Cover Story: Where are they now? 2002
Manon Rheaume
Atlanta’s favorite bench-warmer during the mid-’90s, the gorgeous, long-haired French-Canadian barely saw ice time as second-string goalie for the minor-league Atlanta Knights. But she was heavily promoted by the team, charmed David Letterman and even turned down a Playboy photo spread. The first woman to play in a major-league men’s pro-sports game (with Tampa in 1992), Rheaume switched to women’s hockey and earned a silver medal in Nagano. She now lives in Las Vegas and works for a skate manufacturer.
Joel Babbit
One of the twin tornadoes of Atlanta advertising, Babbit burst onto the scene with Joey Reiman in April 1986 and a full-page newspaper ad warning existing agencies to get out of the way. They made good on that threat by winning monster accounts like Wolf Camera and Rich’s, cleaning up at the Addy awards and selling their upstart firm for $10 million. Babbit briefly served as Atlanta’s “chief of marketing and communications” under Maynard Jackson, launched another firm and, most recently, directed the ad campaign for Robb Pitt’s hapless mayoral bid.
Spud Webb
At a mere 5 feet 7 inches tall, Webb was the unlikeliest of hoops stars, but he held his own with the fondly remembered Hawks crew of the ’80s that included Dominique Wilkins, Tree Rollins, Doc Rivers, John Battle and Jon Koncak. In 1986, the mini-guard’s fame reached new heights when he won the league’s slam-dunk contest. After 12 years in the NBA, he now lives in Dallas and has retired to the golf course.
DeAundra Peek
Originally one of the singing Peek Sisters from Odum’s All Double-Wide Mobile Home Court in Palmetto, she brought her white-trash drag act to public-access TV with “DeAundra Peek’s Teenage Music Club” show in 1988 and remained on the air well into the ’90s, becoming known for extolling the virtues of “vy-eenner” sausages and serving as hostess of the annual Wigwood benefit. Her alter-ego, Rosser Shymanski, works as a production manager at GPTV.
Julian Bond
After rising to national fame as a young state senator for denouncing the Vietnam War, Bond remains a hero to many Atlantans, although he was effectively driven out of town in 1987 by his estranged wife’s allegations that he was a coke fiend who distributed the drug with the help of his ex-con girlfriend. Bond now lives in D.C., where he teaches history at two universities and serves on the national NAACP board.
Ron Hudspeth
In the ’80s, the AJC had two hard-drinking, good-ol’-boy local columnists. The scruffier Hudspeth was a Buckhead barfly who was canned in 1987 — prompting a resignation bluff by compatriot Lewis Grizzard — for starting his own restaurant rag, The Hudspeth Report. Fifteen years later, the free monthly is still circulating, but Hudspeth now files his copy from his bungalow in Costa Rica.
Banks & Shane
The local folk duo got its first paying gig in 1972 and by the early ’80s, owned an eponymous club in Sandy Springs that was relocated to Underground Atlanta in 1989. Three years later, the club folded and the two aging cover artists struck out in search of a record contract that never materialized. You can catch them live Sat., June 15, at the fabulous Acworth Beach Outdoor Concert.