There she is … Mrs. Pennsylvania; Electrocuted T/E teen & his ‘Army’ soldier on; Dandan deluged; School board scrums, Cup of Dreams, HomeCooked & more

A supporter of local boutiques, Meyers had hoped to compete in an evening gown from the Paoli boutique Van Cleve Collection, but the sample-size gown she was offered was too big. She ended up picking up a glittery number at Formals XO, a prom shop at the mall. “I felt like a zillion dollars in it but it cost less than 400 bucks.”

Meyers says her “biggest hurdle” by far was the swimsuit competition.

She’d watched her diet and stepped up her workouts – she runs and plays tennis and paddle – but nothing quite prepared her for baring almost all onstage, she says.

“There’s so little to wear so the only thing you can sell is yourself and your personality, in that moment. I was like, ‘Look at my face; see how much fun I’m having!’”

Contestants wear the same one-piece suit, which the pageant provides.

Ashley at age 10 and on stage last month.

With her family cheering her on, it turned out to be her favorite walk of the night. “That’s probably where I had the most self-growth – just getting over myself.”

But isn’t a bathing suit contest a tad out of step with the times?

Not at all, says Liebesman, the director. “The pageant promotes body positivity,” she says. “Past titleholders have ranged from size 4 to 16 and contestants do have the option to wear a sarong over their suits.”

While she’d never set foot on a pageant stage, Meyers has always shined in the spotlight.

At Radnor Middle School, she won the best “best smile” award. Her senior award from the Class of ’97 at Radnor High School: “Never Wore the Same Outfit Twice.”

In eighth grade at Radnor Middle School and in ’70s garb during her senior year at Radnor High School.

At Penn State, she made the homecoming court, played lacrosse and majored in broadcast journalism.

She married Penn State classmate Drew Meyers in 2003 and had three kids in six years. In 2014, she launched her personal styling, brand ambassador and Instagram influencer company. She called it “Main Line Fashionista” – her childhood nickname.

“Honestly, six years ago, I was making peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and driving my kids to school,” Meyers recalls.

Her daughter, Ava, a sophomore at Conestoga, has just signed with Elite Models. A second daughter and son are at T/E Middle School. “I wanted to show my kids that life doesn’t end when you’re a mom, that you should continue to grow and try new things and say yes.”

The Myers family in the winter of 2020: Evan, 12, Lulu, 14, Ashley, Ava, 17, and Drew.

Today Meyers has her own publicist and three stylists on staff, gets paid to plug local businesses, and talks fashion on Instagram, TV news, podcasts and QVC.

Meyers (second from left) with intern Lanie Buck, Shop 65 Ardmore owner Linda LaRosa and Main Line Fashionista Style Director Peggy Conlon.

Someday, she’d like to write a book about “my insider fashion tips and tricks.”

But for now, she’s focusing on packing her bags for Mrs. America. She needs to choose “high fashion outfits” for 11 days of events and appearances. “They say you’re judged the entire time and it’s super intense.”

Meyers will also need a PA state costume. One of her ideas: a play on the state bird, the ruffled grouse. “It’ll be a surprise,” she says.

But if anyone knows how to dress the part, then sell it – and herself – with a radiant smile and the right words, it’s our homegrown Main Line Fashionista.

So our money’s on Meyers to take the crown on November 20 and advance to Mrs. World in January.

If that happens, we can all say we knew her when.

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Austin has survived multiple surgeries, three amputations and infections. He can sit up now and is learning to propel himself in a special walker and move from his bed to his wheelchair and back again on his own.

“He’s 99 percent of the way there and that’s huge because he doesn’t have hands to push off to stand up,” Golden notes.

Special wrapping allows Austin to work a stylus on his iPad.

In occupational therapy, he uses his mouth to paint and make brownies.

While the 9^th grade coursework he would have taken at Conestoga will have to wait, he is taking an English literature class online.

