Meet the one-and only, Emmy-winning, crowd-pleasing, ever funny, never short-winded, trusted and beloved Sonny Dixon. A mild-mannered anchorman by day, Sonny Dixon trades in his buttoned-down persona when the occasion dictates, as it did one winter evening. Looking casually preppy in a navy blue long-sleeved polo shirt with his WTOC-TV logo, Dixon prowled the stage at the Alee Temple, talking a mile a minute in his trademark drawl, working harder than a circus barker to rouse the interest of his audience for the benefit of the Coastal Conservancy. Mostly he was hawking wholesome auction lots like fishing trips and golf getaways, but he did whatever it took to get folks to part with their hard-earned cash, at one point lavishing attention on a somewhat suggestive poster of less-than-totally-clad beauties promoting a Tybee Girls Weekend. If those ladies had been there in real life, they might well have blushed at the patter.

Whether he’s emceeing a benefit or speaking reverently at a military ceremony, Dixon customizes his spiel for each particular organization and never seems at a loss for words. The Coastal Conservancy crowd was a little slow to warm up that night. And it didn’t help that the auctioneer hadn’t received all the promotional material in advance.
It wasn’t the first time he had to wing it, and he was completely unfazed.

“I’ve been doing this so long that it’s not a matter of getting rid of the butterflies,” he says. “It’s a matter of getting them to fly in formation.”
In June, however, Dixon met his Waterloo at the Emmy awards.

“When I was nominated, I figured that was honor enough and that it would go no further, especially since the other two nominees were from Atlanta. I didn’t even want to go to the awards ceremony, but since we had station nominations for Best Newscast and Best Spot Announcement, I decided to go with our crowd and just have some fun.”

When they got to the anchor category, Dixon was busy checking University of Florida baseball scores on his phone. “My wife punched me and said, ‘Pay attention. This is your category.’” Dixon responded to his wife, “I told you, it’s just a question of which Atlanta person’s gonna win.” Right at that moment, the presenter said, “And the Emmy goes to … Sonny Dixon—WTOC—Savannah, Georgia!”

“I dropped the phone in the floor—and damn near lost consciousness!” Dixon explains. “I’d not roughed out a thing, having been totally convinced there was no way it was going to someone from Savannah over those stars from Atlanta. Somehow I came up with something to say on the way up front to accept it.”

As social creatures, it’s human nature to share experiences, and long before there were arsenals of digital recording devices, the spoken word was the primary method. Stories contain lessons, histories, jokes and formulae. They can warn, inspire, entertain and educate—and they’re alive and well!

The South is a rich repository of yarns, from animal trickster tales and eerie legends of haunted plantations to real-life adventures of folk heroes like Daniel Boone and Stonewall Jackson. Luckily, despite living in an age of technological craze, these oral traditions are being kept alive by a devoted network of storytellers, both professional and amateur, who recognize the value of the spoken word—and the power it generates with live audiences.

“I am absolutely devoted to storytelling,” says Feriel Feldman, president of the Southern Order of Storytellers. “Our brains are hardwired to story. From an educational standpoint, it is vital that we turn things into stories, even in science and mathematics. Culturally, it gives a voice to our history.”
Across the country, the art of old-fashioned storytelling is enjoying a renaissance, and the South is no exception. In 1983, the Southern Order of Storytellers (SOS) was founded by a group of people who deliberately referenced the Morse code distress signal with their acronym because they had very little idea what they were doing. Nevertheless, SOS has managed to endure for more than a quarter of a century, holding a major festival in Atlanta every year. It’s a highly inclusive organization, says Feldman, and members range from professional storytellers who make a living at their performances to devoted listeners and casual enthusiasts who simply enjoy drinking beer and telling tales.
Feldman acknowledges that every area of the country is bound to have its own oral tradition according to local society; but the South, she maintains, distinguishes itself by having what she calls a “plantation hangover.”
“There’s an extreme politeness, and Southern stories will reflect this sugar coating,” says Feldman, who grew up in rural Alabama and now teaches storytelling at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. “It’s a gentler kind of telling, where a New Yorker would be much more to the point.”
Representing SOS in Savannah is professional storyteller Bess Chappas, who specializes in ghost stories and folktales that she picked up during her world travels. “It’s amazing how much people love hearing a story, even adults,” says Chappas, who recorded a CD entitled Savannah Ghosts and Other Stories. “There’s just something about being there in front of a real person—it always brings back some kind of memory,” she says.

