This Friday, August 10, a the end of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, there will be a segment on my high school pal, Bob Hansman, and his son, Jovan. There was a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch early last week, followed by contact from CBS. Last Friday on the news, they “pitched” three ideas for stories and asked viewers to go online and vote for the story they wanted to see. Right before the show, I said to my husband, “Bob will probably win … unless he’s up against a puppy story.” He was up against a story about a little old lady and a story about puppies. But Bob’s legions of friends, fans and students (he’s a professor of architecture at Washington University) got online, as I’m sure tons of others did, and the story won. And it deserved to win.

Here’s the link to the article and a great picture of Bob and Jovan. You really do want to read this.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/B9EECECD17C7AE4E862573280011B8E8?OpenDocument

Bob and I were friends in junior high, high school and college. I was drawn by Bob’s quick wit and amazing artistic ability. He also played several parts – brilliantly – in a production of Spoon River I directed – and designed an awesome program (watch this spot to see that in the future). He became something of a hero when he sneaked some subversive drawings into the high school yearbook. But as things go, we drifted apart. I reconnected with him at a high school reunion in 2005 and this time, we’ve stayed in touch. And when I was inducted into my high school Hall of Fame last year, I chose Bob to introduce me. He had been inducted the previous year (the first year) and was introduced by Jovan. I wish I’d been there for that speech because I’ve heard so much about it.

Here we are .... back in high school (dig that corsage)!

This whole flurry of coverage is providing terrific publicity for Bob and Jovan’s work in the Peabody public housing complex and their Faces in the Loop Gallery (in the Delmar Loop for those of you who know St. Louis) … and a couple of local bookstores are now collecting donations to replace the children’s books that were recently stolen during a break-in at the studio at Peabody. Read the story, watch the piece on CBS – it’s as good as any book you’ll pick up this week!