Contestant Puts Her Mojo To Work To Help Java Seller

Kersten Anne Conrad carries a notebook with her constantly so she won’t miss any of the terrific ideas that come flying out of her brain.

For example: “You wanna be rubbed by me, just me and nobody else but me,” is a catchy jingle Kersten penned for her massage therapy business.

And should anyone ever start a 1990s murder-for-hire agency, where hit men wear pagers, Kersten thought of the perfect name.

“The Grim Beeper,” says the 44-year-old Spokane woman.

OK, so maybe civilization isn’t ready for all of Kersten’s inspirational flashes.

But she scored with one of them. Kersten receives a free latte a week for a whole year by winning my Rename the Java Joint contest.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!” she screams through the telephone when I give her the good news. “This is the first thing I’ve ever woooon!”

Caffeine is probably the last thing this live wire needs.

Kersten bested 75 other entrants by coming up with the name “MoJo Monroe” to replace the legally harassed Java City.

In late June I told you how owners of Java City, 18 S. Monroe, were being threatened by representatives of Sacramento-based Java City. That company registered its name nationally in the early 1980s.

New name suggestions poured in from the area’s coffee lovers:

Aroma Sips, Mountain High, Drips, Drops and Java, Java Jumpstart, Java Jabbers, Java Jitters, Java Jolt, Java Geronimo, Coffee Zinio, Cafe Noir, Brewtopia …

Some ideas were downright clever. Magna Cum Latte was one of my favorites.

Others, like Slice of Java, were, well, extremely weird.

One woman submitted 50 names. Another contestant sent in 30.

MoJo Monroe was selected because it works on so many levels.

The place is owned by Maury (Mo) and Joe Nollette. A mojo is also a voodoo term for a magic charm. And, of course, mo-jo can be interpreted as “more coffee.”

“It’s great to have a contest like this and actually get a good name,” says Maury. “Let’s just hope I don’t get sued over this one.”

And for another update:

Parkinson’s disease sufferer Howard Gage is doing amazingly well after undergoing rare brain surgery in Stockholm, Sweden, in June.

“If you saw me now you wouldn’t be able to tell I had the disease,” says Gage, a Whitworth College math professor whom students voted the top faculty member of 1996.

When I interviewed Gage for a March column, he was afflicted with involuntary movement. Twitching. Squirming. His hands opened and closed.

All the unnecessary motion actually was a side effect of the medication Gage must take seven or eight times a day. Without the drugs, Parkinson’s victims would barely be able to move.

Worried he would have to stop teaching, Gage, 57, had a ventro posterolateral pallidotomy. It’s a procedure where a heated probe is carefully inserted through the skull to destroy overactive brain cells.

The operation doesn’t cure Parkinson’s disease. Gage still needs his pills. But the 55 minutes of delicate surgery performed by Dr. Lauri Laitinen dramatically stopped most of the man’s uncontrollable symptoms.

“I could tell things were better immediately,” Gage says.

No kidding. Gage had the operation on a Wednesday. On Thursday, he and his wife, Judy, checked into a hotel.

Gage is grateful to Whitworth trustees and members of his church, Whitworth Presbyterian, who made his trip to Sweden possible with generous private donations.

Now back in Spokane, the professor is gradually building up his strength by walking and swimming laps.

“School begins Sept. 11,” says Gage. “I plan on being in the classroom, ready to handle another year.”

, DataTimes