Chappas saw first hand the power of storytelling on a grand scale when she attended the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, which she describes as a huge gathering of 10,000 people. “But when the storyteller is telling a story,” she says, “you can hear a pin drop. I’d love to have something like that in Savannah.”

Written by: Michele Roldan-Shaw

BROOKE ANDERSON, CO-HOST: I`m Brooke Anderson outside of Buckingham Palace, and what an amazing day it has been. The royal wedding—Kate and William looked spectacular.
A.J. HAMMER, CO-HOST: And Brooke, might I say, you look spectacular. I`m A.J. Hammer in New York. And tonight, on Showbiz Tonight, we`re breaking some big news about the frenzy surrounding the royal wedding.
ANDERSON: Right now, a Showbiz Tonight royal event, dressed to thrill. Showbiz Tonight in London with the remarkable story behind Kate Middleton`s breathtaking wedding dress. Plus, the royal wedding fashion hits and misses. How about the hats?
HAMMER: Will and Kate`s big kiss-off. Their fairytale royal kisses. Not one but two. How did these smooches stack up?
ANDERSON: Kate compared to Di. The absolutely remarkable similarities and differences between Kate Middleton`s wedding and Princess Diana`s.
HAMMER: A special edition of TV`s most provocative entertainment news show, a Showbiz Tonight royal event—
ANDERSON: Starts right now.

Just a few days later, on May 2, the Savannah-born Anderson filmed her last show as co-host of the entertainment program Showbiz Tonight, ending an exciting 11-year run with CNN and Headline News, as a producer, writer, correspondent and a host, that had taken her from Claxton straight to Atlanta to the gilded world of Hollywood.
“It was really bittersweet leaving CNN, and leaving all the friends that I’d made there,” says Anderson, in an exclusive interview with South magazine. “They weren’t just colleagues; they were like family to me after that long.”
But the end of her run at CNN actually marked a new beginning for the 33-year-old Anderson, who accepted an offer to co-host The Insider, a popular nationally syndicated entertainment news program.
Just a few weeks after covering the wedding of the century for CNN, what was her first major assignment with the new show? Just a ho-hum press junket with A-list actors Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in the popular Jack Sparrow anthology.
“It’s so amazing to be able to do this type of work. Sometimes Ihave to just take a step back and absorb what I’m doing and where I’m working,” says Anderson, who started in mid-May at The Insider.
The Insider, a spin-off of Entertainment Tonight produced by CBS Television Studios, debuted in 2004. Anderson took over for Lara Spencer, who left the program to return to New York to join the team at ABC’s Good Morning America. Anderson joins co-host Kevin Frazier, a one-time correspondent at ET and a former sports anchor at ESPN and Fox Sports Net. Based out of Los Angeles, the show is a collage of celebrity interviews, red-carpet awards coverage, and television, movie and music news items and gossip.

Styling by Anya Sarre and Kate Ehrlich

South magazine: What are your connections to Savannah?
Stacy Keach: I was born in Savannah in 1941, and my dad and mom used to tell me the story about how the day I was born, there was a lightning storm. I was born on June 2, and that evening—I was born at 7:00 apparently—lightning hit the roof of our chimney. And my dad was at the hospital and had to rush home to let the firemen in the house. It’s one of those stories that has followed me around all my life. They used to love telling that story. It was one of their favorite stories. … They thought it was an auspicious beginning.

