Toy Theme Adds a Playful Note to Ball for Boat Parade Organizers

At the check-in desk: foot-high mirrored pedestals spilling plastic dinosaurs and roach-size racing cars and G.I. Joes.

Inside the ballroom: stuffed animals and model planes and building blocks and games, piled into a little red wagon on stage and heaped on top of giant gift-wrapped boxes near the entrance.

A symphony of toys, appropriately enough.

On Saturday, one corner of the Anaheim Hilton was decked out as a festive playroom for the 400 guests of the Huntington Harbour Philharmonic Committee’s Grand Marshal Ball.

The dinner party was a thank-you for organizers of last December’s boat parade and Cruise of Lights fund-raiser. The parade and cruise, under the theme “Symphony of Toys,” raised more than $100,000 for the Orange County Philharmonic Society’s youth music programs.

Missy and Court Prowell were all-stars of the ball. Missy is the committee’s chairwoman and Court was last year’s grand marshal.

How did they split their duties? “Easy,” said Court, who led the parading harborites in a friend’s 84-foot cruiser. “Missy did all the work.”

Sharing the ball’s spotlight was Leon Statler, who was named grand marshal for 1990.

In the cocktail-hour crowd were Don Hartfelder, Ken Dickson and Otto Strehlow. Hartfelder, who was grand marshal in 1978, joked that although it was a lot of work, “I did anything and everything to get my boat up to the front of the line.”

Vern and Betty Mays sipped drinks with John and Marky Paugh, Jim Mitchell and Meryle Hammatt. Both the Mayses and the Paughs have participated in the parade for 18 years.

“So we’re old hands,” said Vern Mays.

“ Young old hands,” added his wife.

In line for souvenir photographs were young hands Dianne and Anton Flecklin and Mary and Dwayne Lund--two of the couples who rode the “newcomers’ boat” in the parade.

Younger hands Christine Bremer and Tracy Hardigree, juniors at Huntington Beach High School, greeted guests and clowned with a mime circulating through the crowd.

The ball was chaired by Isabel Greenwald, with help from Marian Galanis, Eva Holmes, Arden Duckworth, Dorothy Johnson, Yvonne Kelley, Dorothy Silverman and Phyllis Helland.

After cocktails, guests enjoyed a dinner of lobster-and-crab-meat ravioli, grilled filet mignon and poached salmon, washed down with Korbel Brut champagne and Bollo Chardonnay and Bardolino.