OUT & ABOUT

Finding the perfect prom date is tough, but finding the perfect college -- that's the real mating game for a high school senior. Enter Avis Robinson , academic matchmaker.

Two years ago she founded Washington Metropolitan Scholars to pair top students with elite schools. Robinson (wife of Washington Post columnist Gene Robinson ) asked each of 150 local high schools to nominate 10 African American students with a grade-point average of 3.5 or higher. With grants from the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation and Sallie Mae, she helped 91 students receive full or partial scholarships to 41 colleges including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Brown and the University of Virginia -- about $10 million in aid.

"They never imagined they could get in, and then never thought that anyone would give them money. And the colleges are saying 'Where are these kids?' " said a thrilled and slightly dazed Robinson at the organization's first awards dinner at the Willard Hotel.

Seventy of the All-Met scholars and their parents attended Friday's gala, including Valerie Russell , a senior at Oxon Hill High School. Her father was killed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, and Russell turned her grief into making him proud, she told the crowd. "What would he want me to do if he were still here?" The answer: a 4.2 average, 1410 on the SAT and acceptance at Columbia. These kids, said Elizabeth Lodal , principal of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Fairfax County, are "every university's dream."

Leading the applause for them: Catherine Reynolds , Kathleen Matthews , Catherine Stevens and Barbara Harrison . But the guy treated like a rock star was Ben Carson , the famed neurosurgeon from Johns Hopkins University. Carson told the rapt students that being smart is only part of success, but so is persistence, and that they should soak up everything. "There is no knowledge that is useless knowledge," he said. "Take it from me, a brain surgeon, you cannot overload your brain."

Serious Thoughts About Partying Hard

Herschel Abbott, center, shares a laugh with Billy Tauzin at the "Mardi Gras in May" party.(Rebecca D'Angelo - for The Washington Post)

The Competitive Enterprise Institute claims it's the "least stodgy think tank in town." Hard-nosed party reporters that we are, we stopped by its annual shindig Wednesday night.

The theme of this year's dinner at the Capital Hilton was "Mardi Gras in May" -- a homage to the group's libertarian founder, Fred Smith, who hails from "Loo-si-ana." Smith proved to be a one-man Mardi Gras, grinning and gripping with everyone who walked through the door. "Fred is a quirky extrovert who brings out the quirky extroverts," said Ray Gifford, president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation. Some of the quirky 300 in attendance included Gale Norton, Grover Norquist and G. Gordon Liddy. "A lot of think tanks want to be respected in the intellectual world. I would rather be respected in the entrepreneurial one," said Smith.

After former Louisiana congressman and now mega-bucks pharmaceutical lobbyist Billy Tauzin stopped talking, the masses put some Mardi into the party. CEI employees played their annual game of "Fred Bingo" during Smith's closing remarks. (The bingo grid included such tidbits as "Compares himself to Yoda.") Guests armed with masks and beads from the swag bags boogied to zydeco. Laissez les bon temps roulez!

Thundering Prose at PEN/ Faulkner

Great novelists. Elizabethan theater. Award-winning books. Apocalyptic storm. Literary "moment."

Such were the elements at Saturday's 25th annual PEN/Faulkner Awards at the Folger Shakespeare Library honoring finalists Jerome Charyn , Steve Yarbrough and two-time winner Ha Jin , all of whom read their prose to 300 black-tie guests over a subplot of bombastic thunder outside. But nothing could dampen the literary spirit. As NPR's Susan Stamberg put it: "I think that's applause from above!" We call it deus ex machina .

With Laura Thomas

Thundering Prose at PEN/ Faulkner

Great novelists. Elizabethan theater. Award-winning books. Apocalyptic storm. Literary "moment."

Such were the elements at Saturday's 25th annual PEN/Faulkner Awards at the Folger Shakespeare Library honoring finalists Jerome Charyn , Steve Yarbrough and two-time winner Ha Jin , all of whom read their prose to 300 black-tie guests over a subplot of bombastic thunder outside. But nothing could dampen the literary spirit. As NPR's Susan Stamberg put it: "I think that's applause from above!" We call it deus ex machina .

With Laura Thomas