SM: Your career is very inclusive and has spanned a great amount of time. At the highest level, you have succeeded in radio, theater, TV and film. Which is your favorite medium?
SK: If someone were to put a gun to my head and say, “You have to make a choice,” I would choose live theater because of the audience. Being able to perform in front of a live audience is very important to me. I started in live theater; it’s where I began. But I love movies and television as well, and I feel very fortunate and blessed to be able to continue to do both.

SM: So theater it is.
SK: Yes, I love classical theater as well, but … it pays your soul, but it doesn’t pay the rent.

SM: You have a long history with Shakespearean roles. What is it about them that appeal to you?
SK: In order to be a great actor, a professor once told me, you have to play great parts. And the greatest parts are the great Shakespearean roles—the challenges that are set forth by Shakespeare, and the demands he makes of actors in terms of not only being able to speak well but also to be able to be clear and to convey the proper emotions and expressions of the characters. It’s a wonderful experience, and it’s a great challenge. And it’s the challenge that I’m drawn to.

SM: In contrast, you have also played some truly hysterical characters like Papa Titus on the show Titus.
SK: (Laughs) I love that character, Papa Titus. That had everything to do with Christopher Titus because it was his father that he was depicting. I had the great pleasure and privilege of meeting his dad during the taping of that show. I asked him, “How can you allow yourself to be so maligned by your son?” Christopher had spent 16 years doing stand-up and characterized his dad as a terrible human being. He said, “As long as it’s funny, I don’t mind.”

SM: Sounds like a good experience.
SK: I would have loved for that show to have gone on. He was one of my favorite characters. He was just outrageously funny. I loved playing him.

SM: And then of course there’s Mike Hammer.
SK: People know me as Mike Hammer; at least people of a certain generation know me as that. I still love that character.

SM: You must still often get recognized for that role in particular.
SK: It’s funny, because it depends on the generation. People recognize me for Mike Hammer, but other people recognize me for Papa Titus, and some other people recognize me for being the warden in Prison Break. I’ll be walking in an airport and people used to say to me, “Didn’t you used to be Mike Hammer?” And then years later people used to say, “Didn’t you used to be Papa Titus? or the warden?” Last week I was walking in the airport and someone came up to me and said, “Didn’t you used to be Stacy Keach?”

DIANNA AGRON

Born in Savannah, Dianna Agron is best known for the character Quinn Fabray on Glee, the role that landed her a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2010. Agron began her career at age 3 when she started taking dance and performing classes in local theater productions. She has also appeared on the television series Heroes and Veronica Mars, and alongside Cher in the film Burlesque.

OMARI HARDWICK

A graduate of The University of Georgia, Omari Hardwick began writing poetry at the age of 14. Since his breakout role in Spike Lee’s Sucker Free City, Hardwick has landed roles in such films as Kick-Ass and The A-Team. Hardwick has also gained fame on the small screen for his role as Ty Curtis on Dark Blue, for which he was nominated for a NAMIC Vision Award. He was also nominated for his role in the 2010 film For Colored Girls.

“Really, my art is no different from other nonobjective artists,” Stromberg says. “I’m about process and exploring, just like them. My work is just more dramatic—almost like performance art. I enjoy the challenge of non-conventional materials.” One thing that separates him from other artists, he admits, is that he only has a matter of seconds during which he has control over whatever combustible substance he happens to be working with. Consequently, there’s a lot more exhaustive planning, beforehand, from acquiring his mercurial materials before finally using them. The next tempestuous force he wants to conquer is the ocean, hoping to manipulate its crushing pressure on steel and aluminum plates.

