Dressing Up for Dressage
Who says black-tie has to be stuffy?
Friends of the Fran Joswick Therapeutic Riding Center held a decidedly unpretentious dress-up party Saturday at Magic Island in Newport Beach.
Trading boots and breeches for tuxes and gowns, 164 local equestrians and riding center supporters paid $135 each for dinner and a magic show at the former private club, raising about $16,000 for the San Juan Capistrano stable.
Lest appearances deceive (as they probably should in a magicians’ lair), chairwoman Sonja Solberg dropped this pearl on her spiffed-up guests after dinner:
“They asked me to say something brief and dignified,” said Solberg, pacing the “Garden of Isis” room’s stage. “All I can think of is how totally thrilled I am that this strapless dress hasn’t fallen down.”
And then this:
“You know, when we told people about (the party), they said, ‘Why black-tie?’ ‘Why black-tie?’ And it seemed like all the people who said that were men,” Solberg said. “I’m standing here in high heels, control-top panty hose and a strapless dress wondering what all you men are complaining about!”
The benefit was the first fund-raising effort of the newly formed Kismet Women’s Auxiliary, which is also headed by Solberg, a horse trainer and longtime supporter of the Joswick center. In operation for 10 years, the nonprofit center provides weekly horseback riding lessons for disabled children and adults.
Before dinner, guests ordered drinks in the club’s bar, browsed silent-auction tables in the Egyptian-themed Cleopatra’s Chamber and strolled the dark-green halls decorated with posters and props. (Props on display included such neatly labeled mysteries as a “talking skull,” a “finger-chopper,” a “water-to-confetti” cup and an “ink-to-goldfish” bowl.)
Center Director Cheryl Shou, hobbled by torn ligaments, sat out the cocktail hour in the dining room with some of her students and volunteers. How would she like to spend the party proceeds?
“There’s so much we need, it’s hard to know where to start,” Shou said, grinning.
Shou reeled off a “wish list”--new tack, new therapeutic equipment, more staff members, more horses. The top priority, she said, was the scholarship fund, which underwrites the cost of lessons for almost half of the center’s 86 riders.
Also attending were Judy Fluor-Runels and Dick Runels, Dudley Wright, Linda Gaede, Cecilia Presley, Vickie Wright and Robert Hank, Maxine Arnold, Charlie Calborn, Brenda Skinner, Penny Fosheim and Diana La Mott.
A Little Touch of Vegas: Comedians Gary Mule Deer and Valery Pappas and singer Deborah Williams entertained guests Thursday at a fund-raiser for Human Options, a Laguna Beach shelter for battered women and their children.
The Vegas-style variety show--produced by Beverly Hills talent agent Jeffrey Patterson--topped off a $125-per-ticket evening that drew 368 guests to the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach and raised about $70,000, according to event chairwoman Janet Corbin.
“We are so thrilled I can’t even find the words to tell you,” Corbin said.
Among those in demand at cocktail hour was Vivian Clecak, executive director of the 8-year-old shelter. Stepping back from the clamoring crowd, she said the money raised through ticket sales, silent and live auctions and other donations would be used “basically for survival.”
“It costs a lot just to keep us going,” Clecak said.
Besides running the 18-bed shelter, Human Options operates a crisis-intervention hot line--which received 14,000 calls from county women last year--a family counseling center, children’s services and a domestic violence prevention program conducted at schools.
Program Director Jan Tyler linked arms with Katherine Nemeth, a counselor at the shelter--who had showed up seven years ago as a client.
“Katherine brings a whole other kind of sensitivity (to the job) that some of the other staff doesn’t have,” Tyler said.
Nemeth shyly admitted that “most of what I use when I’m counseling comes from my experience.” After 47 days at the shelter and a split with her abusive husband, Nemeth got a master’s degree in counseling psychology.
“That helps (me) keep some distance,” she said, “but there’s some things . . . they can’t teach you in school.”
Guests heard a chilling litany of domestic violence statistics before dinner: Every 17 seconds a woman is battered in the United States; 40% of female homicide victims are killed by their husbands or boyfriends, and an estimated 50% of domestic violence goes unreported.
One shelter client recounted on tape: “It started with a slap, then a beating with an open hand, then fists, then kicking.”
The benefit was the joint effort of the shelter’s three support groups, which have a total of nearly 200 members.
Elizabeth Tierney was honorary chairwoman. Event committee members included Marcia Cashion, Ann Lusk, Betty Andrews, Mary Catherine Payne, Julie Brinkerhoff, Harriett Cox, Betty Kemp, Pat McFarland, Mary Anna Severson and Barbara Brinkerhoff.
