare gets complicated, in the coordination of medical services to meet the needs of individual patients, and this is the big spotlight on healthcare today. In a phrase, we call it care delivery.
Healthcare in KY
Care delivery looks at how medical services are distributed throughout a population. Sometimes it’s about taking the services to where the people are while other times it’s about bringing the people to the services. It’s the spectrum from house calls to transplant centers or from prevention to trauma. If you’ve ever been examined for anything more serious that the flu, then you have a common sense understanding of care delivery and the way medical facilities, the MRIs and other big imaging machines, the diagnostic labs, pharmacies, infusion rooms, cath labs, and many other parts work together to allow your doctor to diagnose and treat your condition. You also have a common sense understanding of how very expensive all this must be.
ogy. The strategy is that women’s care centers will get women and their babies to be loyal customers for life. The Veterans Administration, or VA, operates a health system for patients with a common employer – the US Armed Forces. Kentucky One is well-known for running a network of hospitals in several rural communities. LifePoint, the corporation behind Georgetown Community Hospital, does this across the US, and Baptist Health does it too. Plus, Baptist has provided retail clinics in Walmart stores, and Lexington Clinic does neighborhood-based primary care clinics in several high-traffic, suburban sites around Lexington. In all of these cases, the target population defines both the kind of facility and the services and equipment inside.
What are health systems?
Why are health systems so big and complicated?
In an effort to reduce and avoid costs – to the patients, employers, and insurance companies on the demand side, and to the hospitals, medical practices, and doctors on the supply side – doctors and hospitals organized into health systems. This sounds new, but it is not. We must go back several decades to find where consolidation in health markets began. Consolidation aids competition in many ways and on both sides of the healthcare transaction. Physicians joined practices, which joined hospitals, which joined health systems. More negotiating power meant lower costs to the health system and higher fees for the doctors. For the insured, consolidation either through employers or public insurance meant more rights and access to care.
What are the targeted populations? Health systems have three primary goals. The first goal is the provision of medical services to targeted populations. Typically, these populations are described by geography, medical condition, or employer. Think of UK Healthcare, the largest tertiary care center in Central Kentucky, and how its draws a lot of its patients from Eastern Kentucky. Many of UK’s subspecialties (this is not a slur, it’s like an extra special specialty) draw patients seeking care for rare or neglected medical conditions from an almost unlimited geographical area. This is an exclusive trait of tertiary care centers connected to research institutions. In Lexington, Kentucky One competes with Baptist Health for recognition in obstetrics and gynecol-
So, hospitals aren’t really hospitals any longer. The big buildings with ORs and patient rooms are hospitals, but the businesses that run them are health systems. We know they are systems because we see them spread out across the landscape, dropping satellite facilities in our suburbs and small towns. Even in the big city, you might have to go to an imaging center at one part of town and have your surgery in another. Services are dispersed across a wider network of providers than ever before. To point out the obvious, this has a lot to do with merger and acquisition activity over the past decades, accelerated lately through the fear of health reform, and the engines of commerce that maximize efficiency, reduce redundancy, and increase consumption. In healthcare, consumption is the use of medical services within the system, called referrals. In the past three years, health systems have acquired numerous physician practices. This surge was an effort to mitigate the risks going into the PPACA, or Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The largest of all of these risks is the cost to create and implement the electronic medical record. This enormous undertaking is really the biggest investment going in our healthcare today. The new consolidation of physical and human resources helps the health systems afford to innovate. And don’t forget, innovate they must. This is the law of the land. I had mentioned earlier that there are three primary goals of health systems. The first is to provide medicine to targeted populations. The second is to create and maintain the economic engines that make care delivery possible. Commercial real estate, highly advanced imaging, radiation and surgical machines, attractive new
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Healthcare in KY
services (that are self-pay since insurance won’t cover them), and the consolidation of assets, including human resources, for more borrowing power.
WHAT IS HEALTH REFORM? Health reform is a synonym for PPACA. The US administration branded the term and movement and used the website healthreform.gov up until the law was passed in 2010. Now that it’s law, they’ve dropped the brand and publish through healthcare.gov. Many people refer to the new law by its last three letters only – ACA, or the Affordable Care Act. Critics of PPACA use the term health reform as a synonym for state-controlled healthcare or single-payer systems. They use it like a slur to criticize healthcare’s failure to foster healthy competition using free market mechanisms. They are right, and it is accurate to think of health reform as a movement to allow legitimate market forces to bear on the system. What these critics want is increased value.
In the US, health reform isn’t about regulation or Medicare, though they are part of it. Health reform is about bringing health systems into the digital age and demanding the full value of every dollar spent. Lastly, I want to emphasize that there is, in my observation, no truth to the idea that health systems are being forced into reform. They are not getting the bad end of a political deal. In US cities and towns, health systems ask the populace for the right to operate. They do this by applying for a Certificate of Need, which is granted if they demonstrate that the population needs their services. With a Certificate of Need, the population grants the health system (or hospital) the right to build and operate. The populace knows that they have to make investments in the form of infrastructure and tax incentives to get these facilities up and going, and in return they require that the health systems treat all people who come to their facility for care. Like most of my explanations, this is overly simplified, but the aim is to illustrate the political pact that underlies healthcare. The health systems are not in a position where they must service the populace, they are in a position where they ask to service the populace. It’s part of the professional ethics, etched into the code with the making of the Hippocratic Oath and formalized into the laws and regulations. Stewardship is, after all, the third goal of health systems.
THE ROLE OF RESEARCH Also, extremely important to health reform, yet admittedly too complex to go into deeply here, is the academic research that led to the formation of accountable care organizations. The key figure here is Elliott Fisher, who is the director of the Center for Health Policy Research at Dartmouth Medical School. He is credited with conceptualizing the ACO, which became so popular it was introduced into law in the PPACA just four years after it was introduced. The ongoing innovations in ACOs are central to healthcare’s new value-based care delivery efforts. Here in Kentucky, Norton Healthcare and Humana have formed an accountable care organization, or ACO, that is part of the Brookings-Dartmouth program. When I interviewed Dr. Kenneth C. Wilson of Norton about it, he reminded me that “if you’ve seen one ACO, you’ve seen one ACO.” What he means is there are many ways for health systems to define how they will improve the safety and value of the services they provide, especially concerning Medicare. The work of BrookingsDartmouth had a major influence over what eventually became the PPACA mandate that Medicare patients be treated more effectively, and that the payments distributed to health systems would be reformulated to account for quality of care over quantity of care. You might be interested in their resources at acolearningnetwork.org.
WHAT IS THE PPACA? Obamacare. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is the law that enables many, many more Americans to become insured patients. It does this through several mechanisms,. Many people think of the PPACA as the first step to correcting the
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Healthcare in KY
nature of competition in healthcare. You’ll hear him in interviews saying how getting more people insured is the right first step to take. You will also read how data, captured from electronic medical records, play an integral role in comparing health systems while ensuring safety and value. Still, many criticize the PPACA as an ongoing meddling of government in the affairs of healthcare. The PPACA goes far beyond who must be insured and which contraceptives must be covered by private insurance. I just mentioned that the PPACA, in changing the way that Medicare payments will be made, is forcing the issue of value in healthcare into the marketplace. One way to think of the PPACA is as a law that account for quality of care over quantity of care. It corrects the payment relationship between health systems and government-run insurance programs in a way that pays health systems for keeping people healthy. The PPACA introduces into law the term accountable care organizations and says that payments to health systems that treat Medicare patients will be made according to how well they do their job, not how often. Information − data - is key to quality, so the PPACA also mandates and incentives that health systems and insurers implement universal electronic health information technologies. This means that insurance companies are now using the same code language in the
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billing process and connecting with pharmacy and practice records to see how well patients are doing on their therapies. This is all still to be actualized, but in our local health systems, the past few years have seen heavy investment in electronic medical records.
WHAT ROLE DO INSURANCE COMPANIES PLAY? Insurance companies are an essential component of the healthcare system. They are part of the economic mechanism which makes care delivery and innovation possible. Insurance companies are called payers in the US healthcare system because they pay our bills for us, the patients. Insurers can be public or private. People on Medicare are insured. While it is very important that people have health insurance so that they don’t go bankrupt if their household succumbs to a catastrophic illness or injury, it is also very important that we have a real understanding of costs in healthcare. Insurance companies also are part of the quality control system in healthcare. They have a huge interest in promoting new levels of transparency in healthcare. Transparency in cost, transparency in outcomes (which is what we call how well patients do on their therapies), transparency in effectiveness from one doctor or health
Healthcare in KY
system compared to another. This is kind of data enables insurers to mitigate risks - only in healthcare has it become hidden. Following PPACA, there are a lot of changes in how insurance companies structure policies and patient pools and how they pay out benefits to the providers. In addition to their increased responsibilities, insurers are now partnering with providers in the formation of accountable care organizations. For decades, the relationship between doctors and insurance companies has been adversarial. The swiftness with which ACOs are forming demonstrates a major power shift in healthcare and indicates an urgency to correct the former situation.
