Sunday, August 22, 1999
Students help save the rhinos
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Well dang, would you just look who's starring on the International Rhino Foundation's (IRF) Web site? It's a bunch of students at Mason Intermediate and Western Row Elementary Schools.
Turns out the fifth and sixth graders at Mason and the third and fourth graders at Western raised more than $11,000 for rhinoceros conservation programs. It was a two-year Critter Campaign developed by gifted-education teacher Becky Howard Miller.
After the Cincinnati Zoo's education department went out and explained how the rhino is endangered because of habitat loss, pollution and illegal poaching, about 900 kids collected aluminum cans (more than four tons, the IRF says). They also sponsored pie tosses, jailed teachers and threw a silent auction.
Half the money went to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden's ADOPT (Animals Depend on People Too) Program and half went to the IRF. Which is why it's featuring the group on its Web site.
Through the IRF, they adopted Minah, a 10-year-old Sumatran Rhino (about 400 left in the wild) at an Indonesian preserve. And how's this for luck? Keepers are pretty sure Minah is pregnant, which would make the kids some right young grandparents.
The IRF Web site, complete with pictures of kids, teachers and Minah, is at:
www.rhinos-irf.org/support/community.html
BIG BLOW: And would you look who made the back cover of Postal Life, the Postal Service's national employee mag: It's the tornado that ripped through Cincinnati's northern suburbs April 9.
Right you are, says Bonni Manies, Postal's local communications specialist. It's a full-color photo on the last page of the 850,000-circulation mag, a space reserved for off-the-wall pictures.
The photo, shot by Bonnie Kutschenreuter of Loveland, shows two U.S. mailboxes standing tall next to Federal Express and UPS boxes blown onto their sides.
The caption? “Through rain, sleet, tornado or hail, who do you trust to deliver your mail?”
OUR KING: And don't you just have to hand it to Cincinnati entertainer Bruce Wilburn? Heaven knows, Memphis does every year.
Wilburn, see, does an Elvis tribute where he dresses like early Elvis — jeans, T-shirts, leather jackets, like Elvis before he weighed 700 pounds — and sings. Elvis songs in an Elvis voice.
How well? This well: For the past several years he has been invited to Elvis Week, a week-long do Memphis throws around the anniversary of his Aug. 16, 1977 death.
Wilburn is one of the headliners: “When the crew set up at 8 a.m., people were already saving seats,” for his afternoon show, says friend Donna Bashor. “I think he's so popular because he's not an impersonator. It's a tribute. In fact, you cannot work for Graceland if you wear a jumpsuit.”
As if anyone could wear one and survive the heat: “The temperature registered 112 degrees on my car thermometer when we arrived and sat nearly 30 minutes in traffic,” Bashor says.
None of which stopped the fans. The outdoor concert at Graceland Crossing, an Elvis-themed shopping center near Graceland, drew thousands — there's no official estimate — and tied up traffic forever, which explains Bashor's 30-minute tie-up.
Knip's Eye View appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
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