Month: August 2016

Wish List

With prices as low as $45, this tiara boutique reigns over Louisville — and not just for thrifty drag queens

Those glittering headpieces are for everybody nowadays, according to a story in one of our favorite business bibles: The Wall Street Journal. And Louisville, it turns out, has a primo place to buy them, with literally hundreds to choose from.

Kate Middleton tiara
Kate’s hand-me-down.

Now, we’re not talking about the real diamond deals — like the heirloom tiara Kate Middleton wore for her 2011 wedding to Prince William. Made by Cartier for Queen Elizabeth’s mother in 1936, it’s paved with 739 brilliant-cut and 149 baguette-cut diamonds.

Wall Street Journal writer Dana Thomas wasn’t made of money, either, when she stumbled on the tiara trend while planning her 1960s-themed 50th birthday party. “My husband and I hired a swinging jazz combo and urged invitees to dress in Rat-Pack chic,” she wrote. “And I made an appointment with my hairdresser David Mallett in Paris, where I live, to acquire a big updo.”

Thomas planned to add a toy tiara from her daughter’s dress-up days. “Little did I realize I was participating in a legitimate fashion trend,” she says, pointing to a flurry of tiaras seen at spring fashion shows and social galas. Indeed, if Thomas had been in Louisville in January, she would have seen the 2016 Derby Festival Royal Court introduction: five tiara-topped women eager to be crowned the annual Festival Queen. (And the winner was…)

Boulevard readers will be delighted to know they needn’t travel all the way to the Parisian arrondissements where Thomas shopped. Here in the city named for France’s Louis XVI, we have Affordable Elegance Bridal, a 10-year-old online emporium offering more than 300 tiaras, plus the occasional crown.

Tiara one
It’s a bargain!

The least expensive — the Botanical Pearl and Crystal Wedding Tiara — sounds very fancy indeed, for only $45 (marked down from $72): “Mariell’s soft cream pearl and crystal statement tiara will glam up your wedding with intricate hand-wired floral sprays. For a stunning blend of en vogue design and classic bridal couture, this headpiece is bursting with botanical femininity.”

Tiara prices max out at $249 for the silver-plated Artemis, adorned with hundreds of rhinestones.

In addition to web shopping there, customers can order by phone Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Eastern Time). 502-835-4421. Shipping is free within the U.S.

Photo, top: Raven (left) and Manila Luzon (right) crown Chad Michaels, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 2012.

The Jennifer Lawrence Diary™

Today’s rhetorical question: Have you ever seen Helen Mirren and Jennifer Lawrence in the same room at the same time?

Irish celebrity news website Entertainment.ie is the latest to ask that meme-ready question, today, and immediately answered it: “No, you haven’t, because they’re the same person.” Which, of course, is baloney, although even Mirren has noticed the similarity between her much younger self and Lawrence, who turned 26 only yesterday.

In the photo mashup, above, that’s Mirren on the left, when she was in her late 20s or early 30s.

Comedian Jon Stewart first raised the likness in 2013, when he showed Lawrence a 1970s-era photo of the British actress. Watch the video of the Oscar-winning Louisville native and gorgeous, 71-year-old Mirren:

Latest Headlines

Ford sets 2021 for driverless cars; Kindred closing 37-bed Texas hospital; and the summer news slowdown brings our most ridiculous KFC roundup so far: #ChipGate!

A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 2:51 p.m.

FORD announced plans today to begin mass production of fully autonomous vehicles in 2021 for ride-hailing or ride-sharing services such as Uber or Lyft. The cars will be built with no steering wheel, gas or brake pedals. To advance its plan, the automaker, a major employer in Louisville, said it’s investing in or collaborating with four start-ups; doubling its Silicon Valley team, and more than doubling its Palo Alto campus in the valley. “The next decade will be defined by automation of the automobile, and we see autonomous vehicles as having as significant an impact on society as Ford’s moving assembly line did 100 years ago,” said CEO Mark Fields (video, above, and press release). In Louisville, Ford employs nearly 10,000 workers at truck and vehicle assembly factories. More about Ford’s local operations.

KINDRED is shuttering a 37-bed hospital outside Houston in Baytown, Texas, and has notified the state Workforce Commission that it’s eliminating all 33 jobs there during a two-week period starting Oct. 3. The notification letter called the closure a “strategic decision.” Kindred still will have nine long-term care hospitals in the Houston area, including Kindred Hospital Bay Area (Houston Chronicle).

Texas Roadhouse logoTEXAS ROADHOUSE: Good luck finding the love of your life with this Craigslist Missed Connections advertisement in the Phoenix area. Yesterday (apparently) at 3:30 p.m., a man visited one of the four East Valley Texas Roadhouses for a birthday dinner. (At 3:30 p.m.? Was this an early-bird special?) “I walked in,” he writes, and saw a waitress, “the most amazing woman. She had long curly black hair, eyes that were to die for. The most beautiful face I have ever seen. . . . As I was leaving, I said, ‘I’m getting too old.’ I wish I had said something else. I hope you see this.” Problem is, he didn’t say which of the four restaurants he visited (CraigsList).

KFC: August is usually one of the slowest news periods of the year because so many people are on vacation — not making news. This brings us to the following three stories about Yum’s enormous fried chicken chain:

A vexed vegan

In Australia yesterday, Continue reading “Ford sets 2021 for driverless cars; Kindred closing 37-bed Texas hospital; and the summer news slowdown brings our most ridiculous KFC roundup so far: #ChipGate!” →

Cops and Courts

Murder trial date to be set today for man charged with shooting co-worker at Elizabethtown KFC-Taco Bell in February

The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants*.