What is an ACO? I’ve mentioned ACOs quite a bit, and I’ve dodged defining them explicitly. The reason is that there are many ways an ACO can be organized. An ACO is not a kind of medical group, it is a framework with which providers can lead the quality imperative. The point of the ACO framework, then, is to interrelate the mechanisms of care delivery (providing medicine) and payment (reimbursement by insurer) so as to make sure that patients are getting the best possible outcome for the money spent. ACOs are part of the new value trend in healthcare. I often hear the criticism that ACOs are harmful and reduce consumer choice. This is not true. ACOs are not HMOs and they are not PPOs. Compensation in ACOs is based on how well patients do, not whether they are referred to a favored provider. Providers are in charge of ACOs, and using a strong primary care component, they are watchful for quality of care at all times.
component of care delivery ideas. We all know that consumer preferences vary by social, cultural, gender and economic status. That healthcare ignored it until now is, of course, asinine. But it goes to show what kind of boundaries are being exploded in health reform.
Healthcare Efficiencies Healthcare is an incredibly elegant and efficient system already. Healthcare economists, especially those interested in the ACO frameworks, typically point to a cost savings opportunity of 10%. I don’t typically do math in my head in public, but it seems to me that means that health systems are already close to 90% efficient, at least according to the specifications we can imagine up at this time. Our home furnaces usually get installed at the same rate of efficiency. If there is a big problem in healthcare today, I think we should call it user error. Our furnaces can be top of the line, yet if we fail to insulate our homes or weather-strip our doors, the best we can get out of it is maybe 65%. In the US, it’s not the healthcare system that is broken. Yes, it can do better, but until health itself becomes an integral component of our social institutions, we’ll just have to keep cranking up the heat. So now meet the Men and Women who are skillfully guiding our region through the promises, potentials, and challenges of the future of your Healthcare.
What is Patientcentered care? If you haven’t noticed by now that healthcare is trying to get down to business, I’m not sure what will convince you more than this: For the first time, medical institutions are recognizing that consumer preference rules. It has now been institutionalized in the concept of patient-centered care, which is to say that the patient’s opinion about how and what kind of healthcare they want to receive is now an integral Megan Campbell Smith is a designer and journalist working in healthcare media. She is creative director at Mentelle Media in Lexington, Ky, and creator of M.D. UPDATE, the business magazine for Kentucky physicians and healthcare administrators. She is a fellow of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. You may reach her for questions or comments at mcsmith@md-update.com.
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TOPS IN EQUINE
The house that Chac built (the Beaumont Farm House was located on Harrodsburg Road on property now owned by Sullivan University)
In 1923, he purchased a mare named Chacolet. She failed to produce a foal, so Mr. Headley decided to take a chance and train her for the track. That training paid off to the tune of more than $49,000 on a bet he made on Chac. As a result, he built a home on Beaumont Farm, affectionately known as the house that Chac built. Mr. Headley passed away in 1962, and before he died, he gave part of Beaumont, now known as Mill Ridge Farm, to his daughter, Alice Chandler. It included 268 acres and some barns that were under construction. The farm mostly raises Thoroughbreds for their clients who either race or sell at auction. She started with four mares and five employees and has grown the business to 135 client mares and 40 employees.
Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo and 2001 Horse of the Year Point Given. Mill Ridge is home to La Ville Rouge, the dam, or mother, of Barbaro, the beloved winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby. Mrs. Chandler’s won numerous awards including an Eclipse Award of Merit for lifetime Thoroughbred breeding achievement.
Considered a pioneer in a business that was overwhelmingly male in the 1960s, Mrs. Chandler’s Mill Ridge Farm has been successful because she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. Her family tells a story about her mucking stalls in a Chanel suit before heading to Keeneland. Under her ownership the farm produced a number of well-known horses, including 2011 Horse of the Year Havre de Grace, 2005
After college, Headley came back to Lexington and worked for a time at Elmendorf Farm, a Thoroughbred farm involved with racing since the early 19th century. In the late 1970s, Mrs. Chandler saw the industry changing and along with that, an opportunity for her son to make a contribution. He’d always had an eye for a horse and a keen sense about the
Now in her 80s Mrs. Chandler is retired, and a few years ago she turned over the day-to-day operations of the now 1100 acre Mill Ridge to her son, Headley Bell. Although he’s now been in the business in some capacity for many years, Headley said after he graduated from Vanderbilt University he didn’t know what direction his career would take. “I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do,” Headley said.
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business, so his mother asked him to put his talents to work in a new bloodstock agency. They named their bloodstock agency Nicoma after one of the first mares Mrs. Chandler bought, which subsequently produced five stakes winners. A bloodstock agent is basically a liaison between horse owners and those who want to buy horses. They may also be involved in many other facets of the business. “We advise people on all aspects of the Thoroughbred business from breeding to racing and selling,” Mr. Bell said. “Mill Ridge is the core of what we do. We are the service side of Mill Ridge Farm.” Nicoma has seen much success in its 33 years, having assisted with the matings of two consecutive Kentucky Derby winners: 2006 Barbaro, and 2007 Street Sense, as well as 2011 Horse of the Year Havre de Grace.
Barbaro Photo Courtesy of Mill Ridge Farm
Havre de Grace (Easter Bunnette), Photo Courtesy of Mill Ridge Farm
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Mill Ridge Farm and Nicoma Bloodstock have always been about family. At only 31, Headley’s son, Price, is a sixth generation horseman who is now involved as well. Although Price worked on the farm when he was growing up, like his father, he didn’t immediately continue the family tradition after college. He also graduated from Vanderbilt University, but rather than coming back to Kentucky he began a career in commercial real estate in Charlotte and Nashville. He also had an interest in downtown development and was involved in that in Nashville. But like his father, Headley, Price was drawn back to the business his family had always loved. “I knew it [Nashville] was only a stopping point,” he said. “I wanted to come back and promote Lexington, so when I had an opportunity to come back and help Dad, I did. I’m
Street Sense Photo Courtesy of Mill Ridge Farm
Havre de Grace Photo Courtesy of Mill Ridge Farm
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very passionate about this sport, which helps to promote the city. I was always working to get back here.” Headley and Price are enjoying their work relationship. Each says he is learning from the other. “My generation can lead the industry, but Price’s generation can execute new ideas,” Headley said. “They see it from a social media side as well as from a traditional view.” The Chandler/Bell family surrounds itself with a team of people who are like family. Many of them have been with Mill Ridge for more than 25 years, which is evidence of the level of commitment each has to one another and to the welfare of the horse. “We can do great things if we all believe in what we’re doing,” Price said.
One myth about the business is that anyone can make money. But in truth, the failure rate is about 80 percent. So why is this family so passionate about a business that has a failure rate of 80 percent? Because in the remaining 20 percent, there’s hope, according to Price. “You have to love the horse and the lifestyle,” Price said. “Our forefathers tried to move the ball forward and leave this business and this land better than they found it. We can’t rest on our accomplishments.” And it’s obvious this family won’t. For decades, six generations of Hal Price Headley’s family has moved the industry forward because of their dedication to the business, community service and love of the horse.
Photo Courtesy of Mill Ridge Farm
Photo Courtesy of Mill Ridge Farm
Photo by John Stephen Hockensmith
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Fillies in the Workplace: Laura D’Angelo
Equine, Gaming & Business Attorney at Dinsmore
by Kathie Stamps
A CANADIAN IN KENTUCKY When Laura D’Angelo was growing up, she had a big poster on her bedroom wall of a beautiful Lexington, Ky., horse farm, complete with white fencing and horses in a field. Not unusual for someone who loves horses, right? But D’Angelo was nowhere near the Horse Capital of the World. She lived in a small community called Meaford, north of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. “My mom says that I con- Photo by Keni parks stantly asked for a pony when I was a little toddler,” she said. No one in her family rode a horse, but when she was eight years old her parents bought her a little gray Welsh pony. “We had a very small piece of acreage with a barn and a ring, surrounded by probably 1,000 acres of apple orchards,” D’Angelo said. She had plenty of space to ride her pony. At age 10 she started taking riding lessons and two years later she was showing in the pony hunter division, then moving on to “A” rated shows with another horse. As a teenager she qualified for the Ontario Young Riders team and trained with a three-day event trainer from Europe.
“Through riding and through three-day eventing, I traveled and was exposed to so many different people and international people,” she said. Even though she grew up in a small town, D’Angelo received an education that would serve her well in her future law career by meeting other horse enthusiasts who happened to be attorneys, CEOs and people from all kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds. At the University of Guelph in Ontario, D’Angelo pursued an undergraduate degree in science and earned a B.S. in human biology. She was thinking about going on to veterinary school but while she was riding horses for a couple of different business people, one of them suggested she get an MBA. He wrote a recommendation for her and she was accepted into York University in Toronto, Canada’s No. 1 business school, “which totally changed my life,” she said. Armed with a business degree, she had an internship and then a full-time job in marketing management at Procter & Gamble in Toronto, where the company’s international office was at the
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time. P&G’s corporate headquarters is in Cincinnati, where the Dinsmore law firm was founded in the early 1900s. D’Angelo is a partner at the Dinsmore office in Lexington. When she decided to go to law school, she chose the University of Kentucky. To check out the city, her first two stops were Keeneland and the Kentucky Horse Park, because she would be weaving horses into her Kentucky experience. “Lexington seemed like the perfect place for that,” she said. D’Angelo was surprised by how few riding stables and competitive barns there were in Lexington 20 years ago, compared with what she was used to in Canada. “The area north of Toronto was a huge horse sport area, with more opportunity to find trainers and horse shows,” she said. “It was more popular there than it was here at the time.”
poker and casino games, are trying to become legalized on the Internet. “It is widely known in Europe that you can bet on virtually anything and everything on the Internet and different platforms,” she said. European operators with online gaming capabilities are waiting to enter the U.S. market, so D’Angelo has some international clients she is advising. Software allows online companies to trace every single betting transaction if need be; online betting is not anonymous the way it is with an in-person cash wager at a racetrack. Yes, D’Angelo enjoys going to Keeneland. Not as a handicapper or bettor, but as a spectator. She rides as often as she can, typically two or three times a week. Her eight-year-old daughter, Lilly, has also started riding.
