Stardom

David Toms, like David Duval before him, is turning the Michelob Championship into his launching pad to stardom. Toms birdied four of his first seven holes yesterday, overcame a bogey in the middle and a late challenge by Kirk Triplett to shoot a 3-under-par 68 and defend his tournament title by one shot. The victory, clinched with a par on the 18th hole at the Kingsmill Golf Club in Williamsburg, Va., was the PGA champion's third this year and the seventh of his career. "It has been a good year and winning this week is extra special because of the way I played last week," Toms said.

At age 5, Ronia had already set her sights on a career. She would either be a cheerleader for a professional sports team or a dancer. Now 9, she dreams of making a dance video that will start her on the way to becoming a star. Friendly, outspoken and charming, Ronia loves to talk, and can carry on a lengthy conversation about anything that interests her. She appreciates it when people take time to listen to her and watch her dance. Ronia gets along well with everyone and is regarded as a leader by the other youngsters in her foster home.

'I'm feeling particularly slutty tonight," Stefani Germanotta purred to a sold-out Susquehanna Bank Center on Thursday night. Known to her fans - as well as anyone who's passed within hailing distance of a working radio or TV set in the last year - as Lady Gaga, she arrived with the kind of explosive force that can incinerate artists unprepared for the spotlight. Since the success of her insidious, inescapable single "Poker Face," Gaga has staged a blizzard of reinvention, from sex kitten to bondage queen, as well as what might be a visitor from a far more stylish future.

Stardom has found Brett Hull, almost as quickly as Hull's wrists can flick a puck into the net. Just two years ago, Hull was a chunky Calgary Flames rookie struggling for ice time. Now, as a St. Louis Blue, he is the NHL's leading goal scorer, with 56, and the focal point of the league's hottest team (10-2-2 over 14 games heading into tonight's game with the Flyers). Over the past few months he has done Letterman and "Today," and has seen his picture in every magazine and newspaper on the continent, with the possible exception of Cosmopolitan.

Sitting calmly in her stroller in a block-long line outside a casting agency yesterday, 9-month-old Julia Frank seemed unaware that her first crack at television stardom was imminent. Her mother, Jodi, however, had prepared for her tow-headed charmer to shine. "Everywhere we go, she turns heads," the Wilmington resident said as she stapled glossy photos of the tot to the firm's "talent information" form. The one-page questionnaire required participants to list everything from their shoe size, to car ownership and ventriloquism experience.

Bryan Scott can hold your attention in several ways. He can get your feet moving with a lively riff on the drums. He can tap out a variety of tunes on the piano. He can set a mood with his saxophone. He can move you with his rich voice, as he did when he sang a tribute to Kevin Dare, a Penn State pole-vaulter who fell to a tragic death at the Big Ten Indoor Track and Field Championships in February. So why is it that Scott, a senior cornerback for the Nittany Lions, has yet to find the proper rhythm that can propel him to stardom?

Behold Chico Resch. Examine every barnacle hanging from his 38-year-old body, check out every crease across his forehead, and devour every piece of sage wisdom that emanates from his mouth. You have little time left to appreciate him. When Resch retires at the end of this season, we will not see his breed again. The venerable goaltender, perched like a molting old owl in front of his crease, is about to become extinct. There was something decidedly grand about his matching 14 seasons of guile and cunning against slick, fresh-faced young talents.

Nobody knows exactly how it is that a ballplayer suddenly turns into a star. You can't find the latest stardom breakthroughs listed in the transactions column. They don't break into network programming to announce them. And these days, you can't even measure star quality by the size of a guy's paycheck. No, this stardom stuff just kind of happens. And it is happening right now in front of your very eyes. It is happening to California's Bryan Harvey, suddenly the best short reliever on earth.

His is the story of a fallen hero who gets a second chance. It is the story of a kid from a small town in Canada whose on-ice skills with the Montreal Canadiens elevated him to instant stardom, but whose off-ice problems brought about a swift decline. Claude Lemieux arrived at the New Jersey Devils' doorstep five years ago aiming to please his coach, who was then John Cunniff. Lemieux, whose emotional personality had caused him difficulty with the Canadiens, made accommodations inside his hockey family, but couldn't make things work with his own family.

On your television screen, Kelly Ripa comes across as flighty as a bubble. Weekday mornings, as cohost of Live With Regis and Kelly, she plays a glib Goldilocks opposite Regis Philbin's cantankerous Papa Bear. She furrows her pretty brow whenever Philbin bombards her with big words. She plays with her hair, jokes about her lack of cleavage, and pitches plenty of wide-eyed straight lines so Philbin can deliver his punch lines rat-a-tat-tat. Friday nights, on her new ABC sitcom Hope & Faith, Ripa, 33, portrays a washed-up soap star who has gone broke and is forced to move in with her prim sister (played by Faith Ford)

SANTIAGO, Chile - They don't have demands, but they're loyal to the cause and are always on the front lines of the fight. They run with protesters, lap up shots from water cannons, bark at police in riot gear, and sometimes even bite officers. Stray dogs are truly man's best friend for thousands of students and workers who demonstrate and clash with police nearly every day to press demands for education improvements, redistribution of Chile's wealth, and environmental protections. As the protests become fixtures in this modernizing capital, normally unnoticed street dogs have become stars in their own right, with the Facebook fan pages and fawning media coverage to prove it. "Blacky," a mutt adopted by young protesters, has become the most visible mascot, with rival fan pages totaling more than 7,000 subscribers or "likes.