Stromberg draws inspiration from all around him, embracing everything from TV, movies, stories, to historic reference. Nevertheless, it’s not hard to fathom that he always had an interest in pyrotechnics. Of course, he also looks back to the old masters. He references da Vinci, who he says was actually a kind of arms designer, drafting early plans for helicopters and tanks at the behest of kings seeking an edge in battle. Stromberg is a foundations professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He reconciles his unique artistic vision with the rigidity of teaching by insisting that his students “play” instead of “work” because, in his opinion, that’s the only way for them to truly find themselves in their art. “I tell them that there is no practice, only the process of making art itself. That’s your practice right there: process. They either love me or they hate me,” he laughs. He believes artists should strive, like practitioners from the Baroque period, to elevate the heart, mind and spirit, and to get people to ask questions. “That’s what I try and pass on to my students. And that’s what school is for: to teach them to communicate better.” He concludes with this final self-assessment: “It’s all about a journey or adventure but always with a lot of testing, training and exhaustive research. When I complete a piece of work, it’s not far removed from a traditional landscape, or a painting of a horse. At the end of the day, I have a document record.”

Images by John Fulton
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

SM: You grew up here. How has a Southern upbringing helped you?
TA: You know, I’ve really appreciated a Georgia upbringing because in all parts of the world and country, they may not have appreciated me, they may not have appreciated the message of the music, they may not have appreciated my reputation, but they’ve all appreciated the good manners I learned as a Southern boy. My mama raised me all right, and that transfers very well. Everybody likes that.

SM: Your stint in rehab, where you infamously met Lindsay Lohan and battled addiction, made national news for quite a few months, if not years. Was it hard to have your personal problems broadcasted?
TA: It was a double-edged sword. It was horrifying and embarrassing. I went from walking in the park to running in the lion’s den. In hindsight, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because it made me realize you can’t hide behind [anything]. All of my [stuff] out there. This is what I did. What are you going to say about me? It helped me realize how sideways life can go. I saw it firsthand just explode. And it took a long time to get over that personally, professionally.

SM: What was the real deal with Lindsay?
TA: We dated for a while. I didn’t ever admit that at the time because I was going through a divorce, but it’s very much in the open now. It was jaw-dropping because our band was just starting to break and then suddenly there is this whole other level of celebrity. It freaked me out that people would jump out of bushes and follow you in cars. I was bewildered. How do you live in this bubble? How does that go on? They chased me all over Atlanta one time.

SM: What did that do to your life, personally and professionally?
TA: I’ll tell you what it did. I had so many offers, for lots of money, to sell stories, to sell pictures, and I sat back, and Scott [Michael] and I talked; and if you look back in history, you’ll see I did two interviews, period. I said, “You’ve got to knock this off. You’re not getting anything out of me.” I literally had seven figures thrown at me, and I said, “You know what, I will never be taken seriously as a musician if I’m Lindsay Lohan’s flavor of the day, or three months, or whatever.” So we had to sit on a lot of music—for a year—to separate me from that.

Images by Andy Silvers | Hair by Nick Gorlesky
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

The A-lister hot spot is situated in the art deco hub of South Beach, with modern nods to the era with its use of Shanghai brick and bronze, teak, stone and art. The rooms and suites feature in-room bathtubs for personal spa treatments, rain showers, teak floors, Lavazza espresso machines, personalized housekeeping service and a 24-hour concierge, among other luxury amenities.
It’s off-season during the hot, summer months, and deals are easy to find. The Setai’s Girls’ Getaway and Gentleman’s Retreat packages offer private shopping experiences, spa treatments, breakfast, complimentary spirits and VIP access to Miami’s nightlife. (Rates begin at $595 per night with a minimum two-night stay.)

To tone down on price, but not on style, stay at TownHouse Hotel. Smack dab in the middle of South Beach, flanked by high-end neighboring hotels, sits TownHouse. “It’s great because of the location,” says Colleen Graham, director of sales. “It’s nestled in with the big guns [and is a real] home away from home.”

