The mayor has big shoes to fill

Mayor Cedric Glover's size 17 shoes painted for Mad Scientist Ball auction item

Veronica Glover and hubby his honor Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover

Photos by Paul L. Schuetze/The Times

You would have to wear a Size 17 to fill Mayor Cedric Glover’s shoes.

That is his shoe size, he said proudly at the Sci-Port Discovery Center Mad Scientist Ball held Friday at the center.

He was among those who contributed well decorated soles to the silent auction. "Patients from Feist-Weiller Cancer Center Arts in Medicine painted the shoes," said the Mayor.

The two are Kelnesha Odom, 5, and Kamryn Chauncy, 8. The two also painted two very different portraits of Glover which were framed, presented to him at a Shreveport City Council meeting and hang in his office. When the presentation was made, Glover asked the two to help him out and paint his tennis shoes for the Mad Scientist Ball! And, they did.

We haven’t found out yet who bought them, but if you see a pair of high tops with a flag-inspired scene on one and a more whimsical sport motif on the other, they are the mayor’s.

The dress for the benefit was "tuxedoes and tennis shoes" and Glover wore a pair of olive green tennies with his black accented with a yellow tie.

The mayor and wife Veronica made a mad dash into the party but left early to attend a friend’s birthday party high in the sky at Independence Stadium. (A great place, by the way, to have a gathering.)

At the benefit, Vicki Franks’ shoes were the talk of the event for they lit up.

Lt. Gen. Bob Elder, head of the 8th U.S. Air Force, wore faux leather athletic soles, with his mess dress, while tuxedoed attorney Jim Hill painted white tennies gold and purple — for LSU, of course.

Sci-Port chief Ann Fumarolo laced up white-accented, tangerine-hued ones to pair with her black-seamed hose and short black dress.

Tem McElroy’s were traditional athletic shoes, white and silver, but Carl Bantle wore attention-getting red-and-white check slip-ons.

More social musings:

... Friend Nancy Canson e-mails us from Marshall, Texas, that Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker, a star of "The Great Debaters," attended a rally for Presidential hopeful Barack Obama Sunday at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas.