Black Tie UNTIED

The Sertoma Sarasota Celebrity Roast always provides big laughs and a lot of red faces. This year’s roastee was Dr. Larry Thompson, president of Ringling College of Art and Design. Earlier in the week, Thompson mentioned he was a bit nervous about what might happen at the roast.

The lucky four who had a chance to roast Thompson included Dan Bailey, Jim Shirley, Teri Hansen and Sheriff Tom Knight.

“It’s hard to embarrass him,” said Shirley, “he does that pretty well himself.”

Each roaster had a plan of attack. Shirley planned to focus on Thompson’s creativity and uniqueness.
Hansen had video footage from a former elementary school teacher, a college roommate and a Ringling student. Knight’s daughter attends Ringling College, so Knight planned on roasting Thompson about the cost of his daughter’s tuition. Bailey got creative and decided to poke fun at Thompson’s costume choices at the Avant Garde galas, and he had a slideshow of the outfits from 2000 to 2012. Bailey went the extra mile by getting ahold of Thompson’s Roy Rogers costume — he wore it over his suit during his presentation.

Thompson’s children, Sarah and Hunter, were excited to be at the event.

“I don’t usually like going to these kinds of things,” said Sarah Thompson, “but when I heard my dad was going to be roasted I said, ‘I want to be in the front row!’”

After the event, Thompson said, “It was fabulous! People really carved me out and made me well done.” Of course, Thompson was happy to say that he got back at each of his “so-called friends” during his rebuttal.

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art held its first Wine Walk to the Ca d’Zan Friday, March 15.
More than 325 people took part in the walk, which started at the front of the museum and ended at the Ca d’Zan, where guests enjoyed watching the sunset.

Each person was given a passport to be stamped as they wandered from state to state and then country to country. Each passport also had information about the wine, the food and the place they were visiting, which included Oregon, Washington, California, Argentina, Japan, Italy and France. Later in the evening, people rocked out to Big Z and enjoyed artisan chocolates from Viktoria Richards.

Get a taste of the wine walk in the video below.