New Michaels CEO is also a Baylor Bear

New Michaels CEO is also a Baylor Bear

New Michaels CEO is also a Baylor Bear

For many with a crafty or creative bent, a trip to Michaels for supplies is a regular item on their to-do list. The stores are well-known for arts and crafts, do-it-yourself gifts and décor — but what you might not know is that they’re led by a Baylor graduate.

Ashley Buchanan (BBA ’96, MBA ’98) was tabbed as Michaels president and CEO last year after a long tenure at Walmart. The company, based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, turned to the two-time Baylor graduate shortly before COVID-19 hit. Buchanan has led the store throughout that uncertainty and overseen the company’s transition from public to private.

For Buchanan, it’s a career step that keeps him close to home. After graduating from Baylor, the Mt. Pleasant, Texas, native has worked for Dell in addition to his time at Walmart, where he led in a variety of responsibilities in the company ranging from eCommerce to Sam’s Club.

As he leads at Michaels, he says he’s working to turn the 1,200-store chain into an “arts and crafts ecosystem,” and in so doing, he has some help at home. Buchanan says his three daughters are an at-home focus group, weighing in on everything from glitter color to paint selection and more.

Sic ’em, Ashley Buchanan!

A tale of two Michaels: one recovered from Delta at home, the other ended up fighting for his life | Sheila Ngoc Pham

There have been choppers circling above south-west Sydney. I’ve heard them as I take my kids to local parks during the day. I’ve heard them as I try to switch off for the night and get some much-needed sleep. The heavy whirring has been an ominous reminder – though not about the pandemic so much as the long arm of the state. I haven’t seen the army yet, though I’m half expecting to see tanks rolling down the Hume any day now.

What has been a more potent reminder for me of what we’re facing is actually knowing two people who tested positive for the Delta variant of Covid-19.

Coincidentally, both men are named Michael. One is in his 50s and lives in the inner west; the other is in his 30s and lives in my suburb in south-west Sydney. The former lives with Jack, his pet dog, and works from home; the latter lives with his mother, in her early 60s, and works in traffic services.

Inner west Michael got over his bout of Covid at home, with the mild flu-like symptoms disappearing almost as quickly as they came. He attributes his easy recovery to sheer luck as well as vaccination, as he already had one shot of AstraZeneca. South-west Michael ended up fighting for his life in the ICU. He had not yet been vaccinated.

“Like a lot of people, I never believed I could get Covid,” he messaged back when I asked him how he was faring. “I would never wish on anyone what I have been through.” After 21 days of isolation, finally able to breathe again without a respirator, Michael received “the best news ever”: he was also no longer infectious and able to be discharged from hospital to continue his recovery at home.

The difference between the two men’s trajectories couldn’t be more stark. But there are a few things they have in common. Neither knows how he caught it, and contract tracers were unable to work out the sources of their infections. Both felt they got the runaround when it came to care.

But south-west Michael had by far the worst experience of care as well as illness. He initially turned up at the local hospital with immense pain in his gut. “I’m pretty sure people who test positive shouldn’t be sent back home, especially with no medication and other people living with them,” he wrote on his Facebook at the time. His mother and girlfriend later tested positive, though neither were as badly affected.

Michael has long been in the habit of posting live video updates for his family and friends, and he kept it up while in hospital. Some were distressing. He is a healthy young man, after all, yet required intubation for high-flow oxygen to help him breathe. For a while there it seemed as though it was touch and go. I was moved each time he signed off with “God bless you all”, after urging everyone to get vaccinated.

What struck me watching Michael’s videos these past few weeks was not just his perseverance and the gratitude he felt, but also his frustrations with the lack of continuity of care and how dehumanising his experience was. “The last 21 days all I’ve had is astronauts surrounding me, all covered from head to toe … it’s going to be good to see normal people again.”

Of course, our frontline healthcare workers are working their guts out and require more resources and support during this time of crisis, especially given how exposed they are. But patient-centred and humane care is just as important as ever. We need to hear community concerns as well as patients’ voices, which is how we keep building trust. The system should serve all of us. It should meet the needs of healthcare workers as well as the community.

