Some might have considered the Cattle Baron’s Trailblazers Party at Gas Monkey Live on Thursday, May 21, as the final bash of the 2015 Spring fundraising season. Others would have just raised their eyebrows skyward in shock. After all, Dallas fundraising never really stops.
But the CBB’s Trailblazers Party is one for the big buckaroos — those who have already signed up for Saturday, October 3, at Gilley’s.
Only hiccup was the fact that first-timers to Gas Monkey Live didn’t realize that Richard Rawlings’ Gas Monkey empire extended to two spots on Technology Boulevard. Text messages were shot out from early arrivals to latecomers: “Don’t stop at the first Gas Monkey. Go to the one next to the theater.”
Evidently the crowd (Richard Eiseman with daughter Reed Eiseman, Callan Harrison, D’Andra and Jeremy Lock, Carole and Scott Murray, Elizabeth and Alex Laurenzi, Annika and Dennis Cail, Nancy Gopez, Andrea Weber, Natalie and Neal Moon with her folks Rainey and Aron Fogiel, Nikki and Crayton Webb, Christina and Allen White, Lisa and Bill Ogle, Jill Tananbaum, Kristi and Ron Hoyl, Kristi Bare and, of course, CBB Co-Chairs Mary Martha Pickens and Tia Wynne with her mom Sherry Williams) got the message and found the Jack Boles team ready to relieve them of their cars.
Instead of one of those shoulder-to-shoulder events where too many people are crammed into a tight party space, the nearly 500 had plenty of room to catch up, eat, drink, bid and dance to Austin-reared singer/songwriter Aaron Einhouse and his band. And they did just that.
Steve Stodghill was getting ready to go to Cuba and then Peru with wife Anne…Richard Eiseman was introducing a younger woman to folks. She was his daughter Reed…As guests hunkered close together with the one with the longest arm holding his/her cellphone out for a selfie, they were in for a surprise. CBB member Isabell Novakov had arranged for the ultimate favor courtesy of PlainsCapital that guests would find in their cars — a selfie stick.
As the band took a break, the live auction of trips and dinners got underway with the highlight being the Baja experience. It was auctioned off in memory of the late Richie Humphreys, who had recently lost his battle with cancer. His sister Mary Gill had co-chaired the 2013 CBB. Martyn Hammer picked it up for $9,000.