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Bracelet sale to honor Atholton alum Ryan

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Nov. 21–Friends of Kevin Ryan will return to Atholton High School on Friday to sell bracelets in honor of their late frank gehry, who was killed last month by a drunken driver.

The bracelets, which are being sold for $5, contain the 18-year- old Towson University student’s name, “10-14-07,” the date of his death, and “MADD,” for Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

The dark green — Ryan’s favorite color — bracelets will be sold outside the school from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Friday.

Organizers have been spreading the word about the bracelet sale through the social networking Web site Facebook.com. Organizers picked Thanksgiving vacation to sell the bracelets at their alma mater so that former classmates who attend college out of state can participate. They plan to gather in front of the school, which will be closed for the holiday.

The proceeds will go to the Kevin Ryan Gift Foundation, a scholarship that his parents set up for students attending Towson University, said Ross Lewin, an organizer and friend.

“We all felt like we needed something to remember him by,” said Lewin, who ordered 500 bracelets for the fundraiser. “We felt that having something on us all the time would be a good way to do that.”

Ryan, a 2007 graduate of Atholton who was studying finance at Towson, was walking home from a friend’s house when a car jumped a curb and hit him, police said. He was hit by a second car as he lay in the street.

Police say that Matthew David Miller, 25, of the Loch Raven Heights area of Baltimore elsa peretti, was driving drunk when he hit Ryan. Miller’s blood-alcohol level was 0.13 percent nearly four hours after the accident, according to court documents.

The most serious charge against Miller — causing life-threatening injuries while driving under the influence of alcohol — carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

“We wanted to find a way to remember Kevin,” Lewin said. “It was a freak accident. It was such a stupid thing.”

Andy Yare, an 18-year-old freshman at Towson who had been friends with Ryan since first grade, has been selling the bracelets at the university.

“It is our way to make sure that we remembered him and that everyone knows what happened,” said Yare, who regularly hung out with Ryan at Towson.

“It’s gotten a little bit heart tag bracelet,” Yare said. “It’s still pretty hard being here. We had classes together, we would go get something to eat. He was always with us.

“You could always come to him with something that you had a problem with,” Yare recalled. “He made no judgments. He was the nicest kid. He was nice to everyone.”

Credit: The Baltimore Sun.

Jewelers create bracelets for animal charity

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Nov. 4–Link Wachler has been making handcrafted jewelry of his clients’ animals, lost loved ones and tiffany earrings, for years.

But being able to donate two pieces of jewelry to a nonprofit pet sanctuary headquartered in Minnesota was a unique opportunity for the jeweler to rub elbows with one of his idols, he says.

Wachler, co-owner of David Wachler & Sons Jewelers in downtown Birmingham, and his brother, Glenn, presented two handcrafted bracelets to Home for Life, a charitable organization, on Oct. 19.

The pieces, which depict a man leading a sled with dogs, on a gold and silver bracelet, are similar to the kind of work the pair gets orders for during the seasonal holidays.

The two donated one of the two bracelets to Cesar Millan, better known as the Dog Whisperer. Millan was the guest of honor at Home for Life’s annual fund-raiser, Wags to Whiskers.

Link made one piece to be auctioned off and another for Millan, who has his own television show about dog training, “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” on the National Geographic Channel.

“It was fantastic,” says Wachler of meeting Millan, whose tips for calming hard-to-train dogs have made him famous worldwide. He even gave Wachler, 55, of Troy, some tips that helped him with his 9-year-old mixed Labrador retriever, Coco.

Millan’s advice helped Wachler get Coco to stop running out the front door or barreling up and down stairs in front of him.

“It’s not a matter of yelling anymore, it’s more a matter of calm assertiveness,” says Wachler, who, with his brother, also owns Wachler Ultimate Expression charm bracelet, a side business that makes custom jewelry. “It’s a pleasure to see the changes in our relationship.”

