If You Go* What: Time of Your Life featuring Jill Conner Browne.* When: 5-8 p.m. Friday, March 5.* Where: Chattanooga Convention Center.* Tickets: $35 per person; must be 21 to attend.* Phone: 778-5465.* Web site: www.erlanger.org/TOYL.WHO ARE THE SWEET POTATO QUEENS?After discovering she lived in the Sweet Potato Capital of the South, Jill Conner Browne entered the 1982 St. Patrick’s Day parade in Jackson, Miss., as the Sweet Potato Queen. She and four friends wore green ballgowns and tiaras and threw sweet potatoes into the crowd from the bed of a pickup truck. With each parade appearance, the queens’ fame grew – and so did their padded bustlines. Their costumes evolved into red wigs, majorette boots, fuchsia marabou boas and sequined, green mini-dresses. Fans asked who were these self-described “fallen Southern belles,” so Ms. Brown wrote “The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love” (Three Rivers Press.) That book launched a worldwide following that has spawned 5,000 SPQ chapters. The Jackson St. Patrick’s Day has become the SPQs annual gathering. Ms. Browne has built Jackson’s hometown St. Patrick’s Day parade into the fourth-largest parade in the country.
She’s written eight New York Times best-sellers. Delta Burke played her in a television pilot, and now Melissa Manchester is writing a musical about her colorful life.
Jill Conner Browne, known to Sweet Potato Queens across the world as “Boss Queen,” will be in Chattanooga on March 5 for a “fun-raiser” to benefit T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital.
“The Time of Your Life” will offer pampering, food, giveaways, health information and a presentation by Ms. Browne for a girls night out to wind down the work week.
Ms. Browne will bring one of her famous SPQ crowns for auction that night. Her crowns are made by Larry Vrba, a designer with 40 years of experience who fashions jewelry for New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Bids on one of her coveted crowns in previous auctions have twice reached $10,000.