Festive Event Hails Friends of University

Having spent the better part of the year congratulating itself on its silver anniversary, UC San Diego paused Saturday to pat the backs of a special group of local civic leaders and educators who have helped the institution achieve its eminence.

Chancellor Richard Atkinson and his wife, Rita, were co-hosts for the 14th annual dinner-dance given for the university’s Chancellor’s Associates, whose members contribute annually to the chancellor’s discretionary fund, and for the Board of Overseers, a community advisory board that assists in the development and operation of the campus. The occasion marked the 20th anniversary of the Chancellor’s Associates. More than 300 guests turned out for the formal evening, given, as always, at Revelle Commons, the university’s main refectory.

Distinguished service awards were presented to a quartet of community leaders, including Texas Instruments founder and noted philanthropist Cecil Green and, in absentia, his wife, Ida. The guests also watched a changing of San Diego’s Old Guard, as George Gildred passed the chairmanship of the Chancellor’s Associates to builder Dean Dunphy. During his two-year tenure, Gildred attracted 79 new members to the association.

Since the university chose its 25th year as the one in which to cast a spotlight on the Pacific Ring (the agglomeration of countries and cultures that rims the Pacific), an emphasis highlighted by the Pacific Ring Festival held on campus earlier this year, the party was given a pan-Pacific accent. Immense Japanese lanterns, almost the size of barrels, seemed ready to swallow the guests assembled for the cocktail reception given on the Revelle Commons terrace; in their size and shape, they echoed the departing sun that, in a riddle of nature that might stump an Aesop, sailed slowly toward the Orient so as to make room for the darkness that also approached from the East. The hors d’oeuvres buffets likewise took a walk down the Eastern side of the street, and in addition to offering spicy pot stickers and skewers of chicken satay , they featured sashimi , or sliced raw fish, which this crowd treated like a familiar friend. Some even essayed chopsticks.

Among those enjoying these prefatory nibbles were Dunphy and his wife, Marie. The new chairman said of UCSD: “It is an enormously important institution, and it’s inevitable that it will be at the heart of much that is great in San Diego.” He added, rather modestly, “I’m pleased to play a role, no matter how limited that role may be.” Also enjoying the hour were Board of Overseers Chairman Mary Berglund and her husband, Jim, and the newly selected director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Ed Frieman, and his wife, Joy.

(Darlene Shiley found the relatively limited confines of the cocktail site comforting, especially when compared to the vast spaces she encountered at the previous Saturday’s “Rendezvous in the Zoo,” a fund-raiser given at the San Diego Zoo. Reflecting back on that party, she commented, “When they tell you you’ll find the restroom by making a left turn at the elephant, they shouldn’t move the elephant!”)

The guests started drifting indoors as night fell, a slow tide of guests that gathered speed when the Atkinsons pounded the dinner gong. The Marianne Kent Band, which had been patiently waiting its chance, immediately lured the guests out to the dance floor in a quick warm-up routine that led directly to the evening’s brief program.

Richard Atkinson opened the program by reporting that the university has raised nearly 80% of the $31 million it targeted in its current capital campaign, which still has six months to go. Then Master of Ceremonies George Gildred took the lectern to award plaques to 10- and 20-year members of the Chancellor’s Associates; in the latter category were Frank Hope, Jerry Jones, Hamilton Marston, Clinton McKinnon, S. Falck Nielsen and Walter Zable. Atkinson returned to the microphone to present distinguished service medals to Cecil Green and to Gerald and Viviane Warren. Gerald Warren, editor of the San Diego Union, formerly served as deputy press secretary to Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, and it was with his assistance that UCSD recently presented a major symposium entitled “Twenty-five Years of the Presidency.”

The conclusion of the program allowed the guests to turn to a dinner of Japanese salad, “carpetbagger” steak, and Philippine fruits with white chocolate mousse. The band played straight through until midnight, and among those couples who danced until the music stopped were Ken and Dixie Unruh; Dixie, along with an absent Anne Otterson, helped the school to arrange the dinner dance.

