Dawn Newton: Shannon Bex - MTV's "Danity Kane"

Dawn Newton: Shannon Bex - MTV's "Danity Kane": Have you heard this girl sing? Have you seen this girl dance? UH-mazing!!! Don't believe me?? See for yourself at www.shannonbex.com . O...

Shannon Bex - MTV's "Danity Kane"

Have you heard this girl sing?  Have you seen this girl dance?

UH-mazing!!! Don't believe me?? See for yourself at www.shannonbex.com.  Oh...and while you're at check out those platinum-selling, chart topping albums of Danity Kane...Danity Kane and Welcome to the Dollhouse.

Shannon, along with the rest of the members of Danity Kane, auditioned for and were selected by Sean "Puffy" Combs (aka P. Diddy, Puff, Puffy).  Danity Kane was HUGE! These incredibly talented girls were the opening act on Christina Aguilera's Back To Basics Tour, they worked with Janet Jackson, presented at the MTV Music Awards and walked many a red carpet!  Much to their fans dismay, Danity Kane officially disbanded in January of 2009.

Since then Shannon has returned to her true passion of country southern soul with the roots of R&B by forming her own band, BEX.  She's a country powerhouse!  I can't wait for BEX to hit the airwaves!

Aside from Shannon's musical career,  I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for Shannon.  After all that she's experienced; the fame, the red carpets, the celebrities, the glitz, and the glamour, she has remained an incredibly grounded, humble, gracious, and giving young woman. She doesn't compromise her values or priorities. She's a role model for females of all ages.

Shannon has been on my show several times and we meet for coffee or lunch every so often and I always ask "Can we call Puff??" (aka P. Diddy, Puff, Diddy) ...and Shannon always smiles and says "No, Dawn, we're not calling Puff".
 *sigh* 
I'm not giving up tho...one of these days she'll give in...I just know it!!


www.shannonbex.com Check it out!



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Kyle Will Workout!! (be afraid...be very afraid!!)

While it may appear that the following is a shameless 'plug' for Kyle Will, Personal Trainer/Owner of WRP Training Studios...well...ok...maybe it is...it's really my way of thanking Kyle for sharing his time and knowledge with my listeners.  www.wrptrainingstudio.com

Kyle's knowledge, passion and commitment to 'life training' is unquestionable. Whether training his own clients, professional athletes, local high school athletes or coaching one of the high school track or cross country teams, Kyle has the unique ability to get these adults and students to reach peak performance.  A 'Kyle Will workout' packs a lot of punch around Bend!  One just has to say those 3 little words..."Kyle Will workout"...and we all know what that means. Someone just got one serious workout!  I, myself, have not succumbed...or sacrificed myself...to a 'Kyle Will workout' and I'm pretty sure I never will. Seriously. I'm not kidding. :|

What is a 'Kyle Will workout'? Just ask any of the local high school athletes and they can describe a 'Kyle Will workout' in great detail.  A 'Kyle Will workout' is the measurable for all other workouts.  Very few, if any, measure up.

I've known Kyle since around 2010 and we've been recording health and fitness segments ever since that time. You'd think we would have run out of topics in 2 years time.  Nope.  The topics are endless and so is Kyle's knowledge and experience!

Here are just a few of the MANY topics we discuss...

Getting Started * Gettin Past a Weight-Loss Plateau * Heat & Exercise * Calories: How to Know if You Go Too Low * Using Exercise to Beat Stress * Exercise and Physical Activity: What's the Difference * Cardio vs Weights * Red Carpet Ready * When Dieting Becomes Dangerous * Making Your Health a Priority * Kids & Exercise * Barefoot Running *

Also, Kyle is also the ONLY coach in Central Oregon with RCSS distinction! Recently awarded the RSCC Certification through the National Strength and Conditioning Association, the NSCA affords coaches the most prestigious distinction in the field of strength and conditioning. Congrats Kyle!!!

Do you have a question for Kyle?  Email me at openair@kpov.org  and tune in each Wednesday and get inspired!

Nonbilogical Lesbian Motherhood

Amie = Mama.  Jane = Mommy.

Amie K. Miller's 'She Looks Just Like You - A Memoir of (Nonbiological Lesbian) Motherhood' is a warm, entertaining, honest and funny memoir about parenthood.  Amie, the 'unpregnant' partner, writes about the anxieties and excitement of becoming a first-time parent...a nonbiological lesbian parent.

