The monthly luncheon of Pine Bluff Christian Women’s Connection will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday at the Pine Bluff Country Club.
“Top of the Line Fashions” will be presented by Dillard’s Department Store of Pine Bluff under the direction of Maribeth Hartsfield. Hartsfield is a fashion consultant and personal shopper for Dillard’s. She will be presenting an array of new styles and fashion trends offered by Dillard’s and modeled by local women. Models for the event will be Linda Eifling, Evelyn Cash, Silvia Chavez, Charlene Hendrix, Becky Simmons, Mary Linda Downing, Betty Hardman, Julia Ann Beckham, Dorothy Lockhart, Sylvia Smykla, Sue Smith, Catherine Long, Jeannette McGrew, Voula Weaver and Rebecca Bissing.
The featured speaker will be Karen Blankenship of Belton, Mo. Blakenship and her husband, Dan, have been married for 33 years and have three children and three grandchildren. Karen is a speaker, both nationally and internationally, on subjects of children, team-building and leadership. She has been an educator, MOPS Mentor, preschool director, children’s choir director and a college music professor. She also finds time to serve on the Belton City Council.
Her speech is titled “This Old House … if Walls Could Talk”. The speech is centered around the Victorian home that she and Dan bought in 1996. The story will show how the house had been destroyed and condemned by the city because of an arson fire that happened on Halloween night 1991. Karen and Dan saw the potential and restored the house to look like new. She will share their vision as well as share the story, complete with pictures, of their remodeled home. She will tell some stories of the 150 plus guests they have invited to stay with them these past 12 years. She will make the comparison of how broken and scarred people can also be put back together and made new.
Blakenship has several articles published in various magazines. She is presently co-authoring a book with Chris Pinion, lead pastor of her church at Belton. They are hoping the book “Scars” will be published sometime next year.
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She enjoys spending quality time with her family, traveling and enjoying summers at the lake.
Virginia Haertlein will be in charge of decorations for the event and will have life-size silhouettes adorning folding screens — men in top hats with canes and ladies wearing long pink satin gowns and jewels. Each table will consist of a man in a top hat with a walking stick and a lady wearing a pink satin cape.
All women in Pine Bluff and surrounding communities are invited to attend the luncheon. The event is sponsored by Christian Women’s Connection, which is part of the Stonecroft Ministries in Kansas City, Mo.
The cost of the luncheon is $13.50, which includes meal, tax and gratuity. To make a reservation, call Mary Bearden at 870-489-4710.