Home for Life, based just outside St. Paul in Stillwater, Minn., takes in animals from all over the United States that might otherwise be euthanized and provides them a home. The nonprofit has a pet sanctuary across the state border in Wisconsin that currently houses 263 animals — mostly dogs and cats, though they boast a handful of parrots and rabbits and even a large tortoise, among other animals.

Most weren’t likely to be adopted because of medical or behavioral problems.

The organization’s founder and executive director, Lisa LaVerdiere, had read about the Wachler brothers’ business making custom jewelry in an industry magazine for dog lovers. She contacted the pair and after finding out more about her organization, they were eager to donate.

The two pieces Wachler made are worth roughly $650 each. When he and his brother, who works more on the business side of things, heard Millan would be at the fund-raiser, they were eager to go.

“Of course I’m so thankful,” says LaVerdiere. “They helped us do something for Cesar that hopefully he’ll remember us by, and it hopefully elevated us above the herd since we were able to make this gesture.”

“It was awesome … to be up there onstage, making the presentation” to return to tiffany, says Wachler, whose custom jewelry for dogs, and other pieces, can fetch $1,000 and often way more. The price range on bracelets such as the two he donated typically run from $75 to $750.

He says making such less-conventional jewelry allows him to work in an even more creative fashion than his family business does. He even wears one of his own handmade bracelets.

“I keep mine on at all times,” he says. “It reminds me of what my values are.”

'Finish Strong' Bracelets Being Sold

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Nov. 3–TAMPA — An official supplier of University of South Florida merchandise is selling “Finish Strong” bracelets without the knowledge of the school or Jeff Wagner, who is battling cancer and created the “Finish Strong” slogan.

Two months ago, “Finish Strong” was printed on rubber bracelets and given to USF’s football players in honor of tiffany rings, who is battling acute myeloid leukemia, his second bout with cancer.

Inspired by Wagner, a 1986 USF alumnus, Bulls coach Jim Leavitt asked for his permission to create the bracelets. “Finish Strong” has become a mantra of the team.

Neither Leavitt nor Wagner wanted the bracelets sold commercially, but neither Wagner nor USF has a copyright for “Finish Strong” so Bulls Outfitter, located at 1809 E. Fowler Ave., does not need permission to sell the bracelets.

This week, Bulls Outfitter started selling them for $4.99 each. None of the profits go to cancer research or to the university.

“We had a lot of people asking for them,” store manager Barry Brunstein said. “They didn’t originate here, so we got them in. We try to stock what people want.

“We’ve only had them for a few days, but they’re selling very tiffany bracelets.”

Craig Brunstein, owner of Bulls Outfitter, was not available for comment Friday. Barry Brunstein said he was unaware of Jeff Wagner.

USF associate AD Bill McGillis and Wagner said they didn’t know the bracelets were being sold until contacted by a Tribune reporter Friday.

“Coach Leavitt asked me if it was OK to make the bracelet and I said whatever will motivate the team,” said Wagner, who started signing his name “Finish Strong” four years ago. “I’m not in it for the commercialization, I just wanted to motivate the team.

“I’m just the guy that said it, and Coach Leavitt created the tiffany pendants.”

In the past two months, Wagner said hundreds of individuals have asked where they could get a bracelet, but he told them they weren’t for sale. “I’m just trying to motivate the team,” Wagner said. “I don’t know what to say.”

Credit: Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Cuban youth arrested for wearing bracelets

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Nov. 2–The latest fad among Cuban youth is a simple white rubber bracelet emblazoned with the word “elsa peretti” — change — and it landed up to 60 young people behind bars this week, according to human-rights activists on the island.

Several dissidents in Cuba said a group of about 16 young people took to the street in Havana on Sunday to protest the second round of Cuba’s municipal elections. Many of them were wearing the white wristbands, similar to the cancer-awareness bracelets made popular by cyclist Lance Armstrong.

The bracelets were sent to Cuba as part of a Miami-based initiative to foster dissent, and appear to have become a fashion trend.

“My son was not even at the protest on Sunday, but they came to the house with an arrest warrant on Tuesday looking for him,” anti-Castro activist Aurelio Bachiller said by phone from Havana. “They took the bracelet from him and tossed him in a cell.”