Additionally, Amie shares the unique challenges and experiences of lesbian motherhood;

  * standing before a judge to adopt her own daughter
  * how to respond when strangers would gush 'I bet Daddy's proud'
  * defining her role and identity as the non-birth mother...faux Dad??

This book is truly for all parents, gay and straight alike. As parents we want the best for our children, we want to keep them safe and to know that they are loved.  And whether it's Mom and Dad, Mama and Mommy, or Dad and Daddy...as a parent we all share the same universal anxieties, hopes, fears and tremendous unconditional love for our children.  It is love that makes a family.

My interview with Amie K. Miller can be heard here.
www.amiekmiller.com


 

Battle of the Bands

Last night was a blast! 

Bend High DECA hosted a Battle of the Bands contest with 100% of all proceeds to benefit Family Access Network (FAN) (www.familyaccessnetwork.org)  programs at the local high schools, with a guest performance from Cadence. FAN helps our local families and children in need of anything from clothes to scholarships; from food to school supplies. 

With over 100 people in attendance the competing bands did not disappoint!  It was SO hard to pick a winner!  Nathan Woodworth (www.nathanwoodworth.com), Chase Mersereau of Cadence and myself were the 'celebrity' judges with Mike Flanagan as MC for the evening.

While the judges deliberated special guest band, Cadence, performed for the crowd while the competing bands anxiously awaited the results.  Cadence announced the winner...Three Up, Two Down!!  In addition to winning the 'Battle of the Bands'...Three Up, Two Down will also be opening for Cadence at their next concert!!

I have to say...Bend has some incredibly talented young musicians!  And..Bend High DECA has a couple of talented young ladies in their group...Karlie Holmgren and Paris Draheim. These two girls took on this HUGE event and these ladies delivered!

Myrlie Evers-Williams - Part I

I’ll never forget the day I met Myrlie Evers-Williams.  It was May 14^th, 1999.  I had read in our local newspaper that the widow of slain civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, would be speaking that evening at the First Presbyterian Church.  I didn’t know much about Myrlie Evers, or of the horrific assassination of Medgar Evers. I did know, however, that I wanted to hear her speak; I wanted to hear her story.  

Additionally, I had wanted an escape.  If only for a few hours, I wanted to escape my own personal struggles with life and death.  Within the past 6 months, my family had moved to Bend, my father passed away and I, at my physicians urging, had been put on a leave of absence from my work at a large financial institution.  Change of residence (150 mile move), death of a loved one and job stress are stressors enough when experienced separately, but to be coping with all three at one time was pure hell. My attempts at making sense of life and death seemed so futile.  My father’s death left a huge void in my heart and soul and I felt so incredibly lost.  As hard as I tried, I couldn’t find any peace or reprieve from the pain and the tears. I had lost faith.  

If I had known what I was about to experience, I’m not sure that I would have gone to hear Myrlie speak that night.  I thought she was going to talk about Medgar, the civil rights movement and how she rebuilt her life after Medgar’s assassination.  Boy, was I wrong!  Myrlie was the guest speaker for the Sacred Art of Living and Dying.  I remember seeing the words ‘death and dying’ on the registrars table…it was all I could do to not turn around and head back home.  Still in the depths of my own grief from my father’s passing, extremely frustrated that this ‘grief process’ was taking far too long for my liking and then to naively walk into a presentation on death and dying…??? Are you kidding me???   I took a deep breath, looked at the ground, shook my head and proceeded into the church sanctuary.

The sanctuary was packed.  I figured that Chelsea (our, then 10yr old, daughter) and I would join the ‘standing room only’ crowd at the back of the church.  But no...there in the front row were 2 empty seats.  Chels and I made our way to the front row to discover, much to our surprise, that the seats weren’t taken. So… there we sat front and center ready to absorb all things ‘death and dying’.  I buckled my ‘emotional’ seatbelt and waited for the ride to begin.

Prior to Myrlie stepping to the podium, the opening scene of the movie, Ghosts of Mississippi, was projected onto the screen.  We all watched the re-enactment of Medgar Evers being brutally gunned down in front of his wife and children on June 12th, 1963. Medgar was shot in the back in the driveway of his Jackson, Mississippi home as he returned from a meeting of the NAACP.

In 1975, Myrlie married her second husband, Walter Williams. He died in 1995 of prostate cancer. It was the Sacred Art of Living and Dying Center that offered comfort and support during Walter’s passing and the reason that she was speaking that evening.