That has changed dramatically in recent years. There are 16 “A” rated horse shows at the Kentucky Horse Park every year. Lexington has many riders and trainers now, some of whom are now D’Angelo’s clients. After law school, she worked for a small firm no longer in existence, then became an associate at Stites & Harbison in Lexington. In the early 2000s she left the Bluegrass for a couple of years to serve as general counsel for Gulfstream Park in Miami, and in Toronto she handled corporate work at the headquarters of Gulfstream’s owner, Magna Entertainment Corporation. In early 2004 she returned to Lexington. She chaired the equine and gaming practice at Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs before making the move to Dinsmore in the fall of 2011. As a partner at Dinsmore, she works with equine and gaming law, as well as business law. On the equine side, she deals with purchases and sales of sport horses, primarily Thoroughbreds, along with stallion syndications and contracts for boarding agreements and training agreements. She has handled transactions and syndications for Breeders’ Cup horses, and she did the documentation for the original owner of Big Brown, the 2008 Kentucky Derby winner. The gaming aspect of her law practice started as a natural progression out of working with racetracks, advising them on parimutuel waging regulations. “For the last 10 or 12 years, horse racing has been the only legal online gaming you could do,” she said. D’Angelo advises companies that provide those online services, because they have to be licensed and regulated in all states from which they take bets. Other forms of online gaming, like
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“We spend a lot of time at her riding lessons,” D’Angelo said. “She loves animals; she loves to be at the barn and loves to ride.” D’Angelo and her daughter have two cats, two dogs and two horses. D’Angelo’s retired show jumper, whose barn name is Risky, lives on a farm in Paris. He is 24 years old, a Thoroughbred from Maryland that used to compete at a top amateur level in show jumping with his previous owner. D’Angelo purchased him in 2004. His show name is Billable Hours. When she moved to Lexington, she brought a horse from Canada with her. “He didn’t like cross-country,” she said. “He was very good at dressage and show jumping.” She was taking lessons from a show jumper trainer who had moved here from Chicago; he encouraged her to continue show jumping instead of three-day eventing. She’s been involved with show jumping
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ever since and has earned quite a few ribbons at the Kentucky Horse Park in the amateur owner jumpers division and the adult amateur jumpers. While her trainer goes off to Grand Prix horse shows in other cities and countries, D’Angelo prefers to stick with Lexington. “It’s hard to justify travel when you can show in your own backyard and sleep in your own bed at night,” she said. When the Kentucky Horse Park opened in 1978 and hosted the Three-Day Event world championship for the first time in the United States, D’Angelo was a kid in Canada reading every horse magazine she could get her hands on. “I was thinking, What a cool place, that there would be a city with a park dedicated to horses,” she said. “Now I live here.” She said it’s easy for Lexingtonians to take for granted how amazing the Kentucky Horse Park is. She and her daughter spend a lot of time there, taking in all the sights and watching their friends ride and compete. When she’s not at work or around horses, D’Angelo enjoys traveling. She has been to Greece, Turkey, France and Ireland— and, by the way, she is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. One of her favorite spots to visit is Argentina, where she has a few clients. In 2010 she had the opportunity to attend the Argentine Open, the top polo tournament in the world. “I have played a little club polo here in Lexington,” she said. This past winter she played indoor polo, which is a slower game played with a larger, softer ball. “It’s a good way to learn the game and the strategy,” she said.
Laura and daughter Lilly | Frank Becker, THE TIME Photograpy
She considers herself very fortunate to be able to practice the type of law she enjoys, and in diverse areas. “Every single day is different,” she said. “I never have the same day twice because you never know who’s going to call you.”
Horse riding, practicing law and raising a kid—how does she do it all? “It’s not easy,” she admitted, “but you do what you love.” D’Angelo also sits on the boards of directors for LexArts, Commerce Lexington and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. And, on top of everything else, she teaches a class in equine law at the UK College of Law. “It’s a ton of work,” she said, but teaching forces her, in a good way, to stay current with legal issues. She has also met a lot of young lawyers. “I can walk around town or go to bar events and I run into these young lawyers I wouldn’t otherwise know,” she said.
Frank Becker, THE TIME Photograpy
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How Much Green for the Best Bluegrass
Guest house at Poplar Hill, circa 1790
by Bill Justice
W
hen I was first asked to write this article, I immediately thought of my dear friend Arnold Kirkpatrick. He would pontificate endlessly in a far superior manner than I ever could. Nonetheless, I know Central Kentucky land values as well as or better than anyone; and after being assured they would correct my spelling and punctuation, I acquiesced.
In order to ascertain how much green it really takes, one needs to look at the current market conditions, immediate sales, and what’s available. Land prices used to be solely driven by the thoroughbred market; not much anymore, as some of the highest sales are to the show horse/hunter-jumper market. Lexington is the “horse capital of the world” not just the “thoroughbred capital”. We were fortunate that, as the thoroughbred market declined in value and numbers, our leaders had the foresight to substantially improve the Kentucky Horse Park and seek and obtain the 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games. With its unparalleled facilities and increased number of shows, show horse people are staying here all summer and buying farms instead of shipping in and out. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part Central Kentucky farm values are still driven by the thoroughbred market, and one that, I believe, has bottomed out. Two recent examples of the “best of the Bluegrass sales” are Cobra Farm and Calumet. Justice Real Estate was fortunate to represent Gary Biszantz in the sale of the main tract of Cobra and Kessler Stables in their purchase of this 145 acre farm on Iron Works Pike for $7,250,000 (Lexington is proud to call 2012 Equestrian Olympian Reed Kessler our own). The historic Calumet Farm was recently purchased by Brad Kelley for $35,931,960. Kelley, one of the country’s largest land owners, already owned two thoroughbred farms here, which we sold him; Nelson Bunker Hunt’s Bluegrass Farm and Hurricane Hall. All adding credence that horse/business people will “always” be in the market for Central Kentucky farms.
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DEREK’S EQUESTRIAN CAREER HIGHLIGHTS Won BET/USET Talent Search Equitation Finals in Gladstone, New Jersey (2001) 3rd USET Medal Finals (2002) Team Gold at the National Junior Jumper Championships and Prix De States at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show (2002) Won Amateur Grand Prix of Valkenswaard, Holland (2003) DEREK AND GWEN BRAUN, SPLIT ROCK FARM Originally from Long Island, New York and Cape Cod, Massachusetts respectively, Derek and Gwen (both age 28) met at Rollins College in Florida and in 2007, purchased a 10 acre parcel of undeveloped land in Scott County. Not only is Derek an accomplished jumper rider and trainer, but he has a passion for building and developing horse farm properties. Together, he and then fiancé Gwen, renovated and restored an old tobacco barn into a beautiful show barn and installed a state-of-the art riding surface. The couple decided to locate their business in Central Kentucky close to the Horse Park, while spending 4 winter months of the year in Wellington, Florida at the Wellington Equestrian Festival (“WEF”) near Palm Beach. In 2009, Derek identified another 10 acre piece of land on Bryan Station Road, not far from Muir Station and began develop-
Photo by Keni Parks
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ment of that property. Soon thereafter, Windy Corner Market opened close by and is now a barn favorite. At the new farm, the couple converted another large tobacco barn into a show barn, added a riding ring with the same Wordley Martin footing as the first farm, and designed and built a lovely home on the farm. Gwen and Derek were married in December 2009 and are now the very proud parents of daughter Esme, who is 18 months old. Derek and Gwen recently closed on 30 acres adjacent to the Bryan Station property are expanding their barns and paddocks and adding bridle paths for the horses and riders. They recently sold the Scott County facility to Meagan Nusz, another young and successful Amateur-Owner jumper rider originally from Woodlands, Texas, who rides with Kent Farrington. Derek began riding at age 6 and enjoyed much success as a junior rider. He was coached primarily by Robert Braswell in Ocala, Florida and later by Debbie Stephens. He has now turned professional and continues to earn numerous top placings in grand prixs around the country. Derek and Gwen currently have 19 of their own and client horses in training. Ever the innovators, the couple founded the Split Rock Farm Show Series last summer, which offers riders the opportunity to school and show their horses of all levels at the Split Rock facility in relaxed, casual atmosphere. Split Rock provides top quality jumps, course design and footing. The show has a local and friendly feel offering lots of space for spectators as well as food and drinks. There are even little jumps in the grass for the kids to jump over. This summer the series will continue with 4 days of showing throughout the summer on weekends when there is not a major horse show at the Horse Park. See www. splitrockshowseries.com for details. JAVIER AND BROOKE BERGANZA. KEYSTONE, LLC. Javi (age 24) and Brooke (age 26) met in Wellington, Florida in 2009. They first came to Lexington for the summer in 2011 and formed Keystone, LLC. The couple married in Lexington in the fall of 2012. Together with their families, they recently purchased a former thoroughbred farm on Leestown Road and will develop it into a showing, training and boarding facility for hunters and jumpers. Javi, originally from Mexico City, Mexico and Brooke, born in Wisconsin and raised in Indiana, each grew up riding and showing from childhood. Brooke grew up competing and winning in the pony hunters, equitation and junior hunter divisions, taking after her Mom, Beth Photo by Scott D. Hayes
Derek is pictured here on LACAROLUS, a 10 year old bay Holsteiner gelding that he competes regularly in grand prix level show jumping.
