Mary Huggins nursed a glass of Fireball as she scanned the mingling crowd, anxious to make sure no one was left on the sidelines.
She hoped the watered-down whiskey would soothe the scratchy throat that had started earlier in the day. Tomorrow she could give in to the cold she feared was taking hold. Tomorrow she could rest. But tonight she needed to match the sparkle of her rhinestone headband and the blinking cowboy boot pinned to the lapel of her white denim jacket.
This was the Cattle Baron’s Ball, the event she and her fellow organizers had devoted untold hours to pulling off. She was determined to be at her smiling best.
Around her, guests in cowboy hats and fringed suede sipped cocktails and chatted with friends in a candlelit lounge at the Sheraton Suites in Cuyahoga Falls. They had donned their glitzed-up Western wear for dinner, dancing and the shared purpose of supporting the American Cancer Society.
Outside the Sheraton’s windows, water cascaded over the falls below. Inside, multicolored lights cast at cheerful glow.
What the guests couldn’t see, though, was the grit that went into creating the glamour.
Planning for last weekend’s ball began just after the 2014 event, when co-chairs Huggins and Kathy Harris started meeting with 11 other committee members to decide everything from the venue to the color of the table linens.
Each member was charged with overseeing an aspect of the benefit — the decorations, the silent auction, the logistics and so on. Each was responsible for recruiting their own volunteers to help. This was the ninth year for the ball, so as committee member June Netzley put it, “It’s kind of a well-oiled machine.”
All but one of the committee members were women. Almost all gave their time in addition to working jobs or running businesses. They had help from a Cancer Society staff member, Jamie Heinl, but for the most part, this was a volunteer effort.
Every three weeks, the committee would convene, but the real work went on during the time in between.
There were decorations to make and entertainment to plan. There were gifts to solicit for the silent auction. Every night out, every trip to the salon, every business interaction was an opportunity to ask for some sort of support.
“It’s all about networking,” Huggins said.
Finalizing the menu
It was 2½ weeks before the ball, and committee members Tamara Boyazis and Netzley were having lunch.
But this was no leisurely meal. This was scrutiny.
The two were in charge of finalizing the menu, so they met with Heinl to taste the Sheraton’s fare and decide what the guests would be served at the gala.
They debated the relative merits of asparagus and broccolini. They wondered whether people would actually eat the beets that looked so pretty on their plates. They asked whether the squash dish contained nuts, a potential problem for guests with allergies.
Every item was examined, every food choice debated. They know their guests are paying handsomely — $100 each, or $150 for a ticket that also includes a VIP reception. They want everything to be appealing, right down to the tortilla chips.
Tricolor, they specified.
Final preparations
The committee’s last meeting was on a Wednesday evening, just three days before the event.
There were no gavels, no minutes, no rules of order.
There was only work.
A couple dozen boxes of wine and auction prizes needed to be unloaded from vehicles for temporary storage in a dressing room at the Discovery Shop, a secondhand store the Cancer Society operates in West Akron. Auction items needed to be sorted through, gift baskets created, last-minute details decided.
Heinl was in charge, but her direction was limited. Everyone seemed to just jump in.
Two days later, some of the committee members would be back to carry everything out again and load it onto a truck for transporting to the Sheraton, along with boxes of decorations unearthed earlier in the week from the shop’s basement.
The committee saves on expenses by reusing decorations from year to year, tweaking them to fit the current theme, Boyazis explained. And whatever they have, they either made or got in the form of donations.
“We never spend money on decorating,” she said.
Organized chaos
At 11 on the morning of the gala, the ballroom of the Sheraton Suites was in carefully choreographed disarray. Luggage carts held plastic bins and cardboard boxes of decorations. Tablecloths were draped over hangers on a coat rack. A bar-height table was littered with empty coffee mugs, plastic cups of juice and half-eaten muffins.
“Breakfast and lunch,” committee member Michelle Saunders said as she raced by, biting into a bagel.
Volunteers in sweatshirts, jeans and workout pants had already been at work for a couple of hours, positioning centerpieces, arranging auction items and adorning practically every surface — even the restroom counters. A few had even rented rooms and spent the night at the Sheraton Suites, because they’d been up late the night before helping with a benefit there for another charity, Elise’s Corner.
Patti Noel and fellow committee member Netzley dug through a box of decorations, trying to decide what to use where. Noel held up a boot-shaped birdhouse and considered it, then put it back into the box.
Meanwhile, Noel’s daughter, Laura, awaited instructions for the next task. She’d just moved back from New York, she explained, and she’d come to help her mom however she could.
“I’m at her service,” she said.
First guests arrive
Just seven hours later, the chaos had settled into calm as the first of the guests arrived for the VIP reception that would precede the dinner. Sweatshirts had been changed for flowered dresses and spangled jeans. Light-draped trees and candles glowed on round dinner tables draped in turquoise and fake cowhide.
As members of the Sheraton’s wait staff passed trays of shrimp and tiny cups of butternut squash soup to the VIP ticket holders, Tallmadge High School juniors Jackie Raines, Hannah Salter and Haley Hornbeck waited behind the counter of the coat-check stand, wearing plaid shirts and bright smiles. They’d already assisted with the decorating that morning at the behest of Jackie’s mother, committee member Jodi Harrison, and they agreed at the last minute to staff the coat check and stick around to help take everything down when the party ended at 11.
“They knew we were here,” Hannah said with a shrug, “and they enjoy us, I guess.”
Before the night was through, the society would surpass the $1 million mark in fundraising from Cattle Baron’s Balls since the event’s inception in Akron. That included more than $20,000 in corporate sponsorships in 2015, according to Alex Houser Vukoder, its communications director. She did not provide the amount raised at this year’s event.
That kind of support is what drives committee member Noel, whose father died of colon cancer when she was 16.
Spending so much time on one event isn’t easy, she said, but it’s her way of honoring his memory.
Her voice faltered.
“It’s just hard,” she said. “Cancer is a tough disease.”
Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MBBreckABJ, follow her on Twitter @MBBreckABJ and read her blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/mary-beth.