Fashion show helps Amen Center in Delta

Giving met glamour Saturday night as spectators packed the Franklin Elementary School auditorium for the first “Dreams Don’t Have an Expiration Date” Fashion Show.

Wardrobe stylist MarQuetta Rush, the event’s chief organizer, said she wasn’t sure how many people were in the audience, but about 200 tickets were sold.

Three young dance teams performed onstage throughout the evening, and models from ages 4 to older than 52 showed off their garments while emcees Heather Marie Horton and Christy Dorsey recruited sharply-dressed audience members to take their own impromptu trips down the runway.

Camera phones flashed almost constantly, and audience applause could be heard during brief pauses in the music.

Proceeds were earmarked for the Amen Center in Delta, as well as for a woman who recently found out she has ovarian cancer while pregnant. The woman delivered her baby safely late last week, Rush said, and is seeking treatment. The Amen Center helps men who have been to jail or battled addictions.

“It’s helping men if they’re off track in life, get back on track,” Rush said.

Rush, who previously owned a shoe boutique in Cape Girardeau, said she’s been in fashion shows before, but this was her first solo attempt at putting one together. It’s an idea that’s been percolating a long time.

“It’s been in the process for about four years,” she said behind the scenes, as music boomed down the hallway to a room where models were busy getting ready for their struts down the catwalk.

Mykesha Jackson, whose mother is friends with Rush, traveled in from Sikeston, Missouri, to volunteer as a model.

“I love taking pictures and I like looking fly, so I said, ‘Of course,’” she said.

Meahsha Newbern, another volunteer model, remarked on how poised the young dancers were during rehearsals Friday.

“I think the kids have more confidence than the adults,” she said.

But for Newbern, modeling isn’t exactly a new thing.

“I’ve been doing this since I was 5 or 6 years old,” she said, “and 20 years later ...”