‘What we talk about most is what we’re doing now, our families’

Two women whose paths crossed in Pasadena years before their destinies carried them to the San Fernando Valley were drawn together Tuesday morning in a brief reunion at Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge.

The occasion was the annual brunch for former Tournament of Roses queens put on by Kodak. It was also an anniversary for both the former rose queens.

Martha (Sissell) Bell of Studio City was crowned 25 years ago, and Barbara (Hewitt) Laughray of Thousand Oaks 20 years ago.

They shared the morning with 26 other past rose queens including the first, Holly (Halsted) Balthis, who reigned in 1930, and a handful of tournament officials and news people.

The press announcement said they were getting together to “reminisce, laugh over amusing memories and just catch up.”

It was a fair promise. For an hour before breakfast, the women chatted happily and cooperated politely with the questions from the press.

“What we talk about most is what we’re doing now, our families” Laughray said.

It turned out that both of the Valley rose queens followed unexpected paths to what they are doing now.

Laughray’s official 1967 portrait, on display in the dining hall, showed a pale, slender face wrapped in straight, blond locks that ended in a flip.

On Tuesday, that same slender face was surrounded by lush Farrah Fawcett curls. Laughray wore a snug-fitting, rose-print cotton dress breaking into a broad ruffle at the ankles. Tall and slim, she looked like a fashion model, which is what she was before arriving at her true calling.

Today, she and her husband, David Laughray, are co-ministers of the Conejo Valley Community Church of Religious Science.

She has been a minister four years, a career that had been working its way into her life for a long time.

“I was introduced to the philosophy when I met my husband at 16,” she said. He was raised in the Religious Science belief. She was not. Her upbringing, she now feels, focused perhaps too much on the outer beauty.

“I’ve always thought that, as a child, I wasn’t directed in other ways,” she said.

Laughray said she competed for rose queen for her father’s sake, as a way of showing the gratitude she felt for all he had done for her. But, even then, she said, it was her new belief in God, imparted by her boyfriend, that gave her the self-confidence to win.

During the year Barbara was rose queen, they were married and she became pregnant.

David soon became a minister in La Canada. For 10 years, she ran a school for fashion models. She looks upon that as the beginning of her ministry.

“I connected the outer beauty with the inner beauty, the inner spirituality,” she said. “I taught them, without ever mentioning the spiritual, their inner beauty. It wasn’t just looking good. It was thinking good thoughts.”

In the meantime, she was studying theology.

Four years ago, the Church of Religious Science offered the Laughrays the ministry in Conejo Valley. There was enough work for two. So the Laughrays share it, both delivering sermons, conducting weddings, christening babies and counseling their congregation.

In June, they will conduct a ceremony together. It will be the wedding of Deborah, the older of their two daughters.

Martha Bell arrived Tuesday in a modest, copper-and-black, polished cotton suit bearing the same warm smile and short, brunet hair that stood out in her 1962 portrait.

After 25 years, she looked back upon her reign as rose queen more as a pleasant memory than a major influence on her life.

“It was just a nice chapter in my life that I was very fortunate to have,” she said. “It was a wonderful memory.”

She said she never really set out to become rose queen but tried out because, in 1962, all women at Pasadena City College did.

Since then, her life has actually fallen into what Bell considers a reverse pattern.

After her year as rose queen, she attended the University of Southern California. After graduating, she got a job at Occidental Life Insurance. Then she returned to school to earn a teaching credential. She taught first grade for a while. Then she had her own children.

She and her husband, John, a real estate agent and developer, moved to Studio City 15 years ago out of the same practical considerations that have lured so many to the field.

“My husband had offices in Los Angeles and Westwood at that time, and we couldn’t afford to live in Hancock Park,” she said.

They stayed on, added to the house and raised their children, Kristina and Greg.

“The car-pooling is over now,” Bell sighed.

“I don’t really know what I’m going to do now,” she said, beaming pleasantly. “I’m at a nice place in my life.”

She may start something new or she may not.

“I’m lucky I have the chance to make the decision,” she said.

But something is definitely stirring.

She made it to the rose queens’ reunion, which she hasn’t always done. And that’s not all.

“I even made it to the cookie brunch that my friends have every year,” she said. “They always laugh and say, ‘Martha won’t show.’ ”

But this year, Martha showed.