Highly utilized for studio and magazine production shoots, TownHouse is as much appreciated for its creative, minimalist lines, and all-around fun and flirty decor as it is for its comfort and unassuming prices.
Brought to South Beach at the turn of the millennium by Jonathan Morr, who is well-known for his Manhattan eateries, Republic and BondST, this 69-room, two-suite, Parisian-designed boutique hotel is frankly a steal at $145 a night midweek, and $175 a night on the weekends, through August and September. A Parisian breakfast is included.
The rooms are clad in white, with striking pops of color, and hallways, specked with benches, comics and other good reads, are engulfed with cool soundtracks. The rooftop, fitted with various table settings and lounge chairs, transforms at night into one of South Beach’s hottest weekend hangouts, and the highlight is sushi sent up from the ground floor BondST Lounge. Zagat Miami has named its tuna “the best on the planet.”

Images by Sean Murdock
Written by Melanie Bowden Simón
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

Playing high school sports is about much more than scoring points and winning championships. Often times the real glory comes in bonding with teammates or reaching set goals. Similarly, coaching is about much more than winning or losing games. Often times the real fun comes in seeing a student sign scholarship papers. Coaches have the amazing ability to keep students on track, inspire them to do great things and make a lifelong impact. Here are a few of the MVPs when it comes to coaching in the Lowcountry.

Images by Shawn Heifert
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

It was the “pop” heard around the world: the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble that began as a slow leak in 2006 and had completely imploded by the summer of 2008. The domino effect from an out-of-control derivatives market that caused the collapse of the subprime market eventually impacted mortgage, credit, hedge fund and even foreign bank markets. For homebuilders, home supply retailers and real estate professionals who had profited for years on booming home valuations, the braking of the markets would result in a particularly long skid.
But as the saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. One of the toughest names in Savannah real estate has proven to be relative newcomer Judge Realty, which opened its doors in June 2005, at the height of the market.
Lori Judge, owner of Judge Realty, remembers fondly the easier days at the company’s outset. “Our first month in business we profited $5000,” she says. “The following months it was three and then ten times that. We were off to the races.”
But the salad days would not last long. In the summer of 2008, Judge, along with realtors across the region, began to feel the impact of the now widely publicized financial crisis. “It happened so fast,” says Judge. “It seemed as though everything came to a halt overnight.”
Savannah’s real estate landscape has noticeably transformed since. “The economy has affected our market in every way, from our neighborhoods to our values,” explains Judge. Countless brokers have found part-time jobs or new lines of work altogether. Housing-related businesses have been forced to close their doors or consolidate with other companies. Out of necessity, others have expanded their services to include aspects of the job that they used to farm out.
Judge Realty has been no different. To weather the storm, the company has had to cut costs, streamline systems, and work harder than ever for their clients. “This was like a near-death experience in business,” says Judge. “It forced us to understand the new conditions we were working in, to go beyond the conventional and get creative, and to implement survival tactics.”
“Like many people in this business, I had to face down my greatest fear: the fear of failing. But once you get past that fear, there is only opportunity. This challenge made me open my eyes to the possibilities that are out there.”
Adaptive approaches for Judge Realty have ranged from the expected to the highly progressive. Their brokers are now experts in foreclosures and short sales. And property management—once the “red-headed step-child” for many firms—has become one of the company’s foremost undertakings. “We now manage more than 200 properties,” says Judge. “And that makes sense to us in the overall picture of what we do, because tenants eventually become buyers and, likewise, buyers become landlords. So we’re really a soup-to-nuts real estate company.”
Providing the most current online technology for clients has helped Judge stay ahead of the property management competition. Their interactive website provides comprehensive, user-friendly access, so property owners stay abreast of tenant activity and screenings, billing and maintenance issues.
On the more progressive side, Judge is one of the only certified EcoBrokers in the area, a unique designation for brokers who are trained to educate clients on reducing their carbon footprints through energy efficient and environmentally sensitive design in properties.
“At the end of the day, it’s about personal relationships,” says Judge. “We’re all in this together—brokers, buyers, sellers, renters. So the crisis has gone a long way toward building camaraderie among industry professionals as well as longstanding relationships between brokers and clients.”