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The couple spent 2 years in Monterrey, Mexico together, where Javi was a rider for La Silla, a prominent breeder of sport horses. Brooke and Javi now spend the majority of the year in Lexington and their winters at WEF.
Javi Berganza’S Major riding accomplishments Qualified for World Cup Finals in 2007 (at age 18) Won 4 North American Young Riders Championship Medals for Mexico Represented Mexico in the Central American and Caribbean Games in 2010 Competed in Grand Prix competition in Europe, Mexico and United States winning his first Grand Prix at age 17
MICHAEL MORRISSEY and LOURDES de GUARDIOLA, IMPERIAL SHOW STABLES. Michael (age 27) and Lourdes (age 31) have made Lexington their regular summer residence since 2010. Michael was born in Cleveland, Ohio but grew up in Florida. He rode at Imperial Farms with his uncle Jimmy Morrissey and his great uncle, Gene Mische, founder of the Wellington Equestrian Festival (WEF) in Palm Beach, Florida. Michael trained with jumping greats Debbie Stephens, Jeff Wirthman, Missy Clark and McLain Ward. He began riding professionally in 2004 winning his first Grand Prix in 2006. Since then he has accumulated grand prix wins in Florida, Kentucky, Ohio and France. Michael competed on five Nation’s Cup teams and was the Puissance winner (high jump) at the prestigious 2008 Washington International Horse Show and the 2009 Charlotte Jumper Classic clearing 7’1” in the process! Michael was the back-toback winner of the Horse Park’s own Rood & Riddle Grand Prix in Lexington in 2010 and 2011. Lourdes and Michael married this past December, 2012 in the Florida Keys. Lourdes was born in West Palm Beach. She grew up in Wellington, Florida riding at Palm Beach Polo. Lourdes went on to win the Pony Championships at the Harrisburg National Horse Show, Washington National Horse Show and at The National Horse Show (then in New York and recently
Brooke Berganza Competing
Bidgood, who shows in the Amateur Owner Hunter division. Brooke took a few years away from showing while at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida and then worked for the WEF horse shows where she met Javi. She recently began showing in the Amateur-Owner jumper division on CAMONA with much success. Javi comes from a long line of horsemen (his father, grandfather and 3 brothers all ride) beginning his riding career at age 4 at his family’s Tabira Farm outside Mexico City. His father continues to have a large sport horse sales and training operation in Mexico focusing on young horses, often imported from Europe.
MICHAEL’S CAREER HIGHLIGHTS TO DATE USEF Pony Finals Grand Champion Junior Jumper National Champion Devon Equitation Champion Team and Individual Gold, Junior Jumper Prix de States, Harrisburg USET Talent Search winner
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Historic Gainesvvay Farm
Taps into the Future
by John Englehardt
If
a visitor to the Lexington, Kentucky area that is a thoroughbred enthusiast is hoping to get a glimpse of several champion sprinters, a 3-year-old Champion, two winners of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, a Champion from Japan and horses that captured the Preakness, Belmont Wood Memorial and Travers Stakes and the gravesite of two of the three fillies that won the Kentucky Derby. Surrounding them would be decorative plants, floral displays, and more than 45 different kinds of oaks including a California Valley Oak and an Oglethorpe nurtured by a full-time horticulture staff. One would generally think they would head to the Kentucky Horse Park. Actually, they would be headed in the right direction, but would have to continue east on Ironworks Pike past the Horse Park until they had to stop at Paris Pike. Across the road they would view the entrance to Gainesway Farm where they would see all of the above and a 1,500 acre farm that has been designated as an arboretum by the American Public Garden Association and a glimpse of some of the most emerging stallions of the thoroughbred breed. Gainesway Farm headed by Antony Beck, whose father Graham purchased the pristine facility from industry Tapit, photo by John Engelhardt leader John Ryan Gaines, the man behind the creation of the Breeders’ Cup and a founder of the National Thoroughbred Association the precursor to the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA). Antony Beck has respect for the legendary past of the 1,500 lush acres and at the same time an eye towards the future. “It’s all about meeting the needs of our clients, maintaining a premiere horse farm and turning out a product in the tradition of the great Thoroughbreds at Gainesway.”
His reference to the great thoroughbreds that once graced the paddocks of Gainesway goes back to the days when John R. Gaines purchased the property in 1962 from the Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Farm established in 1915 by his father Harry Payne Whitney. Gaines relocated from his farm off Tates Creek Pike. Gaines acquired, syndicated and managed such well-known stallions as Lyphard, Riverman, Blushing Groom, Vaguely Noble, Bold Bidder and Broad Brush. In 1989, Gainesway Farm was purchased by South American horseman Graham J. Beck whose acquisition eventually included the adjacent property plus a parcel belonging to Payne Whitney’s Greentree Stud and made it part of Gainesway. A walk past the headstones on the Gainesway property serves as a history of legendary horses and the evolution of the breed in North America. To name just a few - Regret and Winning Colors, two of three fillies ever to win the Kentucky Derby are interred there along with the winner of the 100th Derby Cannonade. Horses of the Year Capot and Arts and Letters lie alongside champions and champion sires the likes of Counterpoint, Tom Fool, Lyphard, Riverman, Broad Brush, Stage Door Johnny, Key to the Mint, Blushing Groom, Cozzene and La Troienne, a broodmare who has had a historic and major impact on the breed. A hallmark of any successful business is maintaining quality through continuity of staff. Antony Beck has done just that with key members that have worked together at Gainesway for over a decade. Carl Buckler started on the farm at the age of 16 in 1966 working with the mares and yearlings until 1973 when he was named to his current position of Stallion Manager.
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Michael Hernon has been Gainesway Director of Sales since 1996. He comes from a commercial horse background, giving him a very early association with Thoroughbreds. “I was always around horses and went to my first horse sale at 10, we were selling weanlings at auction and I used to compete in the local show jumping scene then got interested in racing so I’ve been doing it for a while,” said Hernon who grew up in County Wicklow in Ireland. “I like breeding horses, watching horses run; having good thoroughbreds is a great thing to have. We are fortunate here at Gainesway as we have several champions and there are some really good, young stallions led by the highly successful young stallion Tapit.” Photo by Z
Michael has been directly involved in the purchase, syndication and management of many current Gainesway stallions, including their stud barn star – Tapit, who commands a $125,000 stud fee. “Ron Winchell spoke with Antony Beck and I went and had a look at Tapit and I really liked him. I had seen him race and he was very impressive as a 2-year-old winning the Laurel Futurity – but it was more like how he won it, it was very exciting,” emphasized Hernon. “Next year he came back as a 3-year-old and won the Wood Memorial so he had the racetrack performance, albeit he was lightly raced. He has a very good female family closely related to the former leading sire Relaunch and he is similar in type, as they strongly resemble each other.” Hernon says he works closely with Antony Beck on the stallion selections and both concurred on the acquisition of Tapit, “In conjunction to the racecourse performance, you have a very good physical and a stallion’s pedigree. Being a son of Pulpit we thought he’d be marketable. He’s an attractive horse and he has strong lineage on the bottom of his pedigree out of an Unbridled mare, who had stood here and had won the Kentucky Derby. We felt like Tapit could give his progeny a blend of speed and stamina, which has largely come to fruition. He was also very attractive and attracted a lot of mares in his first year from which he was an instant success, becoming the leading Freshman and Juvenile sire his year and the rest of the story just evolved and continues to evolve. He gets very durable tough horses, colts and
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fillies of the highest class. They run on all surfaces, he’s had Grade one winners on dirt, synthetic and turf.” “Tapit has had 11 Grade 1 winners to date. Given his success it’s a case where people want to come to the party and we are in the fortunate position of deciding, if you will, do we want to invite them? He gets a top book of mares, he gets a great reception on the global sense. Antony looks over the mares and we talk about them – some of them are a one word answer – it’s a ‘YES’, you know,” said Hernon with confidence. “Both Darley and Shadwell and some top European breeders support Tapit along with strong domestic report.recently tested in foal to Tapit. I think his future accomplishments will only continue to improve with the quality of the mares he has been breeding of late.” Two definite “YES” votes that will attest to the demand of Tapit’s bloodlines are two Horses of the Year. 2010 champion Zenyatta recently delivered a beautiful chestnut colt at Lane’s End and last year’s best of the breed Havre De Grace is recently tested in foal to Tapit. In a year where the Kentucky Derby appears to be relatively wide open, Tapit has brought particular excitement to the staff at Gainesway through his stretch-running son Normandy Invasion. Gainseway’s Antony Beck and several partners bred the colt, who sold at the Keeneland April Sale for $230,000 to Rick Porter, who also owns Tapit’s millionaire daughter Joyful Victory, recent winner of the Grade 1 Santa Margarita Stakes. Trained by Chad Brown, Normandy Invasion is already settled in at Churchill Downs to train up to the “Run for the Roses.” As a 2-yearold Normandy Invasion missed by a nose in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes to Overanalyze, recent winner of the $1,000,000 Arkansas Derby. In the Grade 1 $1,000,000 Wood Memorial Normandy Invasion was bumped at the break but closed with a flurry to catch previously undefeated Vyjack for a close second to the pre-Derby favorite Verrazano. “That was quite a performance,” said Hernon. “They ran soft early fractions and he still was able to close that fast. I don’t think 1 ¼ miles is out of his range and with a good trip he will be a factor in this year’s Derby.” Hernon is not just looking back on Gainesway’s star stallion; his passion is to continue the excellence Gainesway stands for. “Certainly you have to have a balance and a choice in stud fees, bloodlines and the horse be physically appealing. We are excited about the two new stallions who entered stud this year. Tapizar, is a son of Tapit. It is just natural for us to have an accomplished son of his,” he said while nodded to the stallion complex. “He has good conformation, a lot of people have remarked about that and in the current competitive stallion market breeders are not very forgiving – so you have to give them the real deal. This horse has the pedigree, he’s physical, has a lot of speed that was his style of racing; he dominated a lot of his races on the front end, and he retired sound off a resounding win in the Breeders Cup Dirt Mile.” “Tapizar is attractively priced at $15,000 live foal and has proved very popular with breeders,” stated Hernon. “Hopefully he is well positioned; he got a particularly good book of mares. We syndicated him and sold a number of shares to breeders who we felt were assets to