When you have third-degree burns on three-quarters of your body, healing takes time. Austin’s skin still blisters and scabs. He will soon need surgery to release skin that’s pulling on an eye. He needs to build foot strength before he can be fitted for a prosthesis for his other leg and foot. The prosthesis will cost up to $100,000, Golden says, and will need to be replaced as he grows. Hand prostheses or possibly transplanted hands would come next. A hand transplant surgeon has told the family that Austin is a candidate.

Austin’s medical bills will be enormous; his personal challenges just as daunting.

And that’s where Austin’s Army has come in – the T/E and Marple Newtown communities, his teammates, care team, friends and strangers. For five months they’ve sent prayers, cards, texts and meals. They host fundraisers and sell t-shirts. They arranged for 50 celebrities to send personal video greetings including sports stars Brian Dawkins, Jay Wright, Phil Martelli, Brandon Graham, Matt Ryan and Rob Gronkowski. A favorite video came from former Stoga standout Mark Herzlich who overcame bone cancer to play for Austin’s favorite NFL team, the New York Giants.

On Oct. 30, Austin’s Army will stage its biggest fundraiser yet – a ticketed music festival – in Rose Tree Park in Media. The lineup includes comedian Joe Conklin, former “America’s Got Talent” winner Joe Downs, rock tribute bands, and student groups from Stoga and Marple Newtown. If his doctors allow it, Austin might just make an appearance. There’s talk of a police escort to the music festival and maybe one day – the day he finally comes home to Berwyn – a parade.

Nearly half a year after the accident, Golden attributes Austin’s steady progress to three things: Divine intervention, the unflagging support of Austin’s Army, and Austin himself.

The public is drawn to his story because of “his resilience, his persistence, his positivity, his fight,” she says. “He’s a 14-year-old kid trapped in his body and he does inspiring things.” When he transferred out of St. Christopher’s, his nurses cried.

“Austin seemingly accepts the position that he’s in. I’m not saying he’s OK with it but he’s accepting of it. The same kind of persistence that got him through the hard part is going to help him navigate his new life.”

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The star was staying in Gladwyne during recent filming of his new movie, Hustle, and dined at the Wayne DanDan three times and ordered takeout once. To thank Sandler, the Huangs added his favorite soup, chicken wonton, to the Ardmore menu and named it Happy Madison.

On the menu: Authentic, wokked-to-order Sichuan and Taiwanese dishes and delicacies, each rated on a 0-to-5 spiciness scale. “We have more than 100 items and every dish tastes different,” Huang says. By contrast, Americanized Chinese kitchens rely on two sauces “and everything tastes the same,” she says. Among our favorites: Soup Dumplings ($9.95), signature DanDan noodles in chili oil ($9.95), Long hot pepper chicken ($14.75), Ginger-shredded duck ($22.95) and the Sizzling Wonton Platter ($29.45).

The vibe: Upscale “West meets East,” courtesy of Strada Architecture. No red fans, pagodas or paper lanterns; the Asian influence is subtle. The Ardmore DanDan seats 120, slightly smaller than Wayne but larger than DanDan in Center City.

Unlike Devon, the Ardmore Dandan attracts a late-night bar crowd. Customers are spending more in Ardmore, especially on drinks, Huang tells us.

Like everywhere else, DanDan Ardmore has had trouble finding help. Four months behind schedule and with bills piling up, the restaurant was only half-staffed when it opened. Luckily for the Huangs, most customers were patient through the early service hiccups. “We just didn’t expect it would be so crazy,” says Huang.

DanDan, 30 Parking Plaza, Suburban Square (in the main courtyard between the Times Building and Lola’s Garden), 484-412-8178, is open Mon. to Thurs. 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Sat. 11:30 to 10:30 and Sun. 11:30 to 9:30.

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Lingo wants to knock down a few mostly unused campus buildings and 21 of the 26 modest homes nearby that have housed VFMA staff.

In their place, he plans to build a complex of seven, three-story buildings (300 beds) for independent and assisted living and communal amenities. Five nearby homes would be renovated for employee housing.

The latest rendering of 1001 Eagle Rd. in Radnor.

“Because of where we are, adjacent and overlooking a beautiful golf club, and being in Radnor with this great proximity to downtown Wayne, we see this as a high-end life care residence where people that are from here would love to spend their remaining years,” Lingo tells SAVVY.