Myrlie spoke for 40 captivating minutes. She had written about life, dying and eventually death but this was the first time she had stood before a group of people and talked about it. To this day, I feel as though she was talking directly to me. Her words touched me to my core.  Myrlie lifted me up and through her words I found courage, peace and comfort.  I was in awe of this woman before me. This woman who had suffered the loss of her two great loves, her life partners. I was in awe of this woman standing before me and hundreds of people in that sanctuary and her effortless ability to speak so passionately and with such strength and conviction about life, death and love.

Some of Myrlies words…

None of us accomplishes anything nor do we live without help from someone else…no man or woman lives alone.  Even for those who wish to do so…we don’t.  Everything we do impacts others.

From experiences, hopefully we learn.  That when there’s a block in our life, sometimes it’s best just to be still for a moment and allow it to pass. To go into a quiet place and say a prayer…not aloud necessarily but in a telepathic manner. And just let whatever it is flow…come from that hopefully renewed, invigorated and be able to start again.

In terms of dying…we have to have something to hold on to.  Something to hold onto that assures us that everything is going to be all right.

In this life we need to be able to feel that there is something, someone, some power larger than us to hold on to so that we can say 'have no fear…God is here'…and will see us through.

My child. Get up. Everything is going to be all right.

Interesting how the hurt, the pain can make one a stronger person.

Don’t underestimate the power of love.

We did not run from death…we celebrated life.  And that’s what it’s about my friends…of grasping every moment of time, not of being bitter, not of being resentful but seeing it as a blessing that’s coming our way. One that will be difficult to be walk away from and say goodbye to someone you love so dearly because you will never be able to touch them again. But their words of wisdom, the love the good memories are there to carry us through.

There is something about love that takes us through the most difficult times. Because when we become so sad when we feel ‘oh woe is me’...‘why is this happening to me…why is it happening to them’...‘we’ve done nothing to deserve this’…that’s not what it is about its enjoying the glory of it all that we have been here that we have been able to impact in a positive way people in our lives.

We mourn and we grieve because don’t have those that we want to hold and that we want to touch. Is that fair to those that are on their way to someplace else?

I will never walk alone. And I dare say that none of you will either.

When there has been love…love is everlasting.

Death is a part of life. 

After Myrlie spoke, there was a brief intermission.  I purchased her book, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be, and as I approached her to ask her to sign my copy I could feel a huge tidal wave of emotion welling up inside of me.  Before I could get a word out I began sobbing…it was SO embarrassing!!! Through my uncontrolled sobbing I managed to say something along the lines of “I…didn’t..sob..know…sob..what to..sob..expect…tonight.  I..sob…just knew I wanted to …sob…hear you speak...sob…I…lost my dad…sob…a few months ago…and I want to…sob..thank you..sob….for your words”  And then the flood gates opened.  UGH!!! I was a mess!  Myrlie, being the gracious and compassionate woman she is…held out her arms and said ‘Oh, Sweetheart…’ and gave me a hug.

Myrlie Evers-Williams changed my life, my heart and my soul on May 14^th, 1999.  She provided me with that 'light' I had been so desperately seeking during a very dark time in my life.  Using Myrlie’s words…I came away that evening feeling renewed, invigorated and able to start again.

Myrlie and I wouldn’t meet again until November 7^th, 2009.

Myrlie Evers-Williams will forever hold a special place in my heart.  I am honored and blessed to call her my friend.  

Jillian Michaels - America's TOUGHEST Trainer!!!

What doesn't she do? I mean...seriously?  Don't let that 5'2 petite frame fool you! Jillian is ON all the time!

Here's the short (no pun intended) list of her achievements...

* Trainer/Coach for the NBC hit series The Biggest Loser
* New York Times Bestselling Author
* Contributing Editor for SELF magazine
* Workout DVD's/Videos for Nintendo Wii
* Weight-control supplements
* Appearances, interviews, travel etc
* Jillian Apparel

I spoke with Jillian in 2009, right after the release of her book Master Your Metabolism - The 3 DIET Secrets to Naturally Balancing Your Hormones for a Hot and Healty Body!  

Jillian is just as upbeat, energetic and determined over the phone as she is on TV! I wish I could've bottled some of that energy!  It's very clear that Jillian is very dedicated and driven to empower individuals to reach both their physical and psychological goals.

But..I couldn't help but wonder and ask..with her over-the-top ongoing schedule...how does SHE stay in balance, how does SHE avoid burn-out?  She says her schedule can be a challenge and while she does get frustrated at times, she just does the best she can to eat right and get enough rest. While she admits the eat-right-get-enough-rest is often easier said than done...she, like the rest of us, is just trying to find that 'balance'.

My interview with Jillian can be heard here...