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the syndicate that will support the horse similarly to what we did with Tapit in the beginning of his career as a stallion.” “The other new stallion we have brought in is To Honor and Serve,” continues Hernon. “He raced for Mrs. Charlotte Weber who is a great supporter of the game and he was trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott. He was a very good 2-year-old, winning three of four starts including two graded stakes. At 3 he won the Cigar Mile over older horses in 1:33 and change in dominating fashion. As a 4-year-old he won the Westchester and a very memorable Grade 1Woodward Stakes at Saratoga when he defeated Mucho Macho Man. To Honor and Serve comes from a very strong female family, he’s a very good physical specimen; he sold for $575,000 as a yearling. He is getting strong support from Gainesway and Mrs. Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Stud as well as shareholders that bought into him. His sire Bernardini is a highly successful stallion, very commercial, and we are hoping we can have a very viable son of Bernardini at Gainesway. He raced at a high level with consistency through three years of racing. He is a big, attractive, and correct horse and he has all the components to be a top stallion in his own right.” It is not hard to sense Michael Hernon’s sense of pride to be a part of one of America’s premiere breeding farms. “It’s great to drive on to Gainseway daily, it’s a great place to come in, it’s a beautiful and highly productive farm. I’m particularly proud of the stallion roster and complex, and working directly with that and seeing horses come through our sales division, to graded success on the racetrack. Neil Howard was Farm Manager of the Year former manager at Calumet and prior to that worked for Lee Eaton. Brian Graves, our Director of Public Sales does a great job of developing our yearlings, turning them out to a ‘T’ and he is supported by Sherri Ivanovich, Lester Rogers and a group of highly capable grooms.” “The continuity of staff in the barns is very important; they are very reliable and good diligent workers who do a very good job of producing sale product,” says Hernon with conviction. “We handicap it well and put the horses where they are best positioned and marketed. The success of the consignments and the progeny out of those consignments have, if you will, given us a brand name and that has continued on with very strong sale results and we are right at the upper level of sales as far as sale average and clearance rate go. We’ve had numerous graded stakes winners come out of the consignments over the past few years.” “A lot of us enjoy the working environment and Antony Beck is great to work for; he’s directly involved and it’s nice to go out there in the morning and look at foals and yearlings developing.” As if reflecting to his Irish roots in Wicklow, where natural beauty and horses have blended for centuries, Hernon commented, “You just have to look out the window and you see the rolling Kentucky pasture land, the trees, the quality of the soil and the landscape. This is as good a place as any in the world to raise thoroughbreds. I think history has shown Gainesway is a highly successful farm, it has the natural ingredients, the traditions, combined with the very good horsemanship. It is an exciting business and sport and we enjoy doing this. When one gets lucky the rewards can be very gratifying and quite fruitful.”
The results at the sales prove Hernon’s overview to be true. “We’ve been operating with a high degree of success over the past few years, this farm raises a good horse and I think we produce horses to the minute with the success of the progeny from our shedrow on the racetrack. I believe the Gainesway brand is highly sought after. We bring our horses to the market to sell and they are fairly reserved and we sell them in a straightforward fashion and I think buyers know that and they compete for our horses with confidence. It is very gratifying to see those horses go on and be successful because you know that the buyers will come back to the same store.” While Gainesway Farm has deservedly received laurels for their Architectural Excellence and Horticultural contributions to the Lexington community, one cannot overlook the impact the farm and many like it impact the state of Kentucky. “The thoroughbred business in this area makes a significant contribution to the GNP and it is a major employer when you start spreading out to the farms, the breeders, the farriers, the feed man, the man that makes the stall cards and on and on. The fellows that build the fence and paint the fence, the tractors you need to mow these paddocks. The thoroughbred business is a big multiplier. This business who is such a big employer directly and indirectly and we want it to continue to endure. I’d like to see a bigger and broader realization that the horse business is not just an elite sport, it is accessible for many of people to get involved through racing and breeding partnerships. I can assure you, if you own a quarter of a horse or an eighth of a horse – you feel like you own the whole horse as he races towards the wire.” History will prove the contributions from John R. Gaines and the intelligent decisions and efforts of Graham and Antony Beck that Gainesway Farm will be recognized as a consistent creative force that has impacted and enhanced the Thoroughbred breed. Asked for a final reflection on the philosophy of this historic Kentucky farm, Michael Hernon paused briefly and confidently stated, “I think Gainesway is about breeding a superior horse that will overachieve on the racetrack. It is a game of chance and you just try to position yourself and your clients to be lucky by making informed and educated decisions. If you are good to your customers they will come back to you.”
Normandy Invasion winning his maiden at Aqueduct on 2Nov12, photo byAdam Conglianese
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Behind the Lens
Scrolling through the gorgeous photographs on her website, I was swept up by the raw emotion conveyed with each shot as love and joy radiate from frame to frame. Be it a sparkle in the eyes of a proud mother on her daughter’s wedding day, the touch between a husband and wife tenderly embracing in maternity pictures or an electric smile of a beautiful bride to be, Alicia artfully tells a story with each photograph she captures. Through this, her own story is beautifully displayed though Alicia professes, “My story isn’t glamorous or profound, just an absolute blessing.” Growing up a Southern California girl from Long Beach, love brought Alicia to the Bluegrass state. She shares, “now I’m married to the man who charmed me into leaving the sunshine state to be with him and I’m so happy I did.” As a child, she was always artistic, though she was never overly encouraged to delve deeper into her creative interests. For this reason, Alicia says, “If I am ever to see those qualities in my future children, I’ll help them explore that, so they can really tap into their love for the arts, sports or music early on to help uncover a career path that may interest them.” Alicia’s passion for photography developed over a long period of time and she admits, “I’m not sure I even knew I had a passion for it until it was so huge, it could no longer be ignored.” Although she had worked in both amazing photography studios and as an independent since 2002, she had never given serious thought to becoming a professional photographer with her own business. “It wasn’t until I came to Kentucky that it was thrust upon me before I could even refuse. When I moved to Campbellsville, job opportunities were very limited and I decided to work in an Amazon.com distribution center, as a ‘challenge’, which is funny in hindsight, because I never thought I’d be so mentally exhausted more than anything.” She continues, “On about day ten of my Amazon experience, I had a shift that required folding up boxes. It was during this horrible, redundant, almost meditative seven hours of making boxes when I asked myself ‘WHAT am I doing? Why am I here?!’. It was a huge wake up call. I had been too scared to fail at something I love, but at that point I realized it’s either take a risk in a field that’s already engrained in me, or make boxes.” This was Alicia’s last day at Amazon, and she was officially open to being a business owner. Once that decision was made, fabulous clients were sent her way, one by one. Presently, Alicia’s style is undergoing a bit of a transition as she shifts her focus to the future. Moving forward, she plans to get a little more personal with each photography session, providing a more intimate setting for her clients’ with in-home lifestyle shoots. Here, clients interact with one another as they would every day to capture those precious memories that ordinarily one would forget to see the magic in. For example, themes of a lifestyle shoot can include waking up with your family, making breakfast and playing with pets outside, though the possibilities are limitless. Alicia lights up when talking about her dreams and she is more than excited to take risks in her work, to continue raising awareness in the general population to value the artistry that goes into professional photography. With the concepts she is innovating currently, this is just the beginning for many more of Alicia’s dreams to become realities in 2013 and beyond.
