Beginning in Forsyth Park and continuing one mile down Drayton Street, and then finishing up on Broughton Street, the 7th annual Savannah Mile Run attracts all levels of runners from children to experts on Saturday, May 25 at 8 a.m. This annual run is put on by The 200 Club of the Coastal Empire, a nonprofit providing immediate financial assistance to families of public safety officials who lost their lives in the line of duty.

FRIDAY MAY 17

6:30 P.M.—Release your inner Jimmy Buffett with the Tybee Annual Beach Bum Parade starting at 6:30 p.m. along Butler Avenue on Tybee Island. Get ready for a parade beach-style, complete with a giant water fight. Participation is free, but please read the water safety guidelines before attendance, such as no water balloons, buckets or pressure washers.

SATURDAY MAY 18

8 A.M.—Senior Citizens Inc. brings Meals on Wheels to Daffin Park with their 3rd Annual Miles for Meals 5K Run/Walk. Get on your feet early for the 5K to help Meals on Wheels provide 600 meals to Chatham County senior citizens living below the poverty level. Registration is $35 on race day and packet pickup is from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday at Fleet Feet Sports.

“In the event that the helicopter goes down, just remember R.E.I.R.S.E.L,” says Cory Ceikot, a rescue swimmer with the United States Coast Guard Air Station Savannah. “’R’ is for reference point, ‘E’ is for emergency exit …” he says, explaining the safety procedure used for water crashes. They are not words I want to hear. But it’s too late. Suddenly, I’m upside down, under water, caged in on all sides, and scrambling to release the seatbelt buckle that will free me and allow me to surface. I can’t get the belt undone. What have I gotten myself into?”

“When people find out what I do the two inevitable responses are: ‘You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to do that.’ Or, ‘That’s so cool!’ But it’s much more typical to hear the, ‘You couldn’t pay me enough’ response,” says Brady King. King is a professional rope-access widow washer who sometimes spends up to eight hours a day dangling above the city with a suction cup in one hand and squeegee in the other.

But that statement could have belonged to any of the professionals we interviewed to find out more about the South’s most adventurous, dangerous and killer jobs. Because whether they are seven stories above the ground or 70 feet below sea level, let’s face it, the competition is going to be pretty slim. For this issue, we talked with scuba divers who brave the Southern swamps to find fossils from millions of years ago and guys that scale 90-foot pine trees. To read all about these characters, pick up a copy of the April/Mary issue.

Photography by Ryan Gibson

Join Memorial Health Foundation in celebrating the retirement of John R. Duttenhaver, M.D., who has served as a staff radiation oncologist for more than 25 years at the Curtis and Elizabeth Anderson Cancer Institute at Memorial University Medical Center. The celebration will take place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Charles H. Morris Center on Wednesday, May 8. Tickets are $250 per person in order to raise funds for the Intrabeam—a high-tech device that provides intraoperative radiation therapy for women with breast cancer and has results with shorter treatment times, minimal side effects and maximum radiation therapy benefits.

Vacations have been synonymous with summertime since we were memorizing the alphabet and waiting for the bell to ring. Obviously, the time for a family trip was when schools were closed.

FRIDAY MAY 3

6 P.M.—Get artsy in the Starland District with the First Friday Art March starting at 6 p.m. Businesses along Bull Street between Park and Victory Drive will be open with special events, giveaways, and exhibitions for the night. Make sure to stop by Home Sweet Home, a photography exhibition at Non-Fiction Gallery and the overhaul party for These Friends Too, Desotorow Gallery’s annual no-holds- barred art show.

You may have heard a few of these terms tossed around lately—reusing, repurposing, recycling, upcycling—and maybe you are savvy enough to know what they mean, but if you missed the memo, don’t fret! South magazine is here to get you on track with the hottest trend in town, starting with Sicky Nar Nar’s The Furniture Show, Friday, May 3, 7-10:30 p.m. The show, part of the First Friday Art March between Forsyth Park and Victory drive, is comprised of SCAD Furniture Design student work that uses reclaimed materials from places in Savannah, like Southern Pine.

Cirque du Soleil: Quidam is coming to Savannah next week for three shows at the Civic Center. The fun starts May 7 at 7:30 p.m., with evening shows Wednesday and Thursday night as well. To purchase tickets, click here.

We sat down with Cirque du Soleil spokesperson Jessica LaBeouf and Cirque du Soleil performer Adrienn Banhegyi to learn more about Cirque du Soleil, the Quidiam story and what it really takes to be a performer.

South: How did Cirque du Soleil start?
Jessica LaBeouf: Cirque du Soleil is a company that is almost 30 years old now. In the ’80s, when it started, it was just a little group of street performers like stilt walkers, fire jugglers and fire breathers. They had this idea to mix those art forms with different ones to be like a traditional circus with street performances and theatre and costumes and make up and all of that to put it together in a genre of entertainment. It’s not a musical, it’s not a circus, it’s not a theatre—it’s everything. We chose not to go with animals at all in the circus, but to really focus on the human body—dress it up nicely, bend it backward, put it in the air, spin it around and see how far we could go with that. And then as technology evolved, it opened up other doors with the video interaction and the stage revolving. It’s quite amazing. With the Quidam set, the actual stage is a turntable. All of the 20 shows that Cirque du Soleil has are completely different from one to another. There is only one Quidam. If you want see Quidam, you have to come to savannah and see it. It’s not going to be playing elsewhere.

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