Peach Buzz

Ashanti, Usher to be Boys & Girls Club honorees

Six former Boys & Girls Clubs members will be inducted into the group’s Alumni Hall of Fame Thursday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel ballroom in Atlanta. Inductees include Grammy Award-winning performers Ashanti and Usher, Cathy Hughes, founder of Radio and TV One, Tom Irwin, a former Minnesota Vikings players who is now a juvenile court judge in Tennessee, and J. Barry Griswell, the former chief executive of Principal Financial Group, who attended a club in metro Atlanta. Mike Tomlin, head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, will be inducted but won’t attend.

Ben Vereen visits Atlanta City Hall

You never know who’s going to show up at Atlanta City Hall. On Tuesday, the surprise visitor was Tony Award-winning actor, dancer and singer Ben Vereen. He was diagnosed with diabetes in 2007 and came to the City Council’s Community Development/Human Resources committee meeting to raise awareness about the condition. The council proclaimed Tuesday “Take the Stage for Diabetes Awareness Day.”

“We do not have a challenge. We have an opportunity,” Vereen told council members. “The opportunity is towards better health … a great life. A healthier life.”

Council members quickly crowded around the star to take pictures with him. However, not everyone was impressed by Vereen’s presence. “This is a charade!” southeast Atlanta resident Dave Walker, who’s often at City Hall opining on the issues of the day, yelled. “Everybody’s running over to him just because he’s a celebrity.”

Vereen told Walker he wasn’t going to debate him. He and a small entourage posed for a few more pictures and exited stage left, so to speak, onto an elevator.

Mychael Knight is ‘All About Fashion’

Atlanta fashion designer and past “Project Runway” contestant Mychael Knight will lecture on “All About Fashion” at SCAD-Atlanta at 6 p.m. tonight at SCAD’s Events Space, 1600 Peachtree St, Building C, fourth floor. (He was set, too, to be a guest at the debut of “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Sheree Whitfield’s fashion line at the W Hotel on Tuesday night.)

There was much talk about “She by Sheree” during the show’s first season, but instead of seeing dres. Expect Whitfield’s styles to play a bigger role in the second season of the Bravo show, which is shooting now.

Jay-Z to play at Chastain in July

Live Nation’s Chastain Park Amphitheatre shows tend to eschew hip-hop acts for rock, pop and R&B fare targeting a 30-plus audience. But for many 30-somethings, rap is just fine. So the promoter is placing 39-year-old hip-hop vet Jay-Z at Chastain July 12. Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. Atlanta’s own Ciara will open for the rap star.

But brace yourself for some sticker shock: Tickets are $88 to $128 for reserved seating and $53 for lawn seats. And that doesn’t even include the service fees. The priciest single-ticket seats Buzz could find at Chastain this year before this concert were $115 for Steely Dan. Most top-tier, single-ticket seat prices for Chastain concerts range from $48.50 to $89.

Bike to work this week —- fashionably

Notice more people riding around on two wheels this week? Atlanta Bicycle Coalition executive director Rebecca Serna said more than 300 people pledged online to ride their bikes to work at least one day this week, and the coalition is trying to help them along. It’ll host BikeFest from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at downtown’s Woodruff Park. The event features bike vendors, path coordinators, legal education, a raffle and a bike fashion show to prove that spandex isn’t the only way to dress.

On Thursday, national Bike to Work Day, cyclists can load up on snacks and drinks at “energizer stations” around the city and Emory University, or join in a BikeTrain, a group ride making scheduled stops during commute hours. For routes and more information, www.atlantabike.org.

Contributing: Rodney Ho, Eric Stirgus and news services.