Ball Sets the Stage for Holiday Bowl

Iowa Hawkeyes Coach Hayden Fry, an occasional guest of the annual Poinsettia Ball, this year opted to stay home with his team in Iowa City rather than catch Friday’s version of the popular Multiple Sclerosis Society-Holiday Bowl fund-raiser.

Fry’s opposite number, Wyoming Cowboys Coach Paul Roach, likewise holed up in Laramie, doubtless with a playbook and pencil in reach at all times.

The two men missed the chance to meet on a friendlier turf than will be the case when their teams clash Dec. 30 in the 10th annual Holiday Bowl at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Given in the Pavilion Ballroom of the San Diego Marriott (formerly the Hotel Inter-Continental), the Poinsettia Ball attracted most principal backers of the bowl game as well as many leading supporters of the local chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. In all, some 650 guests turned out for the formal event.

The draws were numerous; tradition certainly motivated much of the attendance, but the presence of singer Jack Jones, who presented a Las Vegas-style routine, surely helped to sell tickets, too. It had been rumored that the official Holiday Bowl hostess and reigning Miss California, Simone Stephens, would take the stage to deliver one of the stand-up comedy routines for which she has become famous, but she limited herself to delivering humor on a one-to-one basis.

Holiday Bowl chairman Herb Klein was among the first to arrive. “Everybody takes this game seriously,” he said, noting that the governors of both Iowa and Wyoming and their U.S. senators have pledged to be in the crowd at the stadium.

Another early arrival was businessman Dirk Broekema Jr., designated guest of honor for the evening and tapped to receive a plaque honoring his efforts on behalf of the bowl and Multiple Sclerosis during a brief post-dinner ceremony.

“I don’t know why I’m being honored,” said Broekema during the cocktail hour, although he very well did know, of course; having served previously as both chairman and president of the Holiday Bowl, Broekema also has been a director of the Multiple Sclerosis Society for several years. He said that he is a loyal fan of the bowl game for several reasons.

“The Holiday Bowl is economically important to San Diego, and it also livens up the town during a period in which there is little other athletic activity,” said Broekema. “It’s the most exciting bowl game in America and besides, it brings those Hawkeyes to town every year.”

(Broekema was decidedly more taciturn on the stage--after accepting his plaque, he offered what incontestably was the swiftest acceptance speech in the memory of anyone present. It consisted simply of a broad smile, and a quick exit, stage left.)

Perhaps because of the sports-related nature of the event, men filled most of the organizational roles. Ball chairman Bob Hodgson, who by coincidence happens to be executive vice president of Broekema’s Bowest Corp., said of his committee, “We’re enthusiastic about what we can do for charity tonight. The bottom line of all this is the money we’re making for multiple sclerosis.”

The ball did, in fact, bring some $40,000 to the health organization, with another $20,000 going to the Holiday Bowl. Local MS board chairman Matt Shevlin said that the proceeds will be used partly for the group’s expanding patient services programs.

The good news for the beneficiaries was the icing on the cake for the evening’s guests, who also found the entertainment-oriented program much to their liking. A string quartet virtuously offered up Christmas carols during the cocktail hour, but the mood became a bit racier when the Bill Green Orchestra struck up such dance tunes as “Mack the Knife,” and intensified further when Jones brought his jazzy style to the stage.

Dinner was in the midst of all this merrymaking, and it had been much anticipated by some of the more active party planners in the crowd, since the Poinsettia Ball would be the first time that the new Marriott management had been put to the test by a large society event. The fact that all of the hotel’s function rooms were occupied by holiday parties must have made the evening seem endless for the kitchen staffs. In any case, the meal, which was served on very large, flower-patterned plates, concluded with frozen orange souffles.

The bowl game officially is known as the Sea World Holiday Bowl, but the sponsorship role of the marine park, which recently went through a widely publicized management shake-up following a series of accidents at the Mission Bay facility, was not loudly emphasized during the ball. Sea World was represented by new President Robert Gault. Also attending was former Sea World President Jan Schultz, who repeatedly found himself the center of groups of well-wishers, and who remains on the bowl game’s board of directors.

Holiday Bowl board chairman Jim Schmidt attended with his wife, Jerrie. Others present were Leon and Barbara Parma, new MS executive director Keith Padgett, San Diego State University President Tom Day and his wife, Ann (athletic director Fred Miller and head football coach Denny Stolz also were present as representatives of SDSU); Bob and Patty Payne; Bill and Kay Rippee; Karen Buttemer with James Sterrett; Darlene Shultz with Jim Kuhn; Herb and Jane Stoecklein; Bill and Ruth Dick; Dal and Barbara Watkins; Tom and Tracy Stickel; Dick and Vangie Burt; Fielder and Marge Lutes, and Tom and Evelyn Page.

The Berkeley listed to starboard Sunday at about the same speed that dusk yielded to inky night.

The historic ferryboat that makes up one-third of the San Diego Maritime Museum’s flotilla (its sister vessels are the Star of India and the Medea) leaned just a little further into San Diego Bay each time the 300 merrymakers returned from the buffet to the choice window seats on the bay side. The list grew more pronounced as the guests worked past the roast beef to the Mexican specialties, the brownies and, finally, the brightly decorated Christmas cookies.

But the Berkeley, which ferried San Franciscans fleeing the 1906 earthquake to safety, proved tough enough to withstand the enthusiastic goings-on of the assembled Star of India Auxiliary members and their families, who turned out decked in holiday colors to enjoy the group’s fifth annual Parade of Lights celebration.

For entertainment, the group had only to look out the windows at the passing pageant of brilliantly lighted boats, a warm scene that belied the nearly arctic (for San Diego, at any rate) conditions that prevailed on the bay. Although not a part of the parade, the Berkeley was by no means devoid of decoration; the party planners did their best to turn it into a Christmasy rendition of the Good Ship Lollipop by wrapping the pillars with twisting evergreen garlands and enormous red bows.

Mary Allen, who chaired the fund-raiser (proceeds will benefit various Maritime Museum projects), said that the auxiliary’s annual Parade of Lights party has become a family tradition for much of its membership.

“It’s a nice, casual way for our members and families to get together at Christmas, besides being one of primary annual fund-raising events,” Allen said.

Although formal announcement of the event will not be made for some months, museum development director Carolyn Elliott confirmed that the museum is planning a major, no-holds-barred celebration for Nov. 14, 1988, which will be the 125th anniversary of the day the Star of India was launched from a boat yard in the Isle of Man.

“It’s a landmark year, and it will be another 25 years before we have another landmark anniversary,” Elliott said. He added that while it is impossible to give a party of major proportions aboard the historic, iron-clad sailing vessel, it is hoped that at least the cocktail reception will be held upon its weathered deck.

The Parade of Lights party committee included Lenora Witt, Norma Day, Mary Quartly, Nan Tracy, Claradora Isham, Mary Davis, Maxine Telford, Marilyn Fulton--all of them past auxiliary presidents--and Kay Black, who has chaired the party twice in previous years.