Crime scene tapeA judge ruled yesterday that Joshua Ratliff, 27, was competent to stand trial on charges of murder, wanton endangerment of a police officer, and evading police, according to WLKY-TV.

Investigators say Ratliff shot 22-year-old Ryan Birse multiple times last February at the combination KFC-Taco Bell restaurant and then led police on a short pursuit, the station said. A witness had WLKY that Ratliff walked out the door with a gun at his side.

Joshua Ratliff
Ratliff

Despite having a relatively high IQ of 110, the defense argued Ratliff had a history of psychiatric problems and wouldn’t be able to participate in his own defense. The judge disagreed, however, saying Ratliff had the capacity to participate rationally in his own defense.

A defense psychiatrist had testified at an earlier hearing about Ratliff’s mental state. “He had delusions that his parents were trying to poison him, delusions that someone had taken on his mother’s identity,” psychiatrist Douglas Ruth said.

Ratliff’s expected trial date comes after an especially grim period of murders at fast-food chains owned by Louisville companies. Sunday in Lorain, Ohio, a man was killed in an apparent robbery attempt in a Taco Bell drive-thru around 11 p.m. Details were scarce, and an Internet search this morning didn’t turn up any fresh news.

Also Sunday, in Fort Wayne, a 28-year-old man was killed and another man was injured during a shooting outside a Texas Roadhouse in Fort Wayne. Police and court records said the man killed had gotten into a fight with members of a motorcycle gang he once belonged to. A suspect has been arrested and charged with murder in the case.

Video emerges in Roadhouse case

A witness, who asked to remain anonymous, said the victim, Jeff Lute, had been harassed by members of the bike gang for months amid a feud that apparently started months ago when Lute decided to quit the gang, WISH-TV said today.

The witness told the station members of the group weren’t going to let him go easy; they threatened Lute’s life and slashed his tires. Lute had filed multiple police reports since January, he said.

WISH obtained home surveillance video of someone slashing Lute’s tires that the station published its story this morning.

* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 outlets in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants across the U.S. and in five other nations. With that many locations, crimes inevitably occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.

Latest Headlines

Humana leverages tech-savvy employees to build network of 3,000 advocates on Twitter and other social media — in just one year

A year ago, the Louisville-based insurance giant had already signed up 90% of its 50,000 employees to an internal social network, and 40-45% logged in at least once a month. That’s when it decided to encourage the most motivated ones to share approved articles about the company, plus other health-care news on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other networks outside the company, AdAge reports today.

Employees use the hashtag #HumEmployee to make clear they work for the company. To launch the program, called Humana Advocates, the insurer hired Dynamic Signal, a Silicon Valley company that builds employee advocacy systems. The pilot program started with a couple hundred staffers, rising to 500 by January. Since then, the number has jumped to 3,000.

Dan Gingiss
Gingiss

The system shows a list of approved articles for users to share. But most of it “isn’t directly Humana-related, because we don’t want employees to look like shills for the company,” Dan Gingiss, Humana’s head of digital marketing, told AdAge. Most of the content is about health and wellness, some of which is created by Humana itself, with the rest from third parties.

Humana’s effort is only the latest example of how companies are fiercely competing for market share by harnessing free social media technology, where hundreds of millions of current and potential consumers spend more and more time. Twitter says some 313 million people use the short-message platform each month. The figures on Facebook are even higher: 1.7 billion, including 1.1 billion every day.

KFC bucket of chickenAmong Louisville companies, the battle is especially strong among restaurant giants that compete for young customers who practically live online: Yum’s troika of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell; pizza colossus Papa John’s, and steakhouse chain Texas Roadhouse. On the public-relations front, companies also need all the help they can get from employees to burnish their image when bad news spreads online.

The chains have recently pushed back against headline-grabbing behavior from employees themselves. Last month, Continue reading “Humana leverages tech-savvy employees to build network of 3,000 advocates on Twitter and other social media — in just one year” →

Executive Pay

Kindred’s Zachariah gets $220K in stock with promotion to rehab president
Jason Zachariah
Zachariah

Jason Zachariah received 20,000 Kindred shares yesterday as the hospital and nursing home giant announced his promotion to president of Kindred Rehabilitation Services, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission notice this morning.

The shares are in the form of restricted stock units that vest in equal annual installments over three years starting a year from yesterday. Based on yesterday’s $11.01 closing price, the shares are worth $220,000. Zachariah already owned 20,980. It’s common for executives to get bonuses for big promotions. By vesting the shares over several years, a company encourages the employee to stay and also ties their compensation to the company’s overall performance.

Zachariah replaced Jon Rousseau, who is leaving the company to pursue other interests, Kindred said. Rousseau joined Kindred three years ago and was president of KRS since April 2015.

In a separate filing, Rousseau told the SEC he’d given up 24,900 shares without compensation, a stake he presumably walked away from when he quit; the Form 4 document didn’t explain the transaction, however. Rousseau still had 24,433 shares remaining, the document said.*

Zachariah’s elevation and Rousseau’s departure were effective immediately, the company said. Zachariah started at the Louisville hospital and nursing home giant in 2006.

Kindred employs about 2,200 employees in Louisville; it has about 102,000 employees in total. More about Kindred’s operations.

* (At the time he joined the company, Rousseau told the SEC he’d been awarded 35,000 restricted stock units, which were to vest in equal annual installments over three years by July 30 this year — two weeks ago. Attentive readers will notice a discrepancy in all these figures for Rousseau. Without getting too far into the weeds and boring readers to death, Boulevard notes Rousseau also was awarded 14,000 RSUs when he was promoted to rehab president in spring 2015.)