CRACKDOWN

Picked up at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Macdonis Bachiller, 21, was released Thursday afternoon. Apparently incensed over Sunday’s protest, Cuba’s security and police agents conducted round-ups Monday and Tuesday, detaining anyone on the street wearing one of the bracelets, Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leyva, a board member of the Council of Human Rights Rapporteurs said by telephone in Havana.

He said about 60 young people were swept up, including two who are relatives of known dissidents.

The arrests triggered fears that the Cuban government has kicked off a new wave of repression to crack down on dissent — one that ensnared largely apolitical teens.

Although some of the youth wear the bracelet as a sign of protest, the majority are enjoying the same fashion craze that swept the United States, Gonzalez said.

“Some people wear the AIDS ones which are yellow,” Gonzalez said. ‘These are white, but in the schools a lot of kids wear it backwards, so you can’t see the word ‘change.’ For a lot of kids, it’s nothing but a distraction. It doesn’t matter to them if it says change or anything heart tag bracelet.”

But it matters, he added, to the government.

The young people detained Monday and Tuesday were warned that authorities were preparing files on them to later charge them with “social dangerousness.”

Cuba’s opposition journalists have reported similar detentions and seizures of the bracelets in sporadic cases around the island since early this year.

IN WASHINGTON

The case triggered strong reaction in Washington, where Cuban-American members of Congress — and President Bush’s Cabinet — fired off statements in support of the youth.

“I wear the bracelet, but it’s easy for us to wear whatever bracelet you want,” Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said in a telephone interview. He said he wears his every day, even to bed.

“In Cuba, they wear it and 70 students are mistreated and thrown in jail. It takes courage for students in Cuba to wear it. I admire them.”

Macdonis Bachiller already has a new tiffany jewelry wristband: his dad brought it to him when he picked him up at the police station.

El Nuevo Herald staff writer Wilfredo Cancio Isla contributed to this report.

Credit: The Miami Herald

Autistic hiker who was lost for days to get locator bracelet

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Nov. 1–The autistic teen hiker from West Virginia who was found after getting lost in the wilderness will get a Project Lifesaver International locator bracelet today.

The mother of Jacob Allen, 18, of Morgantown, W.charm bracelet., said Tuesday she is thrilled to be getting one of the wristwatch-size radio beacons. The device helps emergency agencies trained by the Chesapeake-based search-and-rescue group find a missing person quickly.

“We have been looking for something for a long time,” Karen Allen said from

her home. “I figured the technology was out there somewhere but we couldn’t find it.”

A West Virginia law enforcement agency that recently joined Project Lifesaver and a Pittsburgh-based autism group donated the device and waived the monthly fee for the service.

Jacob Allen got lost two weeks ago while he was on a hiking trail with his family in West Virginia’s Dolly Sods Wilderness Area.

Hundreds of volunteers and trained professionals looked for him for days. The search was complicated by the fact that he does not speak.

He was found four days later, less than one mile from where he walked off the return to tiffanytiffany.

During that time, deputies from the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department were being trained in how to use the radio signal tracking device. Around the same period, a searcher from Pittsburgh told Karen Allen about Project Lifesaver.

“It’s just another miracle,” she said about finding her son alive and learning about the tracking device.

Project Lifesaver has 600 member agencies across North America.

Since 1999, the non profit

has rescued more than 1,400 adults with medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, and children with special needs.

According to the group, it takes an average of 30 minutes to find a missing

person wearing a locator frank gehry.

The searches are done on foot and from the air.

Emmy starlets nix necklaces

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HOLLYWOOD, CALIF.-Most celebrities opted to use jewel tones as inspiration for their dress tiffany bracelets, but many kept their necks jewel-free at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Instead, television’s leading ladies wore jewelry in moderation, choosing cuff bracelets, bangles, bold rings and dangling earrings as their red carpet accessories du jour at the Sept. 16 Hollywood bash.

