Who Had More Fun Saturday Night — Guests or Waiters?

Waiting on people is an art form. Most people take it for granted until they run into a real nightmare of a server. Saturday night’s serving experiences at the Palomar were just the opposite. The Celebrity Waiter Gala had absolute dreams performing the usual and most unusual serving experiences this side of the French Room. Henceforth, the Celebrity Waiters will be referred to as “CW”.

Benefiting the Child Abuse Prevention Center, it started out with a silent auction in the hallway of the second floor of the hotel. The usual low ceilings of the hotel’s hallway seemed lower than usual with the multitudes crowding to see all the goodies. Don’t know how 6’3″ CW/Hunk Kris Clinton (pictured) or 6’2″ Celebrity Chair Daryl Johnston managed. And what about all those poor little beauties with their crowns.

Speaking of the crowned crowd, Kristi “Mrs. North Texas 2010″ Engstrom immediately became best friends with Honorary Chairs Al and Sharron Gonzalez (pictured with Kristi).

Despite the crowded hallways, everyone was quite charming. For instance Honorary Chair Julie Rado was seen having her hand kissed by CW Alonso “Reality Show Type” Martinez (pictured with Steve and Julie Rado) as her husband Steve looked on. Drat! How could Julie look so svelte? She just had a baby seven months ago!

But don’t believe that beauty stopped with Julie and crowned types. Nope, Diane “Honorary Celebrity Co-chair” Johnston caught up with former runway bud/CW Rhonda Sargent Chambers (pictured with Diane). Rhonda later went on to earn the most money for waiting her table. Rhonda pulled all the stoppers out including the fact that she slept with one of the guests — her husband Kit, who also pulled out a guitar and starting strumming beautifully along.

But despite her wholesome looks, Rhonda wasn’t all nice, nice. Holding eating utensils hostage until guests paid up was pretty dirty pool. But then it helped that George “Spirit of Compassion Recipient” Ellis (pictured) was one of her guests.

If you did a double take on George because he wasn’t with his main squeeze, you were right. He had his sis-in-law Charlotte Hirschfelder (pictured) on his arm because his wife was attending her son’s prom and wasn’t about to miss the mother/son dance.

And speaking of couples, Jan and Steve Langbein (pictured) hardly looked like they have been married 40 years. Great story on how they met and had their first date. But don’t ask Jan. She’s got her hands full with the upcoming Genesis “Mother’s Day Luncheon” featuring Condoleezza Rice.

And then there were Dr. Wesley and Jeff Brady (pictured) looking right at home. Since leaving WFAA-CH. 8, Jeff has decided to test out the bearded look. He still reminds one of Montgomery Clift.

But back to the waiter action. It was sorta amazing that Rhonda won when you realize that she behaved herself compared to the likes of Kristen “Miss Texas” Blair who saw no problem in standing on one of the chairs and singing a capella. Thanks to hand-kissing Alonso, she didn’t wobble at all as the money box collected $$.

But Kristen wasn’t the only songbird in the room. Country star Janie Fricke (pictured) sang for her supper and quieted the noisy crowd by singing “America the Beautiful.”

Emily Lites (pictured) at age 11 looked like she should have been attending a Cinderella prom. If you haven’t already heard about Miss Emily, you’ve missed a marvelous story that didn’t start off that way. It seems that due to her brother Jude‘s being in the hospital, she realized that more smiles were needed to cheer young patients. So, the blond-haired youngster started Emily’s Smile Box, that provides brightly-colored gable boxes filled with crayons, markers, stickers, card games, stuffed animals and such to children’s hospitals. So far, 550 boxes have been distributed. Emily’s motto is “One person really can make a difference.” Now, let’s all line up and be very nice to Emily. She’s going to be running the world one day.

While all of the servers scurried to please their demanding (not really) guests, the hardest working team was the Krispin Krew. Catering extraordinaire Wendy Krispin and her two assistants, daughter Neely and son Peter (pictured with Neely and Wendy) never stopped moving. From serving wine (very much under the watchful eye of mom) to checking on bread needs, the Krispins were all business. But then Wendy knew what to expect. This year was her ninth time as a CAP Center CW.

In hindsight, the adults all had a great time, but it was the kiddos that made the impact. Besides helping to prevent child abuse, it was obvious that with youngsters like Emily, Peter and Neely on the scene, the future is in better hands than many would expect.

Tagged as: Celebrity Waiter Gala, Child Abuse Prevention Center, Hotel Palomar