Most seasons, your best bet when assessing the fantasy prospects of a rookie class is to focus on the running backs. First-year quarterbacks should be avoided like the plague, or synchronized swimming. Rookie receivers occasionally achieve fantasy stardom, but it usually takes them a while to ramp up. Last season was no ordinary season. Injuries and ineffectiveness plagued Mark Ingram and Daniel Thomas, the cream of the 2011 running back crop. The top performer at the position was Roy Helu, who scraped his way into the top 30, thanks to a late-season surge.

She hosted the opening festivities for L.A.'s Fashion's Night Out in September and sat in the front row at the Louis Vuitton runway show in Paris last month. Come February, she'll be in our living rooms every week, as a mentor on NBC's new Fashion Star designer competition series. Is tabloid sensation-turned-designer Nicole Richie poised to become the next big celebrity fashion brand? Following in the footsteps of Jessica Simpson and Rachel Zoe, Richie, 30 - whose adoptive father is Lionel Richie - launched her House of Harlow 1960 jewelry line in late 2007, adding shoes in 2009 and bags in June 2011.

KIM DELANEY joins a long line of Hollywood celebrities who have embarrassed themselves in public. An (extremely abridged) look back: LADY GAGA: She celebrated the New York Giants' win last week by pouring champagne into the stands. Into the handicapped section. KANYE WEST: "I'mma let you finish," he famously told Taylor Swift after drunkenly stumbling into her MTV Video Music Award acceptance speech in 2009. PAULA ABDUL: She had to tell the world about a neurological disorder to dodge allegations that she was drugged up while on "American Idol.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Dallas Cowboys' 27-24 victory over the San Francisco 49ers had a Holley-wood ending. Jesse Holley, who got a chance with the Cowboys only after winning Michael Irvin's reality show three years ago, had never had an NFL catch until Sunday. He played in overtime only because Miles Austin had been injured on the last play from scrimmage in regulation. Yet, Holley (three catches, 96 yards) made the biggest play of the game with a 77-yard catch-and-run on the Cowboys' first play from scrimmage in the extra period.

SEOUL, South Korea - Kang Hyun-Min remembers the first time he slid an album from its cardboard jacket and delicately, almost reverently, placed it on the turntable. It was 1979, and Kang's father had ruled the record player off-limits to the 10-year-old. But home alone one day, the young Kang gave in to his curiosity; he flipped through his brother's album collection, thinking he might for once take control of that magical music player. Unable to read English, he knew musicians only by their album-cover art. He knew he had to hurry because someone could arrive home at any minute.

"HELLO, Philadelphia. Welcome to your worst nightmare. " With those seven words, Howard Stern began in earnest his inexorable march toward becoming the multimedia phenomenon we know (and love and love to hate) today. They were spoken 25 years ago tomorrow, Aug. 18, 1986, when the groundbreaking satirist-entertainer debuted on WYSP-FM (94.1). By the time Stern began simulcasting his New York-based morning drive-time radio show here, he had already been a hit in Washington and New York.

Over the last few years, I've interviewed more than my fair share of reality-show cast members. When asked about their ambitions, they almost inevitably say, "Someday I'd like to have my own reality show. " It's not surprising they want to repeat the experience. Having your every utterance recorded for posterity, finding yourself recognized in public - that's got to be a potent ego boost. And let's face it: About the only thing participating in a reality show qualifies you for is another reality show.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Ginger Howard, a 17-year-old Delaware County native, just off the golf course after flying through the first stage of qualifying for the LPGA Tour, can see her future. "My goal is to be a top-ranked LPGA professional," said Howard, whose family has deep Philadelphia roots. "That's my dream. " This isn't some quixotic quest, more like the continuation of a path. Howard, who turned professional in June, has devoted most of the last decade to golf, much of it at the IMG Leadbetter Golf Academy in Bradenton, Fla. She's serious to the point of giving up that most common of teenage pursuits, Facebook.

Selena Gomez flashes her string-of-pearls smile and black-olive eyes as 3,000 fans give her a rock-star welcome Monday at the King of Prussia Mall. The sound of Selenamania is an earsplitting squawk, something like that of squadrons of overexcited seagulls. Gomez, the recording sensation, star of the Disney TV series The Wizards of Waverly Place , and anchor of the Fox mistaken-identity comedy Monte Carlo (opening Friday), is buoyed by the shout-out. With self-assurance and self-doubt in dizzyingly equal proportions, Gomez, 18, is walking the tightrope from teen idol toward mature stardom in five-inch heels, struggling against the perception she's just a "Disney girl.