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Behind the Lens
TOPS: What are the highlights of your career so far? ALICIA: I’ve done celebrity-retouching work and my weddings have been published in magazines and I’m so thankful for these opportunities, but I feel the biggest highlights of my career are in front of me. I’m a dreamer, so I hope the best is yet to come. TOPS: Are you involved in your community? ALICIA: I’ve recently discovered an amazing church in my small town that prides itself on embracing God-given talents. A lot of artists and musicians attend and I’ve never felt more at home. We recently did a photoshoot recreating the last supper with about 20 members of the church, which turned out beautifully and will be displayed in the church’s cafe. I can’t wait to see what sort of other opportunities present themselves. TOPS: What are your passions? ALICIA: Time outside of my job are hard to come by these days, but I really love being outdoors. Getaways to the beach, mountains, or lake are fantastic. Hiking and riding motorcycles with my husband are wonderful escapes. I love food and eating at new restaurants. I have a traveling heart and crave new environments. I’m passionate about animals, especially cats (we own four), and would love to seek out a good organization in Kentucky to become involved with. I love fashion, trends, design, streetstyle and curling up with a good book or movie. Time with friends is also a passion. TOPS: What projects do you have coming up next? ALICIA: I am very excited about an upcoming plan to infuse my interest in fashion not only with my photography, but with other like-minded creatives. A good friend of mine owns a fantastic boutique in Campbellsville called Awaken and my next personal project is working on an online look book with her. TOPS: Where do you find inspiration? ALICIA: I’m very inspired by fashion, light, visible emotion and unique personalities. TOPS: What is your favorite Green Smoothie Recipe? ALICIA: Any kind of frozen berries blended with spinach and a dash of fresh ginger to add an unexpected but delicious zing. TOPS: Do you have a favorite topic or type of photography? ALICIA: I appreciate all forms of art and photography, my taste in art is very eclectic. Film is a huge trend in wedding photography right now and I’m absolutely in love with the softness and vibrance. I’m also into abstract digital photography with bold contrast, muted shadows and bright colors. TOPS: What is your favorite childhood memory? ALICIA: I began traveling with my childhood best friend and her family at a young age and that’s probably where my wanderlust heart was born. Lake Powell, Utah was our playground for many summers. I’m a product of the 80s and love the simple memories of running around outside with my friends, looking 80s-tastic. The world felt so different.
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Behind the Lens
TOPS: What is the direction of Aesthetiica Photography? ALICIA: Promoting more in-home, lifestyle sessions and encouraging clients to consider portraits for all stages of life is going to be a big focus. Photography is not only important when you become engaged or get married, and it is great to consider it for a fifth wedding anniversary, college graduation, job promotion, first home purchase, new pet in the family, milestone birthdays and family vacations. These are all reasons to celebrate and document our lives. I will absolutely continue to photograph weddings, but I’d like to invest more time in editorial and fashion photography as well. TOPS: What is your best career advice? ALICIA: Regarding career—embrace the journey, and, where possible, change what you don’t like. It took me a long time to listen to that advice and it is a freeing revelation since many have come to expect this instant gratification and it isn’t realistic. The expectation of overnight success, in any field, will easily discourage you. Every setback and disappointment is setting you up to become exactly what you’re meant to be. You cannot control life, but you can control your reaction to it.
Visit Alicia’s website to see more of her work, aesthetiica.com
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KET
Summer Celebration T
he silver anniversary of Summer Celebration is saluting the silver screen while toasting the 44-year history of public television in Kentucky. KET’s annual fundraiser, Summer Celebration, is setting a milestone next month with its 25th anniversary. Don and Mira Ball agreed to host the small, inaugural event in 1989 at their beautiful Fayette county farm. “The first event happened because two of my very good friends, Joy Hembree and Isabel Yates, thought it would be good to start an event to help raise funds for KET programming. We had a small tent on the lawn at our farm office, some auction items, and invited our friends to come and enjoy spring in the country. I doubt any of us thought it would develop into what it is today,” Mira Ball said. Their continued support is credited as a tremendous part of the success of Summer Celebration. “Through the years, we’ve been fortunate to have had many wonderful volunteers that have led and worked hard on the parties. But Don and Mira Ball have probably been the single biggest factor in the party’s longevity,” says Shae Hopkins, KET’s executive director and chief executive officer.
by Michele Rauch Photos courtesy of KET
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KET
Longtime event hosts Don & Mira Ball with daughter Lisa Ball Sharp
Donamire Farm hosted the inaugural event in 1989. After rotating to various locations, the event returned to Donamire.
The party has grown tremendously in attendance and financial support. “A record setting 1,069 KET supporters attended last year’s Summer Celebration, which raised more than $250,000, another record. While the fundraiser has grown, the foundation of the party has remained rooted in its inception. The party is held under a tent at the Ball’s Donamire Farm. There is a buffet dinner, dancing, open bar and auction. “The volunteers and staff do all the work and as a result the bottom line is always good because the expenses are held to a minimum. The staff at KET are so creative and keep coming up with new ideas that make each year different,” Ball said. The only thing that has changed is fine tuning the event. “For instance, the first year, we had a nice little tent with beautiful flowers, a small dance floor, etc., but we hadn’t thought about lighting – so when it got dark, the party was over. We didn’t have a candle or a flashlight – we could hardly find our cars!” Hopkins recalls. This year will be grander than ever. The glitz and glamour of the golden era of Hollywood will set the stage to recognize past honorary chairs. Feast on food catered by DaRae & Friends and tap your toes to the sounds of The Jimmy Church Band. Even the silent auction is bigger and better than its humble start twenty five years ago with a dozen items. This year there will be more than three hundred items to bid on, including University of Kentucky men’s basketball lower arena season tickets, jewelry, home furnishings, fine art, autographed Hollywood memorabilia, and vacation packages.
1989 | The first volunteer steering committee has a lot to be proud of
1990 | KET founder O. Leonard Press & wife Lillian appreciate the community support
1994 | Making a Grand Entrance
1994 | KET’s Shae Hopkins and Central Bank’s John Irvin dance the night away
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KET
Summer Celebration are used to help purchase the programs everyone enjoys – from Sesame Street to Downton Abbey, and Doc Martin. It costs KET roughly three-million dollars a year to purchase these and all of the other programs from PBS and other sources. The bulk of that comes from private funding. While the Summer Celebration is a beautiful signature event that brings like-minded supporters out for a night of entertainment, encouraging support is a year-round effort. TeleFund allows viewers to make donations from the comfort of home. Individuals and businesses generously underwrite programs. There are corporate and foundation grants as well as planned giving bequests. It all adds up and keeps KET’s vision of community in focus. “We are grateful and honored by the trust and generosity of some 35,000 members who believe in our mission and keep KET and Kentucky strong,” said Ripley. Community is at the core of keeping quality programming on the air. “Personally, I believe that KET is the institution it is today because of the extraordinary vision of Len Press and the support we’ve had all these years from the General Assembly, Governors, our congressional delegation; and from our viewers and volunteers – along with the most dedicated, talented, and passionate employees you’ll find anywhere,” Hopkins said. That vision continues under Hopkins’ leadership. Hopkins’ passion for public programming was instilled by her parents growing up. “My earliest memory of KET is coming home from school and watching Sesame Street with Josh. He was learning and I was laughing at all the subtle humor,” Hopkins said. It’s a life-long appreciation that is shared by her brother. “Public television is unique. There may be hundreds of options on television, but no one else offers the consistent quality. No one else is going to make the Civil War come alive, no other channel is going to make science so interesting like PBS does with Nova. And if it were profitable and commercially viable, you’d find these programs other places. Public broadcasting is a service, available to everyone and I think our country is better for it,” Josh Hopkins said. So is the Commonwealth. “The KET network is one of the best in the nation and serves the Commonwealth like nothing else does, from creative materials for the classroom to Emmy award presentations. It is a jewel to be treasured,” Ball said. KET’s programming fosters a value for life-long learning, respect for all voices, and creativity. KET is poised to step up to meet a greater-than-ever demand for their educational services and programming. Summer Celebration is growing to help meet the demand. “It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty-five years, but it’s also pretty amazing that an event would last that long and still be so successful and growing. Many wonderful volunteers have made it possible and this 25th Summer Celebration is really a tribute to them,” Hopkins said.
1986 | Commonwealth Fund for KET Chairman John Hall, Senator Mitch McConnell & wife Elain Chao, KET Exec. Director Virginia Fox
1999 | Robert Fox and Sue Wylie with Governor Ernie Fletcher & First Lady Glenna
2007 | Tracy Farmer, Adam Edelen and Governor Steve Beshear
2010 | Three of KET’s Executive Directors Ginni Fox, Len Press and Shae Hopkins
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Community Spotlight
a
child is one of the most innocent creatures on Earth. Helpless without love and nurturing, all they ask for is a chance. Every child deserves a chance. A chance to learn, to grow and to just be a kid. Also, every parent deserves the chance to provide these things to their children, while getting the opportunity to build a better life for themselves and their families. The High Street Neighborhood Center gives children that chance, and families the opportunity to work hard or further their education. The amount of confidence this brings a parent affects the child and makes the family unit a much stronger one.
by Kelly Adams Photos courtesy of High Street Neighbord Center MAY 2013 | TOPS MAGAZINE
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Community Spotlight
WHAT’S THAT? The High Street Neighborhood Center has been around since 1969; that’s 44 years of service to the community. In this time they have built up a strong network of children and families who have used the services of the Center. “The High Street Neighborhood Center was started by two downtown churches, Calvary Baptist and First United Methodist, to provide quality care for young children so that their parents could work and hopefully be removed from the welfare system,” informs Sue Weant, one of the original board members of the Center. “These children are fed, loved, and nurtured in every way.” Clearly the Center holds a special place in the hearts of all those who have been a part of it. Any parent knows the importance of education in their child’s life. At High Street, the staff makes sure every child who walks through their doors in the morning leaves with a sense of learning and fellowship. The High Street Neighborhood Center offers such a diverse atmosphere for the children and families. Children from all socioeco-
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nomic levels, religions, cultures and races are welcome at the Center. The Center’s downtown location also attracts great diversity, and being so close to the universities, allows parents to get their education, or teach a class, with their children nearby.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE In 2013, childcare has become one of the biggest expenses for households. Imagine if you can barely afford food for your child, having to spend that money on an expensive day care system. With a vicious cycle like that, it is a wonder anyone in our country gets off of the welfare system. The High Street Neighborhood Center wants to help with that. The people who founded the center wanted to give parents the opportunity to take one financial worry off their minds. This jolt in funds can allow them to further their education or their career so they can eventually support their family without any government assistance.