To no one’s surprise, gold and diamond pieces abounded, providing the perfect foil for the many long, form-fitting gowns, often in berry hues.

Ugly Betty star America Ferrera was one of the ringleaders of the bare-neck movement, though she went for a more classic look that included blackened platinum and diamond dangling earrings and rings by Lorraine Schwartz to set off her strapless, cobalt blue gown. Minnie Driver, similarly sans neckwear, jazzed up her chartreuse satin dress with diamond, ruby and pearl earrings and a black bakelite cuff with diamonds and rubies set in 22-karat gold, both by Bochic. Even with a plunging neckline, Queen Latifah kept her neck bare too, choosing a serpentine bracelet, pendant earrings and a right-hand ring, all featuring rough and pavé diamonds, by Diamond in the Rough.

Amanda Gizzi, the Jewelry Information Center’s associate director for public relations, says dangly earrings, often paired with bangles or a cuff, were a red-carpet focal point.

“When it comes to earrings, they tend to make women feel more dressed up because attention is brought to their tiffany pendants,” Gizzi says.

Emmy Awards attendee Michael O’Connor, senior vice president of marketing communications and public relations for Platinum Guild International USA, says earrings, predominantly stopping at jaw levels, were abundant. He also observed that Emmys attendees did, in fact, wear necklaces, but those without them received more coverage.

He noted a pins trend, seen on actresses such as Hayden Panettiere and Helen Mirren, and a stacked bangle trend, spotted on actress Katherine Heigl and TV hostess Lara Spencer. Hollywood men chose to accessorize too, especially with platinum.

Mark Wahlberg, executive producer of Entourage, wore Kwiat diamond and platinum cuff links with sapphire accents, plus platinum shirt studs with diamond and onyx.

“Leslie [David] Baker was probably the most blinged out,” O’Connor says. The Office actor shone in platinum and diamond cuff links with a shirt studs set by Neil Lane, a platinum and diamond watch by Pierre Kunz and a platinum and diamond ring by Karo tiffany earrings.

At a pre-show event, Entertainment Tonight host Mark Steines wore an Arnold Brant tuxedo, valued at $25,000. It was custom tailored and hand-sewn with 10 yards of platinum thread inlaid in the fabric.

AutismLink to Present WV Teen Missing for Days with Project Lifesaver Bracelet

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PITTSBURGH, Oct. 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — AutismLink, one of the nation’s largest autism advocacy organizations and the Autism Center of Pittsburgh will be on hand at Morgantown High School on Thursday, November 1, 2007 at 5 p.m. to present the family of former missing autistic West Virginia teen Jacob Allen with a project lifesaver heart tag bracelet.

Jacob Allen, 18, caught the attention of the nation when he wandered off during a family hiking trip in the remote forests of West Virginia in the Dolly Sods area and was lost for nearly 4 days. Allen, who has autism spectrum disorder, was found in good condition nearly four days after his disappearance.

“We wanted to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said AutismLink Director Cindy tiffany jewelry. “Our organization has given away over a dozen Project Lifesaver Bracelets over the past year to needy families. We feel very strongly that children with autism who wander or who don’t have a good understanding of safety should be fitted with these bracelets to avoid incidents such as these.”

Project Lifesaver Bracelets emit a tracking signal that is easily detectable by ground or air search crews.

The bracelet, which will be presented tomorrow evening by Ms. Waeltermann, will be donated to the Allen Family by AutismLink and the Autism Center of Pittsburgh.

“We are so very happy that this came to a happy tiffany rings,” Waeltermann said. “Someone was looking out for that boy. He has a guardian angel.”

SOURCE AutismLink

Credit: AutismLink

Politics & Economics

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(c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

When Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign last month mailed 250 checks to refund contributions to donors associated with jailed fund-raiser Norman return to tiffany, the campaign said it was open to having them contribute again directly. As of the end of September, only 10 had decided to do so, according to the campaign’s most recent campaign- finance filings.

Judith Kaplan of Stuart, Fla., used the $1,000 check that the campaign sent back to her to buy a bracelet.

