HughE Dillon: Black-Tie Gay Bingo

Why the AIDS Fund's fancy annual fundraiser had guests stomping like "petulant seven-year-olds."

The AIDS Fund held its outrageous, hysterical and very charitable 13th annual Black-Tie GayBINGO! event Saturday night at Wanamaker’s Crystal Tea Ballroom. Every year, the AIDS Fund honors exceptional people and organizations. Below: Loraine Ballard Morrill (second from right) was 2012’s “Favorite Straight Person of the Year,” and is currently news director and community affairs director for Clear Channel Radio’s six Philadelphia stations. She’s pictured with friends Suzanne Petruzel, Gilberto Gonzalez and Bob Pisani, CNBC stocks editor and Trader Talk blogger.

Garry Stover (left) and Steve Terrill (center) were given the Ferrara Family Volunteer Award. The Founder Award was given to William Way LGBT Community Center. (Opening remarks were given by Robb Reichard (right), executive director of the AIDS Fund.)

The Mistress of Ceremony was the always-enjoyable bingo diva herself, Miss Carlota Ttendent (Michael Byrne of Action AIDS), who greeted the guests to the fabulous night of entertainment and games.

Below: Lu Ann Cahn (right) tells me she belongs to the “Damsels in Success” group that includes Loraine, Alicja Plonska (left) and Kelly Green (center). Lu Ann’s blog, oneyearoffirsts.com, has been optioned for a book that will be out in 2013.

Below: ActionAIDS executive director Kevin Burns, and Kevin S. Blanton, Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP. Team Schnader was among the top fundraising teams at the 2011 Philly AIDS Walk/Run held in October. Burns reminded me that the 19th Annual Dining Out For Life is coming up on April 26, 2012.

Below: Randi Bromberg, Diana Sulecki, Aimee Karl, Meredith Harris, Ariel Parker, and Dorothy Sulecki were decked out for a fun time.

Below: Anthony Pace, events and volunteer coordinator at the AIDS Fund, with girlfriend Jessica Frankel, senior placement specialist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, who was volunteering at the auction table on Saturday night.

Below: Suzette Adams, Greg Koory, Langsam Stevens Silver & Hollaender, Francisco Lopez, and Rachel Branson, Schnader, Harrison, Siegel, and Lewis.

Below: Rich Olaya and Cindy Clark. Cindy reminded me that the last time I saw her was at Rob Wasserman’s Burger Brawl, which benefits Meredith Elementary School, where her son Caleb Clark who goes. This year’s Burger Brawl will be held a month earlier on May 6th at 3 p.m. at the Fleisher Art Memorial (same day as the Broad Street Run).

Sponsors of one of the bingo games was Tavern on Camac; reps from Tavern got up on stage and called the numbers to the guests. Below: Carlota Ttendent, Juliann Hickey, Kyle Stoudnour, Tavern co-owner Dennis Fee, and Arnie Liguori, who pulled the numbers for Kyle to call out.

When a guest yelled BINGO!, the Bingo Verifying Divas made sure a player had all the numbers on their card to win a game. Below: Two of the BVD’s (decked out in green for St. Patrick’s Day), Anita Manhattan, and Stella D’Oro (right), here with Sean Green (center), sold raffle tickets to raise additional funds during the evening. Other BVD’s running around were Thunder Showers, Summer Clearance and Messapotamia Lafae.

Below: There were several audience-participation moments during the game when certain numbers were called. For example, when “B57” was called, everyone stomped their feet like “a petulant seven-year-old,” and when “O69” was called, the audience got on their feet and yelled “O69,” as Frank Echos and Bob Robinson are doing here. You can join the bingo fun on March 24th for the “Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me GayBingo” regularly monthly game at the Gershman Y.