A Trip from Box Boy to Top Alumnus

The San Diego State University Alumni & Associates convened Saturday at the U.S. Grant Hotel, on the eve of commencement exercises for the Class of 1986, for its ninth annual alumni awards gala.

It proved to be a pleasantly casual and light-hearted evening; perhaps some of those present who would be called upon to participate in the graduation ceremonies, including Ambassador-at-Large Philip Habib and university President Thomas Day, were saving their stores of pomp and circumstance for the following day. In any case, a leisurely cocktail hour in the hotel’s main lobby was followed by a cheerful promenade up the grand staircase to the ballroom, where the 475 guests--a record number for this event--tucked into a dinner of poached salmon, tournedos of beef, and berries in custard sauce. Later, after the formal addresses and presentations, the guests retired to the dance floor for a whirl or two to disco sounds provided by The Music Machine.

Master of ceremonies Robert Arnhym, an SDSU alumnus who serves as vice president for external affairs of the alumni association, guided the guests through the formal moments of the evening. After Morton Jorgenson, the current alumni president, read the annual report, Arnhym introduced Day, who rose warmly to the task of presenting the Alumnus of the Year and Distinguished Alumni awards.

S. Donley Ritchey garnered the Alumnus of the Year award. Ritchey, chairman of the board of Lucky Stores, began his career as a box boy at the Food Basket (a Lucky subsidiary) in Pacific Beach while working for his college degree. After earning that degree in 1955, Ritchey continued to rise in the company while pursuing a master’s degree in business administration, also at SDSU, which was awarded in 1963. The day after the awards gala, Ritchey saw the graduation of his youngest child, Shawn.

Eight other SDSU graduates, chosen for the honor by the university’s seven undergraduate schools and the Imperial County campus, received Distinguished Alumni Awards. The College of Arts and Letters honored community activist Leon Parma.

Entrepreneur James Sweeney captured the award given by the College of Business Administration; the College of Education honored La Mesa educator Charmon Lehew, and local Red Cross director Donita Rotherham was the selection of the College of Human Sciences.

Also honored were Charles L. Zinn, recipient of the Imperial Valley campus award; space program participant Larry Grant, a graduate of the College of Engineering; psychologist H. Carl Haywood, honored by the College of Sciences, and movie producer Kathleen Kennedy, honored by the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts. Kennedy, a member of the Class of ‘76, was the youngest honoree; an associate of producer Steven Spielberg, she was co-producer of the blockbuster movie “E.T.” and executive producer of the recent “Back to the Future.”

SDSU Alumni & Associates gave the honorees “Monty” statuettes, small replicas of the Donal Hord statue of Montezuma that dominates the entrance to the university’s main campus and serves as the school’s mascot.

Sue Williams and Kay North co-chaired the event; their committee included Maxine Hosaka, Yvonne and Dan Larsen, Annette Hubbell, Dick Manning, Dave DeVol, Charlotte Hayes, Al Reynolds, Bernie Rhinerson, Kathie Ross and Betty Hubbard.

Betsy Manchester may have felt rather like a female Janus at the May 21 cocktail reception given in honor of the underwriters and major patrons of the 1986 Jewel Ball, which is just two months away.

Manchester found herself in the ticklish position of having to look backward and forward--to the past and to the future--simultaneously. As ball chairman, she has chosen the theme “Vintage” for this year’s version of the annual classic, because 1986 marks the 40th anniversary of the Jewel Ball. Yet there was nothing old-fashioned about the premises chosen for the underwriters’ reception--the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater and Science Center.

The symbolism of this juxtaposition of theme and premises was probably unintentional, although there is no doubt that Las Patronas, the La Jolla philanthropical group that hosts the Jewel Ball, is looking to the future even as it focuses on its past. Building on the model of the original ball, the Las Patronas have turned a fund-raiser that started with a net measured in the hundreds of dollars into a powerhouse party that ranks among the 10 most profitable in the country and last year earned more than $340,000 for its various beneficiaries. Many see the $500,000 mark as a not-too-distant goal.

Manchester and her co-chairs, Judy Lessard and Bonnie Stewart, promised that “Vintage” will be a classic Jewel Ball. This means that it will be held, as always, in the open air at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club, that fireworks will herald the beginning of the dinner, and that the evening will be devoted to dancing and frivolity.

Because the theme celebrates the group’s 40 years, the Wayne Foster Orchestra will play favorites from each of the decades in which Las Patronas has been in existence. The roster of 1986 major beneficiaries includes the Heart Sounds Exhibit at the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater, the Friends of the La Jolla Library, the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre, and Noah Homes for the Developmentally Disabled.

Though the group may take its labors seriously, guests at the reception behaved according to plan and made a jolly time of it. The food stations drew plenty of attention, especially the tables that offered roast leg of lamb and crepes stuffed with cherries, and several of the scientific exhibits proved positively captivating to the crowd. Among these was a machine that demonstrates the astounding, amazing and somewhat silly “Bernouli Effect,” in which a beach ball hangs suspended over a flow of forced air.

The 1986 Jewel Ball committee includes Stephanie Tribolet, Linda Smith, Dawn Matthiesen, Carolyn Hooper, Vicky Adams, Mac Canty, Gail Lichter, Sandy Melchior, Anne Coleman, Nancy Hester, Martha Ehringer, Melesse Traylor, Gray Kristofferson, Carla Rehm, Annette Ford, Mary Berglund and Margie Clark.

Later the same evening, The Renown, as cheerful a vessel as ever plied San Diego Bay, took a cargo of 50 souls for a moonlight cruise of the waters that separate San Diego and Coronado.

But this boatload of humanity was no ship of fools. The passenger list comprised board members and principal sponsors of The City Club, the organization of local intelligentsia that gathers occasionally to ponder the weighty issues of the day. The group’s founder and guiding light, George Mitrovich, organized the excursion and brought author Tom Wolfe along as guest of honor. The boat’s owners, Bill and Donna Lynch, were hosts for the two-hour voyage.

Most of the guests had already clambered aboard when Wolfe made his entrance. The cheery “Hi, guys,” the author offered when he stepped on deck belied his typical sartorial splendor; Wolfe, who wrote “The Right Stuff,” “The Pump House Gang,” and numerous other works, is famous for the care and style with which he dresses. For the boating party, he chose an outfit that would have looked grand in Teddy Roosevelt’s day and certainly caught the modern eye--a pearl gray jacket with white piping topped a cream-colored, double-breasted waistcoat and matching trousers. A primrose tie and pocket square completed the effect.

If Wolfe’s outfit was reminiscent of another era, his topic of conversation was decidedly contemporary. In town to address the City Club (and, originally, an audience at UC San Diego, which canceled the author’s contract when he agreed to speak to the club), Wolfe said that his concern these days is with something he calls “plutography.”

“Plutography is the graphic description of the lives of the wealthy, and is to the ‘80s what pornography was to the ‘70s,” said Wolfe.

He suggested that the covers of national tabloids and such television programs as “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” are purveyors of plutography, a subject that he warned has come to dominate the national consciousness.

But since fascination with wealth was the topic of the following day, Wolfe relaxed for the moment and reminisced about the time he spent in La Jolla researching “The Pump House Gang,” a book that chronicled the doings of surfers and their ilk at Windansea Beach in the late 1960s.