Community Spotlight
“Education is the key for our families to be successful,” says Whitney Schlansky, director of the High Street Neighborhood Center since 2001. “We not only provide a safe, loving and Christian environment to help our children thrive, but we also provide adult education to our families on subjects such as nutrition and budgeting.” As young families struggle through that turning point stage of trying to work and raise a family, the High Street Neighborhood Center is there to give Lexington families a much-needed boost.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? Schlansky states, “We have been serving Lexington and the surrounding counties for more than 40 years! We want our families to be happy so that they will continue to spread the word about our good work.” About 60 percent of the families at High Street are receiving state subsidies for their childcare expense. With new changes and budget cuts coming into effect this July, most of the families at the center will be affected. At that point, they will need scholarships to help them pay, which the Center doesn’t have. Without that money for childcare, many parents will have to quit their jobs because they simply can’t afford to work. This tragedy makes it even more pertinent that the community gets behind the Center.
If you are wondering what you can do to help, besides tell everyone you know about the Center, be a part of their biggest fundraiser of the year. The 4th Annual High Street Neighborhood Center Golf Scramble will be held at the University Club on June 7. Get together a foursome and have some fun while helping one of the best causes in Lexington. One day of golf for you can contribute to scholarships for many of the families at High Street. “We hope the attendees of our golf scramble will learn about our ministry and understand it’s importance to the families of the Bluegrass,” implores Schlansky. Not a golfer? The Center is always looking for volunteers for their reading program. In April, the Center celebrated their Literacy Campaign by promoting the benefits of reading and encouraging families that did so with free books. If you are looking to help the hard-working staff and hang out with some great kids, visit the center’s website, highstreetneighborhood.org, for more information. Just a little bit of your time goes a long way in the eyes of a child. Children should remain innocent and the High Street Neighborhood Center allows them that opportunity by giving parents the chance to provide, for their family, a gift that is worth more than anything else on Earth.
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Family
MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS by Hallie Bandy
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Motherboard
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I was one of those children whose mother spoke the prophetic words, “Someday you’ll have a child just…like…you.” I do have one just like me. And, believe me, I had it coming. But God in his wisdom did not send that child first. Instead, he gave me a child who is a lot like my mother. My mother and I are opposites. As a child, when your Mom doesn’t think the way you do, you don’t really process that with the insight you have as an adult; but you understand it innately nonetheless. Clearly, like most mothers, my mother never intentionally injured me, physically or emotionally; she just sees the world differently than I do. She was artistic, impulsive. I am thoughtful and organized. Her idea of a clean house was closing the door to her room, w h e r e she kept the baskets of backed-up laundry. My idea of clean was spending an entire Saturday in my room, putting everything in perfect order. She loved to tell me how, when I grew up and had my own house, I could do things as I wished. And I did. I grew up and got my own home, and I had things in order. Just as I liked. Which is why, I’m convinced, God sent my oldest daughter to our home. I spent her childhood trying – unsuccessfully – to turn her into a mini-me. I didn’t quite understand her messy tendencies, why she got out of bed headfirst, and never seemed to be in a hurry. I scolded her for dawdling. I tried to give her incentives to perform. During her early years of violin lessons, her teacher suggested I give her an incentive to pass a certain milestone. I asked her what would be the coolest thing I could buy her, expecting the kind of list that I would have made – an expensive toy or electronic gadget. “Fluff,” she replied. What she meant was, a bag of cotton balls. For crafts. Was that all? After some prodding, she added paper plates and glue to the list. I bought her off for under $5.
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My mother, who understood her granddaughter’s personality all too well, added some industrial-sized jars of glitter to the collection. When her toddler brother escaped my attention for too long one day and spilled the jars all over her room, she didn’t cry or demand I replace the supply. She just stood back and admired the carpet, which, despite my vigorous work with the vacuum, was permanently imbedded with glitter: “I always wanted a sparkly room,” she said. As she grew older and could better express her opinions, our differences were more apparent. I said “classic;” she said “boring.” I liked order. She liked flexibility. When she took AP Psychology her sophomore year of High School, I finally began to understand. “We took all kinds of personality tests,” she informed me. “I’m going to live to be 135. I’m type B.” I laughed quietly as I realized I’d spent so many years trying to figure out what made her tick, only to find out that, actually, she doesn’t tick. She skips. In the final weeks before she left for college, I reminded her daily of the looming task of packing up her room. She was much more concerned about spending as much time with friends that she wouldn’t see for awhile. Even the last evening, as she was adding to the already immense stack of boxes, friends stopped by. As she skipped through campus and into her new home-away-from-home, I tried to help her get settled. I had prepared myself that she wouldn’t want to do things my way, initially. But I was prepared to take charge and put things in order anyway. I naively thought that my persuasive, logical instructions would help her see that I had the best ideas for arranging her room, opening her bank account and any other detail of college life. And then it happened—I saw her look at me with the look I remember giving my mother. That I’mgoing-to-do-it-my-way-which-is-notatall-your-way look. And I realized, her not doing things my way was no more an insult to me than it was to my Mom when I didn’t do things her way. She knows herself, and she knows how she wants things. The beauty of learning to understand my daughter is that I have begun to understand my mother, as well. Now, I’m kind of hoping that my daughter has a kid who’s just like me.
Parties
Host an Empowering Tween Girl Birthday Party by Deanna Talwalkar Party Planner
Tween girls are at the delicate stage between little girl and teenager, so it’s important to celebrate their birthdays in a way that reflects them. My daughter recently celebrated her 10th birthday party. For her party, she wanted to have a small slumber party with her five closest friends. I have always believed in the power of creating meaningful party details to celebrate the guest of honor. But, for tween girls, it’s crucial to also celebrate and encourage everyone at the party. Tween years can sometimes be trying. During this time, tweens are figuring out their values and beliefs. Their experiences during these formative years will contribute to the teens and young women they become. Whenever possible, it’s crucial to create an empowering atmosphere for a group of tween girls. Here are a couple of tips to make a tween party special for all of the girls: Create a special space: During my daughter’s party, the girls sat at a table specially decorated just for them. They were so excited to see their special space and all the fun décor we made just for them. They ate their dinner there, and then returned to the same spots for cake, and for breakfast the next morning.
wisdom. One simple way I incorporated this idea was by setting up a yogurt bar where they could build their own parfait. Additionally, one activity they enjoyed was painting their own canvas. While the girls were painting, I overheard them all praising each other’s paintings. These were simple ideas to plan, but were both confidence-building activities. Limit technology: By foregoing a movie and keeping the television off for the evening, the girls were able to role play and just talk with one another. Instead of zoning out in front of a screen, they spent many hours role playing and giggling! Choose a meaningful favor: My favorite choice for party favors for tween girls is some type of inexpensive jewelry. My daughter and I often make jewelry that coordinates with the theme of the party. Later, when they wear the jewelry, they are reminded of the night they shared with their friends. A well decorated party that includes gorgeous décor and stunning desserts makes for a fantastic party. But, what I truly love about a party for a tween girl is creating a space where all of the girls can be encouraged and empowered to be their own best person!
Include one activity to build encouragement: While the girls were eating dinner, I encouraged them to each write a positive statement about everyone else sitting at the table on pieces of cardstock that decorated the middle of the table. OH MY GOODNESS! I never imagined what a wonderful moment it would be for all of them. Not only did they write beautiful statements about each other, but they also read aloud all of the affirmations. That led to them engaging in a lengthy discussion about all the things they loved about each other. Give them choices: Of course, my daughter had many ideas about what she wanted to incorporate into her party. But, I also intentionally gave the other girls choices to make during the party. Allowing girls to make choices empowers them to believe in their own
Photos & Styling by Mirabelle Creations
To download the paper templates shown here, visit topsinlex.com/Read/4041/HOST+AN+EMPOWERING+TWEEN+GIRL+BIRTHDAY+PARTY
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Posh Paws
PET ALLERGIES by Amanda Harper, Pet Aficionado
My aunt has a basset hound that’s allergic to grass. Considering that the grass in the yard can come up to his knees even when the lawn has been impeccably manicured, it’s kind of a problem around her house. Poor Buford’s belly gets itchy, so his rather unwise solution is to plop down on the ground and scratch it—on the grass. His paws are continually bothering him, his belly gets bald patches and he’s just a miserable ol’ hound until lawn mowing season comes to an end. After many trips to the vet, they’ve found an allergy management treatment that works reasonably well, but he’s still prone to “hot spots” after he goes rolling around in the yard. We’re used to thinking about allergies in terms of ourselves—many of us are allergic to pet dander and many more are allergic to all manner of pollen or mold. Pets can develop allergies, just like humans. And some pet allergies are pretty tough to manage. Diagnosing a pet allergy can be an incredibly frustrating process. While it’s easy to monitor a person’s habits and reactions to their environment, our pets can be a bit trickier. Your dog may be in fine shape when he heads out the door for a walk, but by the time you get home, he may be itching, sneezing or watery-eyed. What on your walk caused these symptoms? Was it the grass you tromped through, the pollen in the air or something else? First, focus on the pollen count. If your pet’s allergies seem to spike on high pollen days, that may be your culprit. Often, you can consult the internet for what allergens are high in your area, as well. Your pet may react more strongly to a particular allergen, like ragweed. Dr. Drew Weigner, a board-certified feline veterinary specialist and owner of The Cat Doctor in Atlanta, says that cats often don’t have actual seasonal allergies, but instead react to the physical irritation of pollen. Second, focus on the type of turf you walk on. If your dog seems to do fine on asphalt but gets itchy on grass, it’s likely the grass that’s behind it all. If it seems sporadic, notice whether it happens more often on freshly-mowed grass or on a particular type of grass. Some dogs are fine on grass that’s had a break from mowing for a while. Likewise, some dogs do well on sod lawns while lawns that feature bluegrass or many different types of grass are troublesome. Is your pet rarely outdoors? Does your pet actually seem to improve when outside? It may be your home’s interior that’s an irritant! Dust, mold, home fragrances and other environmental factors may lead to your pet’s symptoms.
