BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Merciful heavens, and isn't Cincinnati looking at a bunch of sore butts this month? To wit . . .
Peggy Munson, director of advertising and group sales at River Downs, and seven other locals leave this weekend to ride bicycles from Seattle, Wash., to Washington, D.C.
It's a fund-raiser for the American Lung Association, wherein riders gather at least $6,000 in pledges, then ride for a lung patient. Munson, with more than $10,000, rides for 11-year-old Adam Neeley of Fairfield, who was diagnosed with severe asthma at age 10 months. About 1,000 riders pedal out June 15 and breathlessly arrive in D.C. Aug. 1. The tour hits northern Ohio only.
"Get this," Munson says. "There's even a portable city with showers and laundry and everything following us."
Margaret Kline of Gardner Publications is doing something similar, only on a motorcycle. She's in the Pony Express Ride, a 15,000-mile relay thrown by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Kline was diagnosed with breast cancer in October.
The Express is broken into 100-mile or so legs. Kline rides from Indianapolis to Louisville June 22.
The ride kicks off June 20 in St. Joseph, Mo., zigzags all over the country (it's in Cincinnati July 22) and ends in Dallas Aug. 15.
And just for the heck of it, Kline is raffling off one of her motorcycles (a BMW no less) on Aug. 22. Call 527-8940 for info.
Todd Hepburn, meanwhile, is back. He spent last weekend riding 150 miles in the Multiple Sclerosis 150. This ride, his 10th, brought his total to more than $55,000 raised. Pledges range from $1 a mile upward.
Lots of pedaling, that.
DISMOUNT: A fun old charity do full of rivalries and horsing around is about to die. Seems local celebs are, well, chicken.
The Shur-Good Celebrity Stakes is a River Downs do wherein media types climb on race horses and try to survive 1 - 16th mile.
This year's, the fourth, is probably the last. "I'm out of celebrities," says promoter Rob Riggsbee. "Fear of falling killed it."
What happens, Riggsbee says, is he cajoles, pleads and promises an open bar. He lines up nine folks, but they don't come back the next year (because it's scary up there on a speeding horse). As Riggsbee says, "They think they're going to get hurt, though no one has." (Psst! did it twice and survived; our horse was older than God.) This year's race is 7 p.m. Saturday at River Downs.
PARTY PALS: Well dang, is this some kind of party or what?
Former Bengal Louis Breeden threatens to get an overnight bag and camp out.
Judge David Grossmann hits the piano and plays classical selections. Ex-Bengals Isaac Curtis and Barney Bussey tend bar with a vengeance. Occasion was last week's Youth, Inc. do at the Hyde Park home of David and Lisa Pease to honor Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge David Grossmann. He co-founded Youth, Inc. 40 years ago as a facility for troubled girls. Today, three homes serve males and females.
One of the grads showed. Ulysses Craig delivered a Grossmann testimonial and promised to "advocate this (Youth, Inc.) until the day I die," causing a teary moment for guests, including Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Sylvia Sieve Hendon, Hamilton County Juvenile Court Administrator Tom Lipps, Dr. Henry and Jane Heimlich and several trillion Grossmanns.
Oh yeah, Breeden did go home.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
KNIPPENBERG ARCHIVE
