Four Award Winners Get Into Spirit of the Occasion

--Four people who overcame physical handicaps--Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, actress Ann Jillian, singer Teddy Pendergrass and Edward M. Kennedy Jr.--were honored at a Washington gala billed as “celebrating the victory of the human spirit.” The three-hour fund-raiser packed the Concert Hall at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and part of the attraction of the evening of music and speeches was the four well-known people who had triumphed over their disabilities. The presentation of their “Victory of the Spirit” awards--modernistic, bronze-color statuettes--was the highlight of the evening. But for autograph-seekers, another part of the attraction was the presence of such entertainers as actress Lynda Carter, actor Robert Blake, singer Marie Osmond and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Jillian had a double mastectomy a year ago. Young Kennedy lost a leg to cancer when he was 12. Dole was paralyzed when he was hit by an explosive shell during World War II but regained the use of his legs and left arm and partial use of his right arm. Pendergrass was partially paralyzed in an automobile accident four years ago.

--First Lady Nancy Reagan, dedicating a hospital center in Washington named for her father, surgeon Loyal Davis, says he taught her much about human nature, respect and the art of healing. “Every time I’m in a hospital, I can’t help thinking of my father,” she told a crowd of about 200. “It makes me think of all the times I went on rounds with him, the times I watched him work, operate.” Davis was Chicago’s first brain surgeon and chairman of Northwestern University’s department of surgery for 31 years.

--Mike Waldrop’s house has a home-builder seeing red--as well as yellow, green, purple, orange, brown and pink. Waldrop has painted the back of his house in a Portland, Ore., suburb in multicolored checks and has laid down dark red wavy lines on the rooftop. Finishing touches include a seven-foot-tall line-drawing of a man with his pants down and his posterior exposed to anyone looking at the back yard. Home-builder Barry Larson says Waldrop is trying to make it impossible for him to sell the two-story house he’s building in the lot adjacent to Waldrop’s back yard. “I can see that it’s funny to a certain extent,” Larson admitted. Waldrop acknowledged that he had complete privacy until Larson’s Pineridge Development Inc. bought a vacant lot behind his home. Larson said he was considering taking his complaint to the county, but David Anderson, assistant county counsel, said Waldrop is not violating any laws. “We don’t have an ordinance against ugly,” Anderson said.