Million-Dollar Mountainside Party Takes Memorial Hermann to New Heights

Daniel Ortiz
Million-Dollar Mountainside Party Takes Memorial Hermann to New Heights

Matthew and Audrey White, Julie Longoria Chen and Stephen Chen

DOZENS OF HOUSTON do-gooders chilling in Colorado this summer gathered for a mountain-chic soiree in support of Memorial Hermann.


A two-day celebration in Aspen, chaired by Melissa Juneau, Leticia Trauber and Hallie Vanderhider, culminated in the announcement of a substantial $5 million gift to the hospital system’s Life Flight — the nation’s first and busiest air-ambulance program.

The donation, made by the John M. O’Quinn Foundation, marks the launch of a campaign to purchase new helicopters for Life Flight, which supports the highest-volume Level I trauma center in America. Previous donations by party attendees Charlie Lusk, Jim Smith and Laurie Krohn, along with the John S. Dunn Foundation, helped Life Flight acquire its current fleet. Partygoers raised their glasses, filled with potent “Red Duke” cocktails homaging Life Flight’s creator, to everyone who has contributed to the groundbreaking — and high-flying — program.

Amalia Stanton, Laurie Krohn, Melissa Juneau, Laura Escalona

Will and Elizabeth Galtney

Anne Neeson, Melissa Juneau and Leticia Trauber

Amanda and Terry Boffone

Tony Bradfield, Amy Pierce

Felicia and Rafael Stone, Leticia Trauber, Gretchen Sheirr

Roslyn Bazzelle Mitchell and Derrick Mitchell

Kathy and Charlie Lusk

Mike Lowenberg, Dr. David and Tonya Callender, Bess and Rob Wilson

Nina and Edd Hendee

Michelle Koskie, Laurie Krohn, Susan Plank

Bess Wilson, Dr. Michelle McNutt, Lisa and Jerry Simon

Parties

Rachel Willis-Sorensen (photo by Olivia Kahler)

THIS WEEKEND, ON June 1 and 2, the Houston Symphony celebrates the work of Richard Strauss with a concert of two very different works: An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie), an epic tone poem completed by Strauss in 1915 that depicts a dawn-to-dusk Alpine mountain ascent and includes subtle references to the music of his close friend Gustav Mahler, who died in 1911; and Four Last Songs, which Strauss completed in 1948 at age 84 and was destined to be the composer’s final completed work. HGO Studio alum Rachel Willis-Sørensen, now one of the world’s most in-demand operatic sopranos, joins Music Director Juraj Valčuha for a performance of these majestic, sublime compositions for voice and orchestra.

Keep Reading Show less
Art + Entertainment

Októ will have a lively bar like the one at Doris Metropolitan, pictured here. (photo by Kirsten Gilliam)

AFTER YEARS OF operating solid, Israeli-influenced concepts — Doris Metropolitan on Shepherd, and Badolina and Hamsa in Rice Village — Sof Hospitality is set to debut its latest concept in Montrose Collective this summer. Surprise, this time it’s Mediterranean cuisine!

Keep Reading Show less
Food