Macy’s is running the “Diddy Dash” commercial. It reveals that the ever-busy, everywhere P Diddy has hundreds of clones to fulfill all his duties and responsibilities. Tuesday, October 15, Carole and Scott Murray only wished they had their own clones.
It seems that their presence was required at two different locations at the same time for two worthy causes — the launch of the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’ 90th anniversary at LOOK in Addison and the St. Jude patron party at Karen and Mark Carney’s home in Preston Hollow.
They ended up having to make the Solomon choice. In this case, they had to be at the United Way largely because of Murray Productions’ involvement in the presentation and Scott’s emceeing the panel discussion by former Dallas Cowboys in one of the complex’s theaters.
Folks lining up for a movie in another theater were a wee bit surprised to see a pop-up CBS21 studio nearby with Troy Aikman and Charlotte Jones Anderson being interviewed by CBS21’s Bill Jones, Emmitt Smith off to the side surrounded by friends and fans, and UWMD President/CEO Jennifer Sampson glowing over the turnout for the launch of the 90th anniversary, which just so happened to coincide with the NFL’s 40th anniversary in partnering up with United Way Worldwide.
It was almost too successful. Upstairs the lounge was so jammed that it was a squeeze play just to move around with the likes of Holly Reed, Laura and Jason Downing, Rosalind and Rich Dalrymple, Hal Brierley, Charles Bain Key and Ellen and John McStay.
In the theater, guests learned that the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas along with corporate partners will “host nine volunteer-driven service projects that showcase the work being done by United Way volunteers and honors in the community. This initiative, named ‘Nine for 90,’ will be championed by a Dallas Cowboys legend who has participated in the United Way partnership through the years.” The nine players include Roger Staubach, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Charlie Waters, Tony Dorsett, Randy White, Emmitt, Troy, Darren Woodson and Jason Witten.
And while their physical presence was at United Way, Carole and Scott were at the St. Jude patron party in spirit. After all, they are the honorees at the October 26th St. Jude’s “Evening Under the Stars” at the Omni. In addition to a cocktail reception, dinner and partying, Event Co-Chairs/Haggar sisters Marian Bryan and Lydia Novakov have arranged live entertainment by Nashville songwriters Sonny Curtis, Tommy Lee James, Don Poythress and Phillip White.
But for the patron party they had another Nashville resident fly in. This one wasn’t so much into writing songs as researching cures for children’s leukemia. She was Dr. Tanja Gruber, who is “leading one of the Pediatric Children’s Genome Projects (PCGP) at St. Jude by sequencing Acute Megakaryoblastic Leukemia (AMKL), which is a myeloid leukemia with a poor prognosis.”
Others in for the reception were Host Committee Co-Chair Doug Brooks sans wife Holly, who was home under the weather; Margo Keyes sans husband Jim, whose artwork was just revealed as the featured work for this year’s The Catholic Foundation wall in the Arts District; and longtime supporters Bonnie and John Strauss (he’s been on the Leadership Committee for a number of years and also serves on the St. Jude Professional Advisory Committee).