Written by Summer Teal Simpson
Photography by Tim Johnson
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

At 20 mph, barely a sound is audible save for the dirt road crunching beneath the tires and the good-natured voice from the driver’s seat. The voice belongs to Charles Davis, president of The Earth Comfort Company, and the tires to his Chevrolet Volt, which is one of two in the state of Georgia. As he drives slowly around his Guyton, Georgia, property, Davis explains the many perks of the electrically powered car: one of the catchiest being its incredibly low maintenance requirements, as in an oil-change-after-24,000-miles low maintenance. After parking beside his house, Davis removes a cord from the vehicle and connects it to a charging station on the exterior wall noting that it’s “the same charger Jay Leno installed in his garage.”

Davis’ house is far from typical of other homes in Southeast Georgia. It’s a customizable, prefab structure and, like his car, it exhibits his commitment to renewable energy. After purchasing it as a foreclosure in the Atlanta area, Davis had the house delivered to his one-and-a-half-acre property in Guyton. The property is one of nine and the first step toward the goal of creating a zero-energy community (a working organic farm already exists on site). The prefabricated, modular “i-house” is a model made by Clayton Homes, the largest manufacturer of modular homes in the United States. With clean lines and a modern sensibility, the i-home is advertised as being “built from the ground up to be environmentally friendly” without sacrificing aesthetics or comfort. From its specialized roof designed for the collection of rainwater and the installation of solar panels to energy efficient windows and insulation, the i-house is clearly geared toward efficiency aficionados. But that’s only the framework upon which Davis crafted a system that allows him to bring the first net-zero energy home to Savannah.

The Man Behind the Plan

Originally from the Macon area, Davis points to his college days as the beginning of his passion for renewable energy. “I was in college years ago and Jimmy Carter was going to have a war on energy; that got me fired up. This was going to be the future and the next thing you know it’s never mind.” While some of the social and governmental drive toward renewable energy may have lost some steam, since those days, Davis’ interest in putting the concept into action hasn’t flagged.
The Earth Comfort Company was born 18 years ago while Davis was working for a LaGrange based electric cooperative and travelled to Washington, D.C., to learn about geothermal heat pumps with the goal of returning to teach Georgia companies about the technology. Geothermal heat pumps are a renewable energy technology that have existed since the late 1940s and function by taking advantage of the fact that the earth’s underground temperature is constantly around 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
With several different variations, the pumps circulate water or fluid through a piping system placed a few feet underground, often in a series of loops, by means of an electric pump. Using 40 to 60 percent less energy than conventional systems, geothermal heat pumps pay for their installation within five to ten years and have an estimated 25-year service life, with the underground components extending to 50 plus years, according the U.S. Department of Energy. As an added bonus, enough hot water is produced as a free by-product to cover 60 percent of usage. Owners of geothermal heat pumps also receive a 30 percent federal energy tax credit, which Davis points out almost pays for the additional cost of installation.
After learning about geothermal technology, Davis put his passion for energy efficiency to work and began The Earth Comfort Company, basing it in Savannah. Today the company provides a variety of energy efficient installation services, including solar, wind and insulation, and prides itself on being “the go-to source” for geothermal heat loop systems. Focusing primarily on larger scale commercial projects, The Earth Comfort Company has completed numerous projects including the installation of a geothermal system for Florida State University’s Sustainable Energy Science and Engineering Center, one of 14 off-grid zero emissions buildings in the country.
In 2008, Davis joined The University of Georgia’s Marine Extension Service in Brunswick in an ongoing effort to provide a tangible example of efficient energy use through various renewable energy equipment. He helped get geothermal, solar, and energy efficient lighting technologies on a 16,000-square-foot building built in 1991. With the bulk of construction finished in December of 2010, the associate director for the Marine Extension Service, Keith Gates, who has since retired, says of the project, “The geothermal [heat pump] is fantastic; it dropped our electric bill around 50 percent, which is pretty amazing. And not only were we improving energy, the idea was to teach folks down the road about the whole operation.”

Photography by Shawn Heifert
Read more on our August/September Issue now!