Senior living is a departure for Rockwell Custom. To date, the company has only built luxury homes. Current projects include a carriage home community at the old Edgemont Country Club and townhomes at Ellis Preserve in Newtown Square. Smaller townhome enclaves in Devon and downtown Wayne are also on the company’s drawing board.

Why senior living in Radnor? Lingo says “a light went off” when he couldn’t find a suitable facility for his ailing father that was close to his Wayne home.

“This is something that’s desperately needed here. People want their loved ones nearby.” Rockwell will bring in an experienced senior-living company – still TBD – to run day-to-day operations.

Lingo expects smooth sailing with the township. A life-care residence conforms to the property’s current “Planned Institutional” zoning.

His project adds stormwater controls to a parcel that had none and more than two acres of open space and keeps most of the existing trees.

He calls his life-care residences a “low-impact use with no school-age kids and a low-crime demographic” but wouldn’t speculate on the potential burden to EMT and ambulance services, Lingo says.

After sharing his plans with neighbors and other stakeholders, Lingo tweaked his plans. He moved the main buildings farther from Eagle Road, decreased impervious surface area, and agreed to run employee shuttles to the train station so as not to clog local roads. “We took their feedback to heart,” Lingo says. “They helped us come up with a better plan.”

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Beans are organic, fair trade and single origin from Audubon micro-roaster Valerio Coffee. Current pours include a Mexican dark brew, a lighter Costa Rican roast, and Jazzy Java, Valerio’s popular flavored blend.

The proud mother of a Conestoga senior, Zhou gives discounts to T/E teachers and staff to thank the district for the “awesome education” her daughter has received.

She chose Paoli Village Shoppes because it’s convenient to train commuters and to her Berwyn home – she plans to be a hands-on owner.

Cup of Dreams, 5 Paoli Plaza, Paoli, is open weekdays 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., weekends 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.  

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CWML’s September speaker was high-profile Stop the Steal activist Scott Presler, who’s been traveling the country helping the GOP “take back the school boards.” A lightning rod for progressives, Presler has been blasted for his work supporting the anti-Muslim group, Act! for America, and for calling the January 6 insurrection “the largest civil rights protest in American history.”

Far-right activist Scott Presler (second from left) with Republican T/E school board candidate Deana Wang, Tredyffrin GOP Vice Chair Rosanna Hagg, Tredyffrin GOP Chair Raffi Terzian and Tredyffrin GOP supervisor candidate Nick Sarracino. A “Stop the Steal” protest organizer from Virginia, Presler now focuses on flipping U.S. school boards. He was an invited guest of Conservative Women of the Main Line in September. (Tredyffrin Republicans Facebook photo)

We were curious: Do GOP leaders and school board candidate who posed with him endorse his positions? After a string of local GOP defeats, we wanted to know if a group like CWML was still aboard the Trump train. Was Tredyffrin’s GOP tacking rightward, too? We believe these are fair questions.

It’s true that these new groups all back Republicans. We weren’t aware of any new or outside groups backing Democratic candidates. If we had, we would have looked into them, too.

For weeks, we didn’t know if we’d even run a story. We were simply gathering information to see if there was a story worth reporting.

And then a few days ago, we received this from an encrypted – and therefore, untraceable – IP address. A pre-emptive strike to scare us off the story? You decide. Here it is, copy-pasted, unedited and word-for-word:

 You have been on a witch hunt with Republican groups around T/E/Radnor for your November piece. Your publication is as liberal as they come. A number of the parent’s mudslinging with you and the name-calling has gotten out of hand, these are your friends. You have many advertisers; I would assume a number of them will not agree with your stance. It would help if you stuck to writing about derby hats, and your writing is poor. Our areas need more than one voice, school board, and bipartisan boards. 

 Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.

