While the rest of the country watched the Super Tuesday returns, the 2024 Crystal Charity Ball was holding its annual get-together for its Advisory Board members to meet representatives of the 2024 CCB beneficiaries in the flesh.
Taking place at Tracey and Aaron Kozmetsky’s home just off of Preston Road on Tuesday, March 5, the event had the house brimming with activities that filled the rooms and hallways. The front door never seemed to stop opening with the 2024 Crystal Charity Chair Cheryl Joyner and evening’s chair Ola Fojtasek greeting each guest. Besides co-chairing last year’s Celebrating Women Luncheon and supporting CCB, Ola is also chairing the 2025 Sweetheart Ball.
In addition to the gorgeous surroundings of artwork and museum-quality painted walls were the ladies in colors that would have made the Dallas Arboretum tulips jealous.
In the crowd were 2024 beneficiary Methodist Health System Foundation President Jim Johnston and his bride Suzanne Johnston, who have been married 52 years. When asked how they had met, Jim reeled off that it was at SMU when he was a senior and she was a junior. He had known her roommate. But upon meeting Suzanne, it just clicked. Did the roommate have hard feelings? Suzanne laughed at the very thought, saying the roommate had been in their wedding and vice versa.
Advisory Board member Tavia Hunt arrived with her husband Clark Hunt in their Range Rover with a red-and-white license plate reading “K Chiefs.”
As Cassandra’s team replenished the trays of beverages and prepared the dining room table with everything from delicious quesadillas to lick-smacking pastries, the lady herself was delayed due to her overseeing arrangements for a birthday party the night before in Knoxville featuring Lionel Richie and Keith Urban.
At 7:30 the crowd including CCB Advisory Board members Richard Eiseman, Bonnie Harding, Renda Mathew, Chuck Thoele, Dr. Hal Urschel and Courtney Wang gathered in the step-down family room for a brief presentation by Cheryl, who introduced the 2024 beneficiaries including Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum’s Mary Pat Higgins and Jessica Whitt Garner; HHM Health’s Brian Hawkins with wife Vercilla Hawkins and Jean Buys; Parkland Health Foundation’s Dr. Michael Horne and his wife Marissa Horne, Beth Dexter and Dan Sullivan; The Center for Integrative Counseling And Psychology’s Brad Schwall with Deavon Moore and Susan Glassmoyer with husband Michael Glassmoyer; Traffick911’s Lindsey Speed and Vogel’s Karen Hughes and Greg Brinkley.
As a result of the 2024 CCB committee’s efforts, the seven beneficiaries will receive checks amounting to $7,093,665 for their programs helping Dallas County children.
For more looks of the crowd, check out MySweetCharity Photo Gallery.