TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Bikers Roll For Troops, Kids

Tribune photos by JULIE BUSCH

Pink Posse members, right to left, Kari Brooks, Nancy Wahl and Joyce Pellegrini record their message at Sunday’s toy run.

ADVERTISEMENT

By KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 25, 2007

Photo Gallery From The Run

PINELLAS PARK - Astride a '98 Harley Heritage Springer with an overtly male toy flamingo tied to the back, Ellie Mae Daniels makes quite a statement on the road.

She and the Pink Posse she rides with, however, had a softer-edged message to send Sunday.

They and their fellow posse members recorded a sometimes tearful message for the troops as three AT&T videographers aimed their cell phones at them.

AT&T offered the video e-mails as a free service at Sunday's Elks Lodge Toy Bike Run, where black leather and tattoos merged with Santa Claus and Scooby Doo and 280 motorcycles roared into the parking lot of the Quaker Steak and Lube diner with toys for children's charities.

Leather-clad bikers and costumed Elks alike - from Elvis and Spider-Man to Santa and Mrs. Claus and their biker elves - recorded generic holiday greetings that the Elks will e-mail to U.S. troops abroad.

Even Scooby, a k a David Kelly, 57, of Seminole, offered an energetic greeting, despite being in a hot costume. He admitted he'd crammed ice packs, along with himself, into his attire.

The four women clad in a pink lace bustier, a pink leather-fringed halter top, a pink baby doll top and a strategically sliced pink T-shirt, had a more targeted message.

"We and the Pink Posse send out our best wishes to James Hess," Kari Brooks, 44, of Tampa, said of the Iraq-based lieutenant colonel the posse members met in February at his sister's funeral.

Cari Hess, of Odessa and founder of the Pink Posse, died Feb. 11 from complications of gall-bladder surgery. She was 42.

She founded the half-dozen member posse a few years back to put a decidedly female stamp on her love of biking. A group of Alabama bikers dubbed the women the "Pink Posse" when they showed up at the 2005 Panama City Thunder Bay Rally clad in what is now their signature color.

Hess also loved to help out her brother by gathering a quarterly care package to send him and members of his Army 325th Battalion. The posse plans to carry on that effort.

"The 325th Battalion put together a playground for kids in Iraq, so we're going to put together a package of toys and stuff for the playground," said Daniels, 47, who runs an outdoor advertising company in Tampa when she's not riding her flamingo and pink-handcuff-clad Harley.

Joyce Pellegrini, 50, a stress management coach from Clearwater, leaned toward the cell phone videographers and shouted, "Hey, James, come home safe!"

And then she offered a flirtatious holiday greeting for any member of the military who might see the Pink Posse's e-mail:

"All the troops are welcome to look us up!"

Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached at (813) 259-7815 or kbranch-brioso@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT