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New guv'na sashays forth
By BILL COATS, Times Staff Writer LUTZ -- Brett Montegny has traded her "Style Kitten" cat ears for a tall, floppy Dr. Seuss-style guv'na hat. Montegny became Lutz's 12th guv'na Thursday by raising a record $8,542.57. "It came in lots of little bits and pieces," she said. She's the youngest of all guv'nas at 28. A Citrus Park resident, Montegny is the second guv'na to live outside Lutz. That was a thorny issue four years ago when Sandy Ruberg of Avila became guv'na. But it was hardly mentioned this year. Organizers decided after Ruberg's win that owners of Lutz businesses qualified. Ruberg owns Alle Florist. Montegny owns Classy Consignments. She follows a line of extroverts as guv'na, Lutz's mock chief of state. But Montegny has been the most flamboyant and free-spirited of all. On Thursday, Montegny belly-danced the 11/2 miles of Lutz's Independence Day parade. The "Style Kitten" wore her trademark pink wig and cat ears and pledged to assist the "fashionably challenged." Her maroon-and-pink belly dancing costume was chosen to match the pink wig, and made Montegny the first person to become guv'na with a bare midriff. She said she came to Thursday's festivities confident she had raised enough money to win. But she got nervous when she sensed that rival Cheryl Benton also was bringing a big haul. Indeed, Mrs. Benton had raised $7,483.83. Like Montegny, she also had campaigned in costume, as the "Southern Belle." Mrs. Benton had the support of two of Lutz's largest civic groups, the Lutz Volunteer Fire Department and the Lutz-Land O'Lakes Woman's Club. A third candidate, Stacy Ironside, raised $2,004.78. This year's guv'na total of $18,031.18 will be disbursed to community groups by the Lutz Civic Association later this month. On being named guv'na, Montegny leaped, fists in the air, then turned to a colorful trio of friends who had aided her campaign. Montegny hugged her best friend, Eve Gerlach, who wore a red party dress, white hose and sparkling blue pumps, with a red, white and blue star-shaped headdress. Then Montegny hugged Saralee Squires, who won Montegny's Lady Lutz Pageant by singing The Star-Spangled Banner, and who rode in Thursday's parade while sending soap bubbles into the breeze with a wand. Then Montegny hugged Karen Cuervo, the "Funky Diva" who managed her campaign, and who walked in the parade in a flimsy pink dress, flip-flops decorated with pink fuzz and insect-style "Funky Diva" wings bordered with pink fuzz. Among a long list of people, Montegny thanked her mother "who gave birth to me." She said she'll fulfill several campaign promises. "I said I would belly-dance at the train depot," she said. "I may wait to do that in the fall." -- Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com.
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