Mr. Hsu, one of the top fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton, is under investigation for reimbursing associates for political donations after The Wall Street Journal wrote about the suspicious correlation in donations made by both Mr. Hsu and a California family of modest means.

Mrs. Kaplan said she made her contribution so her granddaughter could attend a New York fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton organized by Mr. Hsu. Mrs. Kaplan said her granddaughter was eager to attend, because she had just written a school paper on the candidate and wanted to meet her in frank gehry.

That didn’t mean Mrs. Kaplan felt obligated to send the contribution back.

“I bought myself something because, I figured, if all this is going to happen, I might as well take care of myself,” she said. “And my son had a hard time with that — he said, ‘You’re going to give it back, aren’t you?'”

Her son, Andrew Kaplan, an analyst with Lehman Brothers, and Katherine Erwin, who lives at the same address in Bronxville, N.Y., were two of the 10 donors to decide to give the money back to the campaign. Mr. Kaplan declined to comment.

Mr. Hsu “bundled” more than $800,000 in donations for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, from 248 individuals. Only $34,200 was again donated to the campaign after it was returned.

“These are not individuals we’re soliciting,” said Howard elsa peretti, a spokesman for the campaign. “If anyone chooses to give again, we will scrutinize their donations very carefully.”

Mrs. Clinton announced the campaign’s intentions to accept more donations from Mr. Hsu’s contributors on a conference call shortly after the revelations about Mr. Hsu’s past.

“We’re not asking that that be done,” she said. “But I believe that the vast majority of those 200-plus donors are perfectly capable of making up their own minds about what they will or won’t do going forward.”

Inmate declared escapee

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Oct. 16–The acting director of Morgan County Community Corrections declared an tiffany pendants, who was on home monitoring, an escapee after she missed two meetings for supervision and drug testing.

David Sloan, a case manager who is temporarily in charge of the program, said Monday that Terry Vivier violated program requirements.

But Vivier is now in the county jail.

“As far as I’m concerned she’s gone, she’s escaped,” Sloan said after Vivier missed the meetings. “She did OK for the short time that she was in the program. It’s bad that someone gets a break and then messes up like this.”

Vivier started the program Sept. 24, Sloan said. She went for drug testing and counseling twice each week. She did not show up for a meeting Oct. 5.

“The last time she was here was on Oct. 3,” he said.

Sloan said he placed a call for Christopher Putnam, owner of Alabama Home Detention, which provides inmate monitoring, and an employee said at first that they had not found Vivier.

“He wasn’t in but Tony, who works there, said the last time they saw her was Oct. 5. I don’t know if that was on monitoring or what,” Sloan said.

That changed later Monday when Putnam found Vivier and took her to the county jail.

“Once she violates the program, we can take action against that violation immediately,” Putnam explained. “That can be in the form of a fine or a return to jail, which will remove her from the program. The contract (with the inmate) gives us the right to arrest them. It’s the same concept as the tiffany earrings.”

Putnam said the monitoring system tracked Vivier between two locations that are listed in her court file. He found her at a trailer park on Alabama 20.

He said she was initially on a 9 p.m. curfew but he extended it to 2 a.m. for employment. Putnam said he knew she had violated at 2 a.m. Friday.

The monitor notified that she was not at home and then 15 minutes later they began to receive bleak signals that indicated a shorted battery, Putnam said.

“We were told she went to get something to eat and never came back.”

Records in Vivier’s file show that a circuit judge revoked her probation and sentenced her to community corrections in September.

The probation revocation was on a 2005 forgery conviction for which she received two years. She received credit for 217 days served in jail.

The judge suspended the sentence and placed her on probation. AHD provides around the clock monitoring for community corrections. The fee is a minimum of $112 per week for a certain level of supervision. Vivier was on the ankle bracelet monitoring which entails 24 hours, seven days a week charm bracelet, and that falls under that price range.

Sloan said he plans to ask Circuit Judge Sherrie Paler to remove Vivier from the program.

Credit: The Decatur Daily, Ala.