Thursday, August 24, 2000

Maxim, Glamour show yet another side of Olympian Amy Acuff

"Have you seen this month's Maxim yet?"
   The voice on the other end of the phone was Carlos Rojas, a friend of mine born in Corpus Christi but who now lives in Denver. His voice was strong but his attention was distant. I asked him what he was talking about, and he directed me to the fantasy gentleman's magazine's Web site (www.maximmag.com) and to the feature on female Olympic athletes.
   Inside were eight fashionable pictures featuring some of our American Olympians soon to be Sydney-bound and barely clad in bustiers and lace and sometimes less.
   "One of them is from Corpus Christi," said Carlos.
   Of course she is.
   Amy Acuff posed nude in Rolling Stone last year, and it makes sense she's in the September Maxim. Calallen's Acuff, who is our country's second-ranked high jumper, shows another side in the Maxim feature - her backside, in fact - as she's framed nicely by a doorway leading into a satin filled bedroom.
   The feature talks about Acuff, 25, winning four Texas high school championships and starting to compete because "there was nothing else to do" in South Texas. It also talks about the Track Girls 2000 calendar she organized in which 12 athletes, Acuff included, posed in their birthday suits for charity.
   And that's not all. Acuff also appears in the September Glamour. In their tribute to America's women of Sydney, Acuff is posed in a swing of sorts with her body arched backward - a position she might take while high jumping. The text said if Acuff wins in Sydney, she'd have "doughnuts for breakfast and cake for dinner."
   She has her own Web site (www.amyacuff.com), and it features pictures from Acuff's Esquire photo shoot (she was on the cover) and others, including a shot of her competing in an Anne Klein faux-fur tube top and matching fur-trimmed bottom.
   High jump chic? Oui oui.
   'The Mexican Americans'
   Sometimes television programs come along and seriously impact a community and its people. PBS affiliate KEDT had that experience with an airing of "The Mexican Americans" earlier this month. They aired the program while taking pledges, and during breaks they interviewed people from the community, Mexican-Americans who make a difference on a daily basis in Corpus Christi.
   "The response was phenomenal," said Davida Underbrink, director of promotions with KEDT. "They were calling and they were pledging. . . . It was our best night of the drive."
   Not only did they get a lot of calls during the program, but also after the program from people who wanted to see it again or who missed it. It was enough response to warrant an encore broadcast of the show today at 8:30 p.m.
   "The Hispanic community reacted positively," said Andy Ybarra, director of membership. "We had about 126 donors that night, and 83 of them were new. Probably 95 percent of the new members were Latino."
   Ybarra said the station is looking to air more cultural programs, because in this market they rank right up there with the PBS airings of "Riverdance" and "Doo Wop." During a good night of pledging, Ybarra said the station gets $2,500. He was hoping to clear that with "The Mexican Americans," and he did as the station received more than $9,000 in pledges.
   "Programs like this have spurred talks about a Hispanic channel on PBS when we go digital, maybe in a bilingual format countrywide," Ybarra said.
   Second airing
   "The Mexican Americans" tells a few stories of Hispanics and their exploration of Mexican culture north of the border. It includes interviews with actor Ricardo Montalban, comedian Paul Rodriguez, singer Vicki Carr (who will perform here Sept. 9 as a benefit for the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra) and director Luis Valdez ("La Bamba") as they share their personal experiences as Hispanics who sometimes have a hard time embracing both cultures at the same time.
   For Valdez, his concept of home "was a question mark," because his family was always on the move following crop seasons. Rodriguez recounts the day when he gave his dad the deed for the 40 acres of farmland his parents worked to provide for the family when Paul was a child. Rodriguez is nationally recognized and has achieved a success that his parents never imagined possible for themselves.
   This second airing will include more local interviews with people including Manuel Ueges (president and CEO of the Corpus Christi Hispanic Chamber of Commerce), Gloria Perez (board chairwoman for the Corpus Christi Hispanic Chamber of Commerce), Oscar Ortiz (CEO of the Texas Workforce Network), Manuel Ayala (KOPY radio personality), Corpus Christi Police Chief Pete Alvarez, KRIS anchor Carlos Vergara, and judges Rose Vela, Martha Huerta and Nanette Hassette.
   Also of interest, a repeat of "Songs of the Homeland" airs today at 7 p.m. on PBS with a focus on Tejano music and its emergence as an artistic expression in and beyond South Texas. Grammy winner Freddy Fender narrates the program.
  
  

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