It runs in the family

You want to know something about someone? Ask their Mom. Mother’s Day is May 8, and in honor of this notable occasion, 225 asked three successful young Baton Rougeans to introduce us to the women who continue to inspire them.

Claire Sanchez and mother Belinda

Momma always said: “Don’t let hard-to-do stand in your way.”

Claire’s childhood nicknames: “Clairesy” and “Claire Bear.”

Waiting for her daughter may have been the hardest part for a pistol like Belinda Sanchez.

Sitting in the car, tapping her hands on the wheel, just waiting. It also may have been the greatest gift Belinda gave her then-12-year-old Claire—even though the former criminal law paralegal had already given her daughter $300 to start her own clay jewelry business. By waiting in the car while Claire presented her sales pitch inside a local boutique, Belinda gave her upstart daughter the opportunity to fail after giving her the confidence to succeed.

“When I asked that question, I honestly didn’t know the answer,” Claire says of the day she bounded down the stairs to see if her mother might let her start a jewelry business. “It wasn’t until my mom said, ‘Of course you can,’ that I realized how much was possible.”

Turns out the store owner bought Claire’s entire inventory wholesale. One of the city’s most prominently creative entrepreneurs and handbag designers was born.

“When she gets a cause, there’s no stopping her,” Claire says of Belinda, who will fire off letters to companies and airlines after poor service. Belinda organized a school dance when her own Greensburg High School cancelled prom after becoming the state’s first to integrate during her junior year. She also lobbied loud and haard for a high-risk pool for health insurance in the early 1990s. Called Louisiana Health Plan, it still exists today.

As Claire was growing up, Belinda encouraged her creative side, even sending her at 16 to the Academy of Art in San Francisco for an entire summer when no one else thought that was a good idea. “I stood alone,” Belinda says.

Since Claire began designing her own handbags in 2003, Belinda has yet to miss a single trunk show. “I was a cheerleader in a former life, and I guess a lot of that still lives on in me,” Belinda says. “I’m proud as punch.”

When they get together, these two firebrands often do little more than talk about everything. “We can just get going about anything,” Claire says. But many of their conversations turn back to business, where Claire draws a well of inspiration and strength from her mother.

“Owning your own business, especially in this economic climate … if your mom doesn’t have your back, you don’t have anything,” Claire says. “I know at the end of the day I can call Mom, and she still believes in me.” For more about Claire Sanchez, visit clairesanchez.com.

Rebecca Alexander and mother Carmelita

Momma always said: “Keep your head up no matter what. There’s always tomorrow.”

Rebecca’s childhood nickname: “Big Brown Eyes.”

An emerging LSU track star and the foundation of the crucial 4×400 meter relay, junior Rebecca Alexander is one of the few Baton Rouge natives on this season’s stellar Tiger squad. In February, she notched the sixth-fastest time in the world for the 200-meter dash, and yet her charismatic Creole mother Carmelita still likes to remind her just how fast she was back in her day.

“If I could turn the clock back 15 years, I could give her trouble,” Carmelita says with a wide grin and a high, wind-up laugh. “Oh, I was fast. That’s where she got it from.”

Three years ago, after so much teasing, Rebecca agreed to a foot race against her mom. Rebecca let Carmelita win. She deserved it.

Working long hours as a chef and a kitchen manager, Carmelita raised her daughter and three sons largely on her own. It was a close-knit family where Rebecca grew up running from her brothers, and Carmelita bonded like glue with her daughter as the only girls in the house. The pair’s banter can sound more like the incessant joking of sisters than any kind of staid mother-daughter dialog. “We’re like friends,” Rebecca says. “We just click.”

Now they shop together, watch movies, and of course, cook. When Rebecca tries one of her mom’s recipes on her own, she makes sure to text her photos of the results.

In elementary school Rebecca began beating her male classmates in the mile and shuttle-run events for the annual Presidential Physical Fitness Tests, and her mom knew she had a runner in the family. She enrolled Rebecca in a summer track program at the local YMCA, but she never wanted to be overbearing.

“Mom never pushed us into one particular sport,” says Rebecca, who also played violin and volleyball at Bel Air High School but went on to become a three-time all-state sprinter. “She let us try other things—whatever we wanted. She was all about supporting us, not forcing us.”

At home, Carmelita keeps several walls filled with the plaques, medals and trophies her children have earned. “We get a new medal, and she puts it up and says, ‘Oh, isn’t my wall of fame beautiful,’” Rebecca says. “Not our wall, her wall.”

Carmelita likes to tell Rebecca to “run like the wind,” but she knows that her daughter cannot run forever. Rebecca is studying sports administration and commerce and is on course to graduate in 2012. “Education comes first,” Carmelita says. “As for track, I always tell her, ‘You have to do this for you, not for me.’ I’m just there for encouragement. But I’m there 110%.” For more about Rebecca Alexander, visit lsusports.net.

Aaron Hogan and mother Sheila

Momma always said: “Be thankful for what you have, and never step on others to achieve a goal.”

Aaron’s childhood nickname: “Smiling Jack.”

With the second line marching, horns blaring and the wedding party on the move, photographer Aaron Hogan hustled out front to snap every jig and groove of the action. This left his mother Sheila alone to carry all of his gear over four city blocks of New Orleans’ finest root-gnarled, pot-holed streets and sidewalks. Without hesitation, she gathered the lights, stands, bags, a tripod, a monopod and multiple camera cases and took off running after the tail end of a train of revelers.

“I had equipment hanging in the front, in the back—some I was carrying in my hands,” says Sheila, Aaron’s employee at his business, Eye Wander Photo. “I had bruises on my knees, but we made it.”

Sheila is methodical and reserved, while her artistic her son can be impassioned, impulsive

and outgoing. Their personalities could not be more opposite, but it’s a good blend for making a small business run, Aaron says.

“I couldn’t imagine a better employee,” he says of his mother, who really shines during sessions with infants and children that call her maternal nature to the fore. “Obviously, you have to trust the person who handles your money, but the unconditional love is huge. There’s such stability to working with her.”

Aaron funded his photography business by mowing lawns while at LSU. After Sheila worked briefly for another local photographer, she began keeping books for her son in 2006. Soon her duties developed from crunching numbers to filling and tracking online orders to holding reflectors and flashes for portrait sessions.

Last fall Aaron left the business in Sheila’s hands for two weeks while he attended and photographed a wedding in Paris. He flew out two days after announcing a massive Black Friday sale that inundated her with orders and calls from a raft of clients.

That week, Sheila says, she was ready to quit. But she didn’t. The chaos calmed. Each order was filled and every call returned. Stability.

“As a parent, when you see your child doing something they enjoy, it is so fulfilling,” Sheila says. “When I see Aaron interacting with people at a wedding or an event—and I’ll just watch him when he doesn’t think anyone is watching—it makes me proud.”

In March, Aaron was shooting a portrait session when he fell 15 feet onto concrete, shattering his heel and eye socket and fracturing his hand. Sheila, of course, was there to pick him up and get him to the hospital.

“I see it happen again each time my eyes close,” she says. “He has a long road of recovery, but he will recover. What a Mother’s Day gift! I have my son still smiling after an accident like that.” For more about Aaron Hogan, visit eyewanderphoto.com.