Fun stuff, right? Although you didn’t ask for it, Chesterconcerenedparents, here’s this Witch Hunter’s response:
1. How is SAVVY “as liberal as they come” when about 95 percent of our content isn’t remotely political? If you actually read our publication, you’ll find we write mostly about local businesses (we champion them), interesting people (we like them, too) and notable real estate deals and events. If we report on elections at all, it’s usually after they’re over and only then if they reveal a trend in the electorate. We accept no political ads. We make no endorsements.

2. “Mudslinging” and “name-calling”? Not by us. Since we hadn’t written a story or even decided to write one, you must be referring to our questions, which were pointed, yes, but 100 percent respectful.

3. Not that we should have to say this, but we have just as many conservative friends as liberal friends. We treasure them all.

4. We’re not worried about advertisers reacting to “our stance” because we haven’t taken one, nor do we plan to.

5. We are sorry that you find our writing poor. Oh, and for the record, we’ve never written about Kentucky Derby hats.

OK, that feels better. Now back to the school board stuff. Here’s what we’ve learned.

About that photo with far right activist Scott Presler: 

Tredyffrin Republicans Chair Raffi Terzian and CWML President/Tredyffrin Republicans Vice Chair Rosanna Hagg ignored our repeated questions. We tried three times.

We did, however, hear back from T/E’s best-funded school board candidate, Deana Wang, who was also pictured with Presler. Wang said she was “not aware of any of those events associated with Scott Presler” and attended the CWML event “to meet more voters.”

When we asked in a follow-up email if she regretted posing with Presler, Wang suggested that Presler may have been mistreated by the press. “We should stop basing all our opinions about a person … based on what the media publishes,” she said.

We also took the opportunity to ask about her funding. Wang had already amassed $16,000 in the spring and who-knows-how-much since then – huge dollars for a school board candidate. Hence, her omnipresent yard signs and polished mailers. We wanted to know: Had she accepted money from any PACs? “All donations I received are from individuals,” Wang said.

We also asked why her campaign materials don’t mention her party? “As a school board candidate, party affiliation is not important to me. Our community is divided enough…” On the national level, however, we found that Wang is GOP all the way, donating to Trump two days after the election, Lindsey Graham, Thom Tillis and Kelly Loeffler.

We never did make contact with Pioneer PAC, which backs T/E candidates (but presumably, not Wang) because, well, we haven’t been able to find them. We know Pioneer PAC applied for and received $10,000 from Back to School PA only because Back to School founder Clarice Schillinger told us so. She promised to ask Pioneer PAC if they would reveal themselves to SAVVY so we might pose a few questions. So far: crickets.

Kim Kent and Anne Moreland, co-founders of Reimagine Radnor which claims nonpartisanship, in a video announcing their endorsement of four GOP candidates.

On the third try, we did hear back from Reimagine Radnor (RR).

Our questions: Your critics want to know how a group that calls itself a nonpartisan, local, grassroots effort ends up endorsing only Republican candidates and takes money from Back to School PA, a PAC primarily funded by a GOP mega-donor?

You champion transparency; why won’t you name your full board?

Critics claim questions about mask mandates and Critical Race Theory are ignored on your Facebook page. Do you stand with the GOP and your GOP candidates on these culture-wars issues?

If you’re non-partisan, why did you bring in an out-of-state right-wing strategist?

And finally, kids are back in school, in Radnor and everywhere else. Radnor, in fact, was the first district in the area to bring them back and it was just ranked the #1 school district in the state. Why, then, are you reimagining it?

Some answers:

