• Where’s the skirt that Ponte Vedra golfer Fred Funk wore during the televised Skins Game on television last Saturday? “It’s at home,” he said Tuesday after The Players Championship charity luncheon. “Annika (Sorenstam) signed it on the butt and I’m going to get (other Skins Game players) Tiger Woods and Fred Couples to sign it. Then we’ll think about auctioning it off for charity.” Funk put on the skirt after he was outdriven on the third hole by Sorenstam and wore it during the hole, then had the last laugh by winning almost all of the $1 million purse.
• Assistant Council Auditor Kirk Sherman has been tabbed by the City Council Personnel Committee to replace Council Auditor Richard Wallace, who is retiring. The Committee also interviewed Pam Markham, another assistant Council Auditor.
• Yvonne Corey has been a mainstay at some of our city’s top clubs including The River Club and she’s now helping with the convention business at the Hyatt.
• Compass Bank is teaming for the fourth year in a row with the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots campaign. Compass collected more than 22,000 toys last year. Donors may bring new unwrapped toys to any Compass Bank location through Dec. 14.
• How out-of-control was the Black Friday shopping? Word is so many people were in line to get into the Target near Regency Square that Target ran out of carts and shoppers were seen heading in to Target pushing Home Depot carts.
• The new European Street at the beach is open. It’s on Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville Beach.
• Kaman Aerospace Corp. is hosting a lunch today to thank its employees for helping the company land the contract that has Kaman building the cockpit and canopy sections of the new UH-60L and MH-60S helicopters for Sikorsky. U.S. Rep Ander Crenshaw is scheduled to attend.
• The last Gator Bowl Committee meeting of the year is next Thursday from 5-7 p.m. at the Omni. The head coaches of the two teams playing in the Toyota Gator Bowl will be on hand. Right now, only one is known: Louisville’s Bobby Petrino, a former assistant coach with the Jaguars.
• Mary “Kitty” Phillips is the new chair of the Trustees of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. Phillips is a retired nurse and attorney and was named a trustee in 1986. She’ll succeed Jean Ludlow, who will retire at the end of the year.
• Bids will be accepted starting Jan. 11 to replace the roof on the old federal courthouse. The courthouse will eventually be incorporated into the new county courthouse complex.
• Duval County Tax Collector Mike Hogan used the occasion of Steve Diebenow’s recent birthday to damn the City’s chief of policy and government affairs with faint praise for his golfing ability. Hogan sent Diebenow a card with the following message: “I hear you can shoot your age... On the front nine!”
• It’s that time of year again for the Miss Jacksonville and Miss Jacksonville Teen Pageants. The 2006 Miss Jacksonville/Miss First Coast Scholarship Pageant is at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Florida Theatre. This pageant is the local preliminary to Miss Florida and Miss America Pageants. This year’s Miss Jacksonville Teen/Miss First Coast Teen Pageant will be at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Florida Theatre. For tickets call 384-3578.
• The Willie Gary Classic Inc. office has moved out of downtown. Its new location is 3100 University Blvd. It moved from W. Water Street because the lease was up. The Classic Inc., works to raise awareness and encourage support of the football programs for Edward Waters College and Shaw University while providing scholarship opportunities for the students attending those institutions.
• Alterations, a tailoring business on Hogan Street is moving next month to Adams Street between the Christian Science Reading Room and Crawford-Wilcox Opticians.
• Jacksonville Day during next year’s legislative session in Tallahassee is the same as last year: March 21 and 22. That’s the same week as The Players Championship and the Chamber of Commerce is well aware of that. According to an e-mail from the Chamber’s Amy Tuck Whitman, Jacksonville Day attendees have been assured “they can be out of there by 1 on Wednesday and be back in time for practice rounds.”