Sampling India’s Gifts to the Sciences

An elephant will parade, Indian cuisine from Bombay Palace will accent Indian music and dance, and a sari fashion show will be but bits and pieces of the opening night “India, a Festival of Science” reception being planned Oct. 15 at the California Museum of Science and Industry.

The festival showcases India’s significant contributions to science and technology and is the ambitious project placing cultural exchange emphasis between India and the United States. It runs through Jan. 15 at the museum.

India’s minister of state for culture, K. P. Singh Deo, will arrive for the opening of the festival, being co-sponsored by India’s National Council of Science Museums and the Federation of Indian Assns. of Southern California in conjunction with the board of trustees of the California Museum Foundation and the museum’s board of directors.

Trustee chairman Frederick Llewellyn and Directors president N. Matthew Grossman will join Don Muchmore, executive museum director, at the gala, which specifies black tie optional/national dress.

Involved are Inder Singh, chairman, Federation of Indian Assns.; G. Ram Krishna, director of Tourism of India in Los Angeles; Vijay Casshyap, manager of Air India; and Dr. Krishna Agrawai, president, State Bank of India, California.

Opening night committee co-chairmen Mr. and Mrs. Joseph S. Bolker (he’s honorary consul of Senegal) are touting everything Indian. More on the committee are the Peter W. Bergers, Mrs. Asha A. Anand, Dr. Rajen Anand, Mira Advani, Mrs. Howard Ahmanson, Dr. Amarjit S. Marwah, Mr. and Mrs. Ieith Renken, Dr. and Mrs. Mohinder Sambhi and Thomas E. Smith. The honorary committee includes Mehli Mehta, director of the American Youth Symphony.

Richard N. Frank, Pasadena resident, CEO of Lawry’s Foods and Restaurants Inc., and father of two Westridge alumnae, and a trustee, made an interesting comment when he turned “honorary coach” the other day at the dedication of the Richard N. Frank Athletic Field at Westridge.

Honored, along with other donors--Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Godfrey, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Grant and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Miller Jr.--to the field (which means Westridge girls now don’t have to travel off-campus to participate in regulation play of team sports), he noted that he had learned a lot about sharing from his father, who always managed to give to charitable causes, even when he couldn’t give as much as some of his friends.

Said Frank, “Everyone can give.”

It’s special when journalism majors become presidents and CEOs, and thus the USC Trojan League of Los Angeles, featuring the School of Journalism at its annual benefit Oct. 17, turned to USC journalism graduate (Class of 1952) Robert F. Erburu, Times Mirror president, to be keynoter.

Each year the league spotlights a different academic area. It’s the media’s turn: Bryce Nelson, Timothy Ferris and Murray Fromson from the School of Journalism also will speak, according to Bette C. Scott and President Joann Koll.

Benefit chairman Martha Tylicki expects 400 for lunch in Town and Gown.

There’s a wonderful photo by Thelner Hoover of the University Elementary School Class of 1960 on the invitation announcing the first alumni picnic Sunday afternoon at the Corinne A. Seeds University Elementary School on the UCLA campus. Among those in the picture are Albert Lasker Jr., Linda Saxon, Betsy Brown Braun and Joanne Oppenheimer Davis.

The school is celebrating its 103rd birthday this year . It’s announced the formation of its alumni association--The UES Family--for students and parents and teachers associated with the school since 1882. That’s an interesting group: the children of Ray Stark, Julie Andrews, Edwin Pauley, Dinah Shore, Billy Brice, to name a few.

The invite requests, “Please bring: 1. children, parents, grandparents, 2. picnic lunch and blanket (no alcohol, please), 3. old photos of classmates, and 4. UES memorabilia (awards will be given for the most wonderful and authentic objets d’elementary school--how’s your Conestoga wagon?).”

State Sen. Art Torres and Music Center Education Council member Yolanda Nava will be guest speakers at the annual fall kickoff of the Reachout Committee of the Music Center Sunday afternoon in the Eldorado Room of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Dr. Eva Grant is president.

Walking and golfing for charity:

Producer Stephen J. Cannell, “Hill Street Blue’s” Daniel J. Travanti, comedian Richard Kline and TV game show host Tom Kennedy join about 1,000 industry participants for the second annual 18K Permanent Charities’ Walk-a-Thon fund-raiser Oct. 12 at Buena Vista Park in Burbank. The goal is $100,000. . . .

Each golfer will ante up $400 (male/female twosomes $650, and foursomes $1,600) to swing in the Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau ’85 Golf Classic Oct. 14 at Wilshire Country Club. Seymour Kahn heads the event for Freeman Hospitals Foundation. . . .

Las Mariquitas, auxiliary of the Assistance League of San Pedro-Palos Verdes, has a “Flight of the Ladybugs” triple event fund-raiser Friday at the Palos Verdes Country Club. The lively ladybugs buzz off at 8 a.m., under the supervision of Olive O’Brien and Dorothy Corsaro, Betty Hauser and Shirley Dunn. It’s followed by an “On the Wing” bridge luncheon headed by Barbara Millar, Marie Seares and Faye Moore, interrupted only by a fashion show (I. Magnin) coordinated by Kay Fina and Jane Shutt. Come evening, there’s the “Ladybuzz Ball” dinner-dance. It’s black-tie optional, which means, in buzz parlance, you can wing it. . . .

Edward Schneier, president of Help Youth Foundation, announces its ninth annual golf tournament Friday at Braemar Country Club in Tarzana. . . .

Design for Sharing, a UCLA Center for the Arts support group, entertains 1,600 junior and senior high toe-tapping students Friday for a special American Dancemachine workshop performance of show-stopping dances from Broadway musicals. It’s made possible, as they say, by a grant from TSA, a CalFed Co.

Leona Mattoni, president of Design, will be joined by TSA president Charles W. Woodford, new to Los Angeles, and TSA’s senior vice president David Reagan and Mrs. Reagan; and Valerie Fields, Pebbles Wadsworth and others for an intimate lunch after.

Potpourri:

Les Marraines Auxiliary of Children’s Home Society of California premieres a Travilla fashion luncheon next Thursday in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. Mrs. Evans Malanga and Mrs. George Ensslin are co-chairmen. Six hundred are expected. The show team: Mmes. Louis Busch, Milan Colich, Tom Jones, Hjalmar Anderson, John Lehne, Donald DeHetre, Lowell Bender, C. Lloyd Smith, James Feick, Jack Kagan, Robert Hersh, Charles Canady, Hugh Powers and Hugh Malanga. . . .

Dog lovers, namely the new Friends of International Guiding Eyes, host wine and hors d’oeuvre in Sylmar Sunday afternoon at an open house of their facility, which trains students in the use of dogs. Among founding Friends, Vilma Pallette, Eleanor Hughes, Marcia Erickson, Sheilah Ross and Loretta Schauer. . . .

According to Ebell Club President Mrs. Wheelwright J. Gerry, the club has joined Hospital of the Good Samaritan in a program to fund the Ebell Rest Cottage Assn. Ebell for 60 years has provided continued respite service in a rest cottage, closed in 1979. The new venture will enable the members to continue to provide women recuperative care at Weingart House on the hospital campus. . . .

Martha Brown Hicks, president of the Skid Row Development Corp., was honored by the Auxiliary of the House of Ruth at a gala in Fremont Place at Mary Pickford’s first home. . . .

Marcia Colwell coordinated the National Charity League of Los Angeles fashions from the Ticktocker Thrift Shop at a luncheon this week at the New Otani. . . .