Green is the New Black: Memorial Park Conservancy Gala

The dress code for the annual Green Gala benefitting Memorial Park Conservancy was boots, no ties, plus anything green — fitting, as the theme was “Lasso your heart for the park,” and the honoree was the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. For nearly 60 years, its trail riders have ridden proudly through the park. Lucchese boots, cowboy hats, fringe and furs were all the rage inside the grand white tent adjacent to the new Running Trails Center. While The Crestwood Club received the Ima Hogg Volunteer Service Award, City Kitchen served up a feast appropriate for a leisurely evening on the ranch: duck tacos, spicy Gulf Coast shrimp bisque, bobwhite quail and jalapeño cheese grits. Wood & Wire provided bluegrass tunes before and after dinner; it made for a lively date night or boys’ night out (such as the fun table of rowdy gents adjacent to ours). The evening brought in $350,000 for MPC, which has embarked on its master plan wherein award-winning landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz is beautifying and ecologically restoring the storied park. Cowboys and cowgirls: chairs Tammy Jenkins and Camille Patton; Rodeo’s prez Joel Crowley and chairman Jack Lyons; MPC’s chairman Jim Porter, director Shellye Arnold, Cara Rudelson and Nicholas Butler; Joshua Ibarra, Janet and Paul Hobby, Mindy Hildebrand, and Lorraine and Ed Wulfe.