The guest list included UCSD founding father Roger Revelle and his wife, Ellen, as well as former chancellors John Galbraith, William McElroy and William McGill. Also present were UCSD School of Medicine Dean Robert Petersdorf and his wife, Laura; Petersdorf will be departing shortly to assume the presidency of the American Assn. of Medical Colleges.

Others attending were Jack and Carolyn Farris, Bill and Amy Barnett, Michael and Laura Doyle, Dick and Harriet Levi, Walter and Marian Barrett, Ronald and Kaye Harper, Sandra Wawrytko with Gil Ontai, Bradford and Judith Ryland, Dan and Nancy Smith, Andrew and Erna Viterbi, Irwin and Joan Jacobs, Ray and Dian Peet, and Joe and Ingrid Hibben.

SAN DIEGO--The long-smoldering love affair between the San Diego Arts Foundation and the Joffrey Ballet burst into flames at a post-performance, opening-night supper given Wednesday in the U.S. Grant ballroom.

The conflagration occurred when a match was touched to the 30 candles that decorated a massive white chocolate birthday cake presented by the foundation to the Joffrey for its 30th birthday.

Gerald Arpino, the troupe’s choreographer (who, incidentally, was celebrating the 25th anniversary of his career) dispatched the cheery blaze and invited the 130 guests to share in the cake, an invitation refused only by those who were busy dancing to the Ducktail Revue’s rendition of “16 Candles.”

Since the Joffrey was born in the 1950s, party chairman Susan Cahill arranged for a birthday scene that mimicked the style of that decade. An arch of balloons guarded the pathway to the dance floor, and more balloons tugged at the brightly wrapped “presents” that centered each table. Streamers and confetti were available for throwing, but (much to the relief of the hotel catering crew, no doubt) most guests were content to throw nothing messier than kisses. These flew around the room, from foundation director Suzanne Townsend to foundation angel Danah Fayman to arts benefactors Susan and Harry Summers and Jayne Singer.

This late-night rendezvous followed a performance that included San Diego premieres of “The Heart of the Matter” and the Joffrey’s new “Birthday Variations.” Some of the guests found their hands so stiff from applauding that they had difficulty balancing their plates as they made the rounds of the buffets. Those who thoroughly investigated the cuisine, however, found their plates laden with the Grant’s famous Caesar salad, as well as seafood pasta and skewers of spiced meats. As is customary at Arts Foundation events, the entire cast was invited, and the dancers lost no time satisfying their appetites, which they then renewed by stepping out to the band’s ‘50s rhythms.

Among those present were Tawnya Sparks, LaVerne and Maurice Altschuler, Maryka Fargo, Pauline and Stan Foster, Sharon Gorevitz, Barbara Lord, Bill Purves, Alan Ziter, Hector Torres and Carole Sommers.

Earlier the same evening, the San Diego Pops opened its season with a full house and fireworks, and there to celebrate the first night of this favorite summer diversion were about 50 members of the UCSD Cancer Center Associates.

Called “Off the Beaten Path,” the casual tent party preceded the performance and allowed the guests to sashay down to Hospitality Point in their best safari duds. The jungle theme was chosen for no special reason, said chairman Karen Goyette, other than that it sounded like a way to allow the guests to dress casually--but, since it was chosen, the party planners played it to the hilt. A portable phonograph played the sound track from the film “Out of Africa,” immense toy animals (borrowed from the San Diego Zoo) lounged around the tent, and the party fare ran to crunchy sweet potato chips, Kenya-style barbecue and vegetable pancakes spread with chili-powered applesauce.

Among the guests were Peggy and Peter Preuss, Kathi Diamant with Spencer Johnson, Gigi and Bob Haynor, Sally Fuller, JoAnne and LeRoy Knutson, Marlo and Bob Boone, Georgia Sadler, Florence and Rik Henriksen, Joanne and Tulie Trejo, Colette and Ivor Royston, Judith and Mark Green, Margaret and Don Duff, and Pops President Bea Epsten.