Supporters of the John Tracy Clinic gathered...

Supporters of the John Tracy Clinic gathered in less formal garb Sunday at the Santa Ana home of Joanne and John Mullins for a “Western Bar-B-Q & Dancin’.” The party served as the start for the 1987 fund-raising year and a thank-you for contributors to the Jack Youngblood Celebrity Golf Tournament last May.

The tournament, held at the Newport Beach Country Club, netted $42,000 for the clinic, according to Joanne Mullins, president of its Orange County support guild. Named for Spencer Tracy’s hearing-impaired son, Tracy’s wife founded the clinic to help other hearing-impaired preschool children and their families at no cost.

Providing support for the family is a primary focus of the clinic, explained Jim Garrity, director of the clinic. “Here are people experiencing a significant loss, that of a normal child,” he said.

He said that parents have dreams for their children, and learning of any impairment destroys those dreams. “That crystal vase of a dream had been shattered,” he said. “We help families build new dreams.”

One such family is the Altmans, consisting of Marian, Randy and their 3-year-old daughter, Jayna, this year’s poster child. A premature infant, Jayna survived cardiac arrest and lung failure, but her medication eventually caused significant hearing loss.

“We had a bright little girl who was doing everything, but she wasn’t speaking,” said Marian Altman. “Now her language has gone up from next to zero to a vocabulary of 150 words in a year’s time,” added husband Randy.

For the occasion, Jayna dressed in jeans, while Woody Smith, general chairman of the tournament, turned up in a cowboy hat. When Smith owned the Newport Beach Country Club, formerly the Irvine Coast Country Club, he donated the club’s facilities for seven annual golf tournaments.