While Michael was in the ICU, vaccinations in south-west Sydney have ramped up. Now that he’s out of hospital, he will have better access to vaccination. Walk-in and mobile clinics are being rolled out by the south-western Sydney local health district. Mobile clinics are being held in locations significant to communities, including Wat Phrayortkeo Dhammayanaram, the Lao Buddhist temple in Edensor Park. Last week I visited the new clinic near my home, operating out of Bankstown sports club, and noted its huge capacity. As I walked away I wondered why we didn’t do this months ago, instead of squandering so much valuable time.

There have been pleas for more empathy for the residents of south-west and western Sydney as these areas are still disproportionately burdened by the lockdown and case numbers. But empathy is useless if it’s of the “thoughts and prayers” variety. Given the way Delta is affecting younger people like Michael in the Canterbury-Bankstown local government area, ensuring there are more vaccinations here has been a step in the right direction.

Labor’s proposal of $300 payments for fully vaccinated people is worth considering. Offering carrots rather than bringing out big old gnarly sticks will almost certainly get us closer to where we need to be.

In the meantime, given what is happening right now in Sydney, we need to keep taking the social determinants of health into account, since these factors clearly influence Covid’s spread. It’s a trajectory that will only continue and keep going well into our not-fully-vaccinated future.

Kameron Said She Feels “Cheated” By Her All Stars 6 Lip Sync Return

There’s no denying that Kameron Michaels is one of the Drag Race queens most deserving of the lip sync assassin title, but her recent return to the show left fans a bit underwhelmed. And Kameron herself doesn’t disagree with the lukewarm reception. After her surprise return in Episode 9, Kameron Michaels responded to the All Stars 6 lip sync drama with an incredibly frank post stating she wishes she didn’t agree to go back.

Kameron was revealed as the week’s lip sync assassin at the end of the Drag Tots runway challenge, sashaying onto the stage in a regal, mint-colored gown. Tons of fans have been hoping for Kameron to return as an assassin, given her impressive track record of slaying pretty much every lip sync in the second half of Season 10, securing her spot in that season’s Top 3 based on her seemingly unbeatable performance abilities. Sadly, her All Stars 6 lip sync against Ra’Jah O’Hara to Charli XCX’s “Boom Clap” didn’t exactly live up to the hype. Although she was declared the winner, Kameron made it clear her performance didn’t live up to her standards in a since-deleted Instagram post.

“I am hurt, disgusted, and devastated by the entire situation. Call me dramatic, I don’t give a f*ck,” Kameron wrote. “Every girl looks forward to coming back and having their moment to shine. I feel cheated. And worst of all, I said yes and agreed to do it…which is something I have to deal with now and will take me a very long time to get over. If I could go back in time I never would have stepped foot on that stage. I know my worth and my talent and I feel like I was used for some quick cheap storyline.”

The “quick cheap storyline” is likely a reference to the elimination after the “Boom Clap” lip sync. As the winner, Kameron was tasked with revealing the group’s vote for who would go home, and that ended up being Eureka, her Season 10 sister and one of her closest friends.

After the lip sync aired, many fans and even fellow queens criticized the show’s song choice, arguing the mid-tempo “Boom Clap” is difficult to perform a high-energy lip sync to. The choice felt especially egregious since Charli XCX has plenty of more energetic songs, like the cult favorite “Vroom Vroom.” Fans even dug up a 2019 interview in which Charli XCX said she wanted to see “Vroom Vroom” performed as a Drag Race lip sync.

For her part, Ra’Jah O’Hara said she just didn’t vibe with the song and wasn’t fully prepared for the lip sync because she didn’t think she would win the challenge.

There have definitely been worse lip syncs in Drag Race history, so all in all, it doesn’t seem like a huge deal that Kameron and Ra’Jah didn’t get to show off their best performances possible this time — the fans still know they both can slay the stage when given a song that works for them. Just don’t expect to hear “Boom Clap” at a Kameron Michaels show anytime soon.

New episodes of All Stars 6 drop on Thursdays on Paramount+.