Debutante Ball Is Touch of Class for a Changing Area

Last year, for its big fund-raiser, the society set of the Santa Clarita Valley held the Rocking Horse Derby. Derby-goers raced one another on toy horses equipped with wooden wheels in the name of charity.

The derby was in keeping with the Santa Clarita Valley’s reputation as a holdover from the Wild West, a place where cultural landmarks include the William S. Hart cowboy museum and the Cowboy Walk of Fame, a stretch of sidewalk along San Fernando Road in Newhall inlaid with plaques bearing saddle-shaped logos that honor cowboy actors.

But the communities northeast of the San Fernando Valley are seeing an influx of young, affluent families who have a city dweller’s notions of culture. So this year they put their cowboy outfits in mothballs, donned evening clothes and held a debutante ball.

“We are getting more moneyed people,” said Connie Russo of Newhall, a co-chairwoman of the event. “Companies are moving in. I’ve been here 10 years and have seen an upper class developing.”

Two hundred of these affluent, charity-minded people paid $75 a ticket to attend Saturday night’s ball, which benefited Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia. Ten young women in expensive white gowns were escorted by cadets who flew in for the occasion from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“In this little valley out here we haven’t had anything that’s high society at all,” a co-chairman of the Silver Rose Debutante Ball remarked during a rehearsal. “We’re hoping that this will fill that need.”

Lights in the crowded ballroom at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City dimmed, and the noise of cocktail chatter fell to a hush. Gowns rustled and jewelry flashed as people turned in their seats to watch. The orchestra struck up Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Fur Elise,” and a spotlight followed the first debutante as she walked onto the stage.

Murmurs of “ooh” and “ah” greeted 17-year-old Carrie Von Haase, whose white gown glowed as if under moonlight. She glided across the stage and turned to stand under a heart-shaped, rose-covered arch.

As a master of ceremonies intoned her name, Carrie executed the perfect curtsy, one she had mastered through weeks of practice. Applause filled the room. She descended the steps and was led around the dance floor on the arm of her father, who wore white gloves and a tuxedo with tails.

Then, one at a time, nine other 17- and 18-year-olds from the Santa Clarita Valley made their debuts into society.

Claudia Uribe, 17, said that, until they heard about the one being planned by the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital Guild, she and several of the others hadn’t known what a debutante ball was. They were not alone. Such events generally fell out of favor over the past 20 years, perhaps being seen in the egalitarian, socially conscious 1960s as elitist and frivolous.

As Judith Martin writes in “Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior” (Atheneum, 1982): “In modern times, it has become fashionable for a young woman, upon reaching the age of 18, to signify her membership in adult society by announcing that she refuses to make a debut.”

The debut had become sufficiently anachronistic that it receives no mention at all in “The Cosmo Girl’s Guide to the New Etiquette” (Hearst, 1971).

Many balls have gone out of business, said Russo, who has served for 13 years as choreographer for the Mary and Joseph League’s debutante ball in Los Angeles and who made two debuts herself in 1971, one for Las Camadres Children’s Home Society and one for the Mary and Joseph League.

“A lot of them were fund-raisers,” she said, “and a lot of times they didn’t make enough money for what the effort was worth. The smaller balls were struggling to get girls, so they dropped the idea and put their efforts elsewhere.”

Now that the debutante ball is making a comeback, in the Santa Clarita Valley at least, so are some other refinements that accompany it. As part of its package, the hospital guild provides the young women with tutoring in hair and nail care, makeup and etiquette. Marnee Thompson of Piru was the etiquette instructor.

Question on Gloves

“We probably had four or five sessions,” she said. “We went over anything that might come up at the ball or at the other functions. They all knew what to do, except maybe with the long gloves. They wanted to know, ‘When do we take them off?’ The only time, really, is when you’re eating.”

Maria Hernandez was gown coordinator. Her dress store, Chantilly, made eight of the 10 dresses.

“We told them that the gown had to be all white,” she said, “and it had to be pretty without being too frilly. Some of the girls are going to wear them to their school proms.”

Requirements to become a debutante were simple.

“We go strictly on merit and the desire to be a deb,” said Jonnie Fritz of Saugus, president of the hospital guild, which staged the ball. “Their fathers can be the bank president or the postman. We like them to be interested in giving service, and a couple of them are junior volunteers at hospitals.”

The event’s name--Silver Rose Debutante Ball--has no special significance. It was chosen simply because guild members liked it.

“It’s a classy name for a classy event,” one member said. “It shows that this community has arrived.”

Co-chairwoman Russo said her fondest memories of the events are of the role played by her father.

“The father is very important at a debut,” Russo said. “The girl and her father have to spend a lot of time together rehearsing the dancing and the choreography. The nicest thing for me was I got to be close to my daddy.”

A father had better check his bank balance, however, before deciding to foster closeness with his daughter by presenting her to society. Families of the 10 young women at the Silver Rose Debutante Ball spent from $1,500 to $3,000 each for the honor.

The expenses are many: a $300 entry fee, $750 to host the mandatory 10-person table, between $300 and $600 for the gown, then fees and clothes for other events of the debutante season. These include a fashion show, tea party and bridal fair.

Costly Affair

“By the time I clothe myself, my wife and my other two daughters, it gets more expensive than you’d think,” said Dale Von Haase of Newhall, father of Carrie. Von Haase was not complaining, however. He and the other parents appeared to have adopted an attitude of “damn the costs, full speed ahead.”

“I’d definitely go through it again,” said Gustavo Uribe of Valencia, father of Claudia. “In the beginning I was skeptical, but as it’s grown it’s become a lot of fun.”

Uribe said he particularly enjoyed the grand waltz performed by the young women and their fathers, or in the cases of two of the debutantes, their grandfathers.

Guild member Reena Newhall and her husband, Tony, publisher of the Newhall Signal newspaper, rehearsed the couples.

“We started in November and we must have met about 12 or 15 times altogether,” Reena Newhall said. “The girls are good dancers, but the fathers, well, talk about two left feet--six is more like it. But they showed up and got good at it.”

Spins, Dips

Highlight of the grand waltz was a sequential ripple, where one by one the debutantes spin in their partner’s arms and dip into a curtsy. The young women then performed a bridge at the center of the dance floor, joining their upraised right hands and revolving in a circle.

After the waltz, the cadets from the Air Force Academy were introduced. The young men then danced with their dates and escorted them for the remainder of the evening.

The idea of flying in Air Force cadets was borrowed from the annual debutante ball staged by supporters of Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster.

Melanie Tyson, 17, of Canyon Country said the debutantes were apprehensive when they heard that their dates were being imported.

“We were really nervous at first about the cadets coming in,” she said. “But they came Friday night and we met them, and now it’s like one big, happy family.”