WINSTED — For even the best NBA or WNBA players, no one is perfect when it comes to free throws.But that wasn’t the case for 13-year-old Elizabeth Wexler, who made 25 free throw shots in a row at the Elks Club’s Northwest District Hoop Shoot Jan. 20 at Chippens Hill Middle School in Bristol.Elizabeth had previously won at the Winsted Elks Club Hoop Shoot on Dec. 15 by making 23 out of 25 free throws, and now she will move up to the regional state finals Saturday, Feb. 9, at New Britain High School.The Hoop Shoot is an annual contest which is held nationally by Elks Clubs across the country for children ages 8 to 13.Contestants who score well enough at local competitions move on to regional and national competitions.If she does well at the regional state finals, Elizabeth will be eligible to compete at a regional finals to be held in March in Portland, Maine, and then possibly the national Hoop Shoot championships which will be held in April in Springfield, Mass.Julie Machowski, Leading Knight for the Winsted Elks Club, said the judges at the local Hoop Shoot event were shocked by Elizabeth’s perfect score.“A perfect score does not happen often at Hoop Shoot competitions,” Machowski said. “Our state chairman said he never saw anything like this. He said a perfect score happened once a very long time ago at the state level. For a kid to get 25 points out of 25 free throws is pretty amazing.”Machowski said Elizabeth serves as chaplain of the Winsted Antlers, which is the club’s youth group.“As a member, Elizabeth always helps out with community service projects,” Machowski said. “She is usually one of the first people out there to help me.”Henry Wexler said he is proud of his daughter.“She’s been playing basketball since she was 5 years old,” Wexler said. “This is a big accomplishment.”Elizabeth, who plays basketball for The Gilbert School’s seventh and eighth grade team, said she really did not have a strategy when it came to free throws.“Strategy? I don’t know, I just shot how I usually shoot,” she said. “When I grow up I would love to play professional basketball. I just love watching and playing the game.”
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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