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North Escambia Woman Gets Complete Makeover On NBC’S Today Show
June 23, 2008
A girls’ week in New York City ended with a North Escambia woman getting a surprise complete makeover on national television Friday morning.
Cheryl Golson of Davisville was selected from the crowd at Rockefeller Plaza in New York for a “Plaza Ambush Makeover” from NBC’s Today Show. Cheryl received a complete makeover…hair, makeup and new designer dress.
Cheryl, an ESE teacher at Bratt Elementary School was in New York with her daughter Shelby Bryan, Bratt guidance counselor Sheila Bryan, and Sheila’s daugther Jill Laborde, all from Bratt. The entire trip was to celebrate Shelby and Jill’s graduation from the University of West Florida.
On Friday, their last day in New York City, they decided to try to be in the audience on NBC’s today show. Today show producers picked two ladies from the audience for complete makeovers in a segment of the show called “Plaza Ambush Makeovers” that airs in the program’s fourth hour every Friday.
“We got lucky and got to be along the barricades,” Cheryl told NorthEscambia.com. “I didn’t know about the makeovers. Jill and Shelby were yelling ‘pick us, pick us’, but they were told that they were too pretty. Then they started yelling ‘do our mothers’.”
“They picked me and took me back to their wardrobe area,” she said. “Everybody else got to go to the Green Room.” The Green Room is where people appearing on the Today Show wait before going on the air. In the Green Room, Shelby, Sheila and Jill got to meet host Meredith Vieira and Grammy-winning pop sensation Rihanna before her Summer Concert Series performance.
Cheryl said the whole makeover process took about two hours with US Weekly contributor and fashion expert Jill Martin and hairstylist Louis Licari. Her hair was colored twice, and she tried on about six dresses, she said.
“I’d never even had my nails done before,” Cheryl said.
In the end, Cheryl ended up on national television with her new look. Her hair went from light ash brown to a reddish auburn color, and a complete makeup change. She was dressed in a Lafayette 148 silk dress and shoes from Nine West.
“The red just made her come alive,” Licari said. “Remember, redheads work as long as they are believable and this is a believable auburn color.”
“She’s a school teacher, and she has nothing like this in her wardrobe,” Martin said. “She’s going to find some place to go.”
When asked on the Today show how she felt, Cheryl said, “Wonderful! This is not my normal Friday at all.”
“She looks beautiful; I love it,” Shelby (pictured left with her mom) said on the show.
“She is the best mom in the world; she deserves it. She’s always put so much effort into her kids and then she’s never really spent as much time on herself,” Shelby said in an on-air interview prior to seeing mom’s new look. “Dad’s going to think she looks hot.”
“I was proud for her,” Cheryl’s husband and Shelby’s dad Ricky Golson told NorthEscambia.com. “She looked very nice. I was thrilled for her.”
“My daughter had called about 6:30 Friday morning and said mom had been selected,” Ricky said. “I was not sure what she meant. When I got in from work Friday afternoon, I googled it and found a link to the video.”
“I think she looks so good,” Shelby told NorthEscambia.com. “She always cared for us and has been a great mother. She just needed a new ‘do’.”
As for where Cheryl plans to wear her new designer dress, she’s not sure yet.
“I don’t know where I am going to wear it,” she said from her home Saturday. “I don’t think it will be Sunday School.”
The dress, which retails for $498 (click here to order) was accented by a shawl purchased by the Today show staff from a street vendor.
To see the complete video clip from the Today Show, click here. The clip begins with another lady that also received a complete makeover Friday morning. Cheryl’s segment begins about four minutes into the video. A DSL, cable or other high speed connection is needed to watch the video.
Pictured top: Cheryl Golson before and after her “Plaza Ambush Makeover” on NBC’s Today Show Friday morning. Photo courtesy NBC. Pictured below (L-R): US Weekly contributor and fashion expert Jill Martin, Sheila Bryan, Jill Laborde, an NBC makup artist, Cheryl Golson, hairstylist Louis Licari and Shelby Bryan. Submitted photo for NorthEscambia.com.
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