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Another possible suspect is your pet’s diet. Change the protein in your pet’s food for several weeks to see if your pet’s condition improves. Consult your vet for a feeding transition timeline that will help your pet’s tummy make the switch without any problems. Found the cause? Treating a pet’s allergy can be just as difficult. Before you try any allergy treatment, consult your veterinarian. Some medications and topical treatments won’t be sufficient for the situation or may be a hazard to your pet. Your vet may also suggest some avenues of treatment you hadn’t previously considered. Like humans, some pets with severe allergies respond well to allergy shots or steroid medications. Medicated shampoos and ointments may be recommended, as well as allergy medicines, changes in routine or anti-itch sprays. If a grass allergy is suspected, your vet may suggest you re-sod your lawn. While this may seem like a drastic measure, it could mean a much happier summer for you and your pet. It’s always important to remember that your pet is sensitive to his environment. Unlike a person, your dog may not be aware of what’s causing his discomfort. He may well end up spending his afternoons rolling around in his allergen, like my aunt’s beloved Buford.
Gardening
RAIN GARDEN by Michelle Rauch, Gardening Enthusiast
Rain, rain, go away or at least drain the right of way. We need rain in our ecosystem; however, when rain hits concrete and other impervious surfaces it picks up pollutants and adds to storm water runoff which is not good for our environment. A rain garden can alleviate the associated problems of runoff and do so beautifully. A rain garden, simply put, is a shallow sunken landscape. It captures storm water which soaks into the ground during the 48 hours after a storm. In addition to filtering and absorbing the rain preventing water pollution, flooding, and erosion, a rain garden improves the soil. Native plants and grasses will thrive in that environment. The deep roots of native plants will soak up the rainwater which in turn recharges the groundwater supply. The first thing to look at if you want to plant a rain garden is the drainage pattern in your yard. Look for a natural downslope originating near a driveway, sidewalk and your downspouts. After you identify that area, dig a shallow depression. Based on Lexington’s average rain history, create a space that is 8” deep and covers an area that is 8’ x 10’. This space is adequate to collect water from one downspout. If you have an area that will be absorbing a greater amount of runoff, go bigger or consider creating more than one rain garden.
ca.uky.edu
After you have identified your prime spot, call before you dig. A quick call to 8-1-1 will prevent damage and the danger of hitting underground lines. Another biggie, make sure your rain garden is at least ten feet away from your house. The last thing you want to do is soak the foundation of your home. The digging is done. Time to plant. Everything is game: shrubs, trees, plants, and grasses. Take your pick. Top it off with a shredded, hard wood mulch. That will keep weeds at bay and maintain the moisture. The design of a rain garden allows the water to drain within 48 hours. That’s good news if you’re worried about creating an environment for mosquitos. The mosquito life cycle needs a week to twelve days worth of standing water.
thedoodlehouse.com
With a little planning, you can cash in on the trifecta of gardening. Beauty. A natural habitat for birds, bees, and butterflies. And it’s great for the environment. That’s a winning combination. The city of Lexington’s department of environmental quality has an online brochure with tips from scouting out the perfect location to designing, building, and maintaining a rain garden. Here are two other great local resources on rain gardens. University of Kentucky College of Agriculture ca.uky.edu/gogreen/ Bluegrass Rain Garden Alliance bluegrassraingardenalliance.org
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City of Burnsville, MN and Barr Engineering Co.
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The great room also functions as a grand kitchen and breakfast nook area with a beautiful granite island from Quality Stone Countertops and intricate wood cabinetry from BC Woodworking.
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Sloan & I can have a retreat by relaxing in here while still being within earshot of our boys.
The sitting room houses gorgeous heirloom pieces from Sloan’s grandmother and Jane shares how fond it is to remember her through each vintage furniture piece passed down to them.
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Off the great room lies one of Jane’s favorite rooms in the house—the sunroom. The sand painted walls complimented by the bead board ceiling keep the room feeling bright and airy. The skylights and French doors provide a breathtaking view of the outdoors and the custom mantle, an old railroad tie cut and stained by the builders Paul Sawyer and Mike Elder, finishes the room beautifully. The master bedroom is spacious yet warm with soothing tones throughout. The cherry four-post bed adds height and structure to the room while the soft linens keep the tone inviting. The master bathroom is an exquisite retreat featuring a walk in shower, deep soaking tub and built in flat-screen television to catch up on favorite programs after a long day playing on the water.
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When not on the water, the Warner family enjoys time together in their in-home theater room watching favorite flicks and reclining in the bean bag chairs that convert to pull out beds, a great feature when the Warner boys have sleep overs. Jane and Sloan also make time to maintain their health with the help of an in-home gym complete with an elliptical machine, weight bench and weights, Bosu exercise ball and flat-screen television. Custom made to fit the space is the gym style floor that provides just the right bounce to keep them working out comfortably. Here, the yellow walls keep the energy levels bright and lively making this space a great environment for working out.
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WOW Wedding
DETAILS Venue: Legacy Farms | Wedding Planner: Main Event Productions | Photography: Matt Andrews Photography Florist: Enchanged Florist | Cake: Bake Shoppe | Catering: A Catered Arrair | String Quartet: High Tone Entertainment | Reception Music: JD’s Music
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Weddings
Take it Personally – Personalize Items for Your Wedding Celebration by Marsha Koller Wedding Consultant
Everyone wants their wedding to be special and a little bit different from everyone else’s. An easy way to accomplish this is customization throughout your wedding choices. There’s always the standards like personalized paper napkins, and dare we say matches, but taking personalized imprinting a step further can step up the elegance and style of your wedding. Create a Logo: Creating a logo will unify your look and give your event cohesiveness. If you don’t know how, you can visit a logo maker site like logoease.com, or a local printer can that layout a simple logo for you, and provide you with files in digital formats you can use for other personalization throughout your wedding. A classic simple logo would be a traditional monogram, and the type style should reflect your style. Water Water Everywhere: Personalizing your water bottles for your wedding is a great idea. If you plan ahead and use a more generic message you can use these for your showers, bachelorette parties and luncheons as well. Or you may want to have event specific personalized bottles. Companies like Highbridge Springs provide this service, with a minimum required purchase that may not work for small weddings or showers. Or go to a local printer who will design and print them, and you can hand wrap them, even tying on a colorful paper straw. Wine Time: Another spot for personalization is your wine bottles. Local wineries have gotten smart and by providing a photo, logo, or wedding information, they can custom design very professional labeling for your wedding, delivered ready to serve. If you want to use a better-known brand, you can create these labels yourself on your home computer, or go to a local printer to layout and print for you. All you need is a glue stick to wrap the existing wine label with your own. Your Name In Lights: A glamorous and fabulous way to personalize your reception is to use Gobo spotlights projecting the bride and grooms name on the dance floor. Take it to the next level and also project this image onto the walls of your reception area, giving you the opportunity to ‘decorate up’ and add shine to
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your décor. Other image ideas are to project your new shared last name, or use your created ‘Logo’ or Monogram that you use throughout your venue. This is a great look that many high-end venues use to add pizzazz. Any event planner, DJ, or event coordinator will know how to make this a reality. Candy Bars: If not used as favors, include a couple baskets of customized candy bars on your dessert table, and use this as an opportunity to get creative. We’ve all seen the ones with the couples name and wedding date, including the list of ‘ingredients’ like love. Think about using the candy bar to communicate your honeymoon plans like where you are headed and what you are planning on once you get there. Be clever with a play on words on the type of candy bars you cover… “He’s always there for me in a CRUNCH” or “She’s a Hot Tamale”. You can order these online, or do them yourself with simple graphics programs on your computer. Burn Baby Burn: A simple project to customize for your guests is to burn a custom CD of your favorite music. The musical theme could be love songs or your favorites from a band you both love. Cuts can be all from a genre of music like country ballads or even like show tunes if you both love the theatre. (Spamalot may not be romantic, but your guests will know it’s totally ‘you’!) The play list could be from the musical era that you met or from your high school days, especially if you were high school sweethearts. If you have a themed wedding like a beach wedding, the cd could be comprised of beach or surf tunes just for fun. For a techy touch, put these on mini jump drives, and they can double as wedding favors.
myweddinglogos.com
stamps.com
printyourparty.com
Stamp It Out: For your invitations, ordering custom postage stamps through the US Postal Service is a fabulous, easy idea and can include an engagement photo. This opportunity shouldn’t be missed, since you have to buy stamps anyway. These are just a few ways to get personal when planning your wedding. Be creative when you look at your choices, and much of it will depend on your budget. If you are unlimited, you can customize down to your initials on your water glasses. Be smart - just a few custom touches will make your event special. myweddinglogos.com