• According to RR media contact Laura Lebaudy, RR won’t disclose its full board because its two founders, both Democrats, received “disturbing emails,” causing one of them, Anne Moreland, to contact police. RR’s board has four Democrats, one Independent and three Republicans.
• Why all Republican endorsements? “We believe that restoring balance of thought to our board is the best way to serve our children, our schools and our community.”
• No direct answer about RR’s stance on GOP culture-wars issues and whether they’re dodging questions on Facebook. “We encourage you to view the Reimagine Radnor Facebook page – you’ll see there is no right-wing agenda,” Lebaudy said.
• RR did indeed hire right-wing strategist Patrick Krason but only to help grow its Facebook page. RR claims it “didn’t know anything about his politics because we don’t ask about political affiliations.” They never paid him and he was never active, Lebaudy said.
• While it took money from a statewide PAC, Lebaudy said most of its funding came from individual voters who gave $100 or less. Back to School PA’s Schillinger told us her PAC gave $15,000 to Reimagine Radnor – one of 65 donations to PACs across PA. (RR sent us a news release about the initial donation of $10K but the extra $5K was news to us.)
• Both PACs say they’re fueled by the fear that schools could close again. RR says flatly that keeping kids out of classrooms was “wrong” and ”should never be an option again.” Period. New variant outbreak or not. They no longer “trust [the current board] with their children’s education,” pledging to restore “fiscal sanity” and “full transparency.” Schillinger at Back to School PAC also worries about a provision in the Pa. school code (Section 3.1) that she says allows school boards to keep schools closed up to four years in an emergency. “I do fear what will happen with the next variant, the next COVID-19 outbreak,” she says.

Meanwhile, Radnor Democrats are blasting Reimagine Radnor, charging that the PAC is distorting and outright lying about the current board’s record on spending, taxes, the new mascot, the ADA project at the high school, responsiveness to the community, you name it. Who’s right? We invite you to take a look at the Reimagine Radnor site and Radnor Democrats for School Board’s ‘truth’ page and judge for yourself.

And how about the Radnor debate that wasn’t? In what may be a township first, the Radnor school board and commissioner debates set for Zoom last Sunday never happened. The night before, the League of Women Voters notified Radnor Democrats that “the Republican candidates will not participate” and the League called it off, saying it was “unable to hold an empty chair forum.” Republicans claim they never came to terms with the League; Democrats claim that’s a lie and they have emails to prove it. Democrats have asked the League to hold an empty chair debate as it did for two commissioner races in 2017.

Meanwhile, back in T/E, another new group, Neighbors United PA, joined the scrum last Friday, sending a detailed email blast to an undetermined number of residents with the subject line: “Difficult years for the TE School District.” What followed was a detailed critique of the current T/E board and administration. Basically, a campaign attack ad in narrative form.

It appears the blast went to registered Republicans and those who’ve recently donated to Republican campaigns. Its sender raised eyebrows: the personal email account of a Tredyffrin GOP leader. But no sooner had the email gone out than Neighbors United retracted the name, later explaining to us that it was “a marketing mistake.” The GOP leader, in fact, has “no affiliation” with their group, they said.

While the people behind Neighbors United won’t share their names, they did reply to our email in general terms.

“We’re a group of non-political neighbors that found common ground on issues,” they wrote. The articles, videos and events posted on their website include a Stop Critical Race Theory Toolkit, an Audit the Vote rally in Gettysburg, a Conservative Activists Bootcamp, a symposium by Mike Lindell (the My Pillow guy), two Conservative Women of the Main Line events and an Easttown GOP fundraiser.

Non-political? We’ll leave that for you to decide, too.

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“There’s just something magical about all these discarded, broken, imperfect things coming together to make something beautiful that captures the heart of The Story,” says founder Anna Walker-Roberts (below), who also leads Calvary Chapel of Delaware County’s Sunday night services a few doors down.

Walker-Roberts wanted to create a place that would strengthen her congregation’s ties to each other and to the Ardmore community, a place for sharing stories written and spoken. “There’s an interesting energy in Ardmore,” she says. “It feels like we’re on the edge of a ton of growth here.”

She tapped congregant Andrea Cummins-Disbro of Lost Orchid Interiors. Could she turn a nondescript former VFW hall into a singular gathering spot and do it for, well, a song?

She could. And she did.

The back room of The Story where words literally leap off the walls.

Although it’s supported by the church, The Story is open to the public and proceeds from coffee, pastry and book sales will be donated to area charities, still TBD, that help people in difficult chapters of their own stories.

Barista/coffee consultant John Lange and café manager Ashlyn Griest. The café serves locally-baked pastries and coffee from specialty roasters in South Carolina and San Francisco.

The Story, 45 E. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, 610-649-1235, is open Wed. to Sat. 9 to 3 and Sundays, 2 to 6:30 p.m.

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