Party Rakes In $200,000 for S.D. Zoo Flora

Saturday’s seventh annual RITZ party was less beastly than in other years, mostly because, this time around, the Gargantuan gala at the San Diego Zoo benefited hedgerows rather than hedgehogs.

The 10,000 plant species that crowd the zoo’s 100 acres--and particularly the fuchsias, bromeliads, coral trees and others that will provide natural habitat for lowland gorillas and pygmy chimpanzees in the Heart of the Zoo II exhibit--will get a leaf up on the competition thanks to the proceeds earned by “A Secret Garden,” the subtitle given this year’s Rendezvous In The Zoo.

The decision to favor flora over fauna fell to chairwoman Jinx Ecke, wife of poinsettia potentate Paul Ecke, who said that the children’s book “The Secret Garden” always has been a favorite of hers and noted that “the Eckes are rather involved in horticulture.” Her passion for green stuff translated into about $200,000 for the zoo’s plant collections.

Saturday’s version of RITZ was notable not only for glitz, glitter and splashiness--all of which it had in superabundance--but for its clear emergence as a major date on the calendar. The party oversold at an attendance of 941 (prompting co-chair Dragon Sherman to remark, “Having too many people want to attend is a wonderful problem to have”), placing it second in size only to the Charity Ball among annual black-tie affairs. The swollen attendance, in fact, forced the zoo to move one of the fences that encloses the employee parking lot, site of the open-air ballroom constructed for the dinner and dancing portions of the event.

Ecke changed the format somewhat by installing the cocktail reception just inside the main entrance, rather than sending guests surging through the nearby animal exhibits as in the past. Those who felt the need for an excursion could hop buses for a tour of botanical highlights. While party-goers consumed Caerphilly profiterolles and shrimp toasts, however, a few beasts roamed the area, including a terrifically hairy llama and a bulging boa that looked rather more menacing than the boas worn by several of the women.

On an adjoining lawn, an assemblage of flamingly pink flamingos hopped across the grass like an ungainly ballet class and were a living example of yet another RITZ ’90 sub-theme. In their honor, servers passed trays of pink champagne.

Nor were they the only flagrant fowls on the scene. “I’ve always wanted a flamingo theme, and Jinx Ecke wanted ‘A Secret Garden,’ so we compromised,” said perennial RITZ designer Dick Ford, who augmented the sweeping plantings in the ballroom with cocky flamingo figures that rose 20 feet above the tables. Ford will chair the 1991 RITZ in conjunction with co-chair Ken Unruh.

Flowers and flamingos, alluring and alliterative (alimentary, too, in the hands of the right cook), gave the ballroom a mannered but madcap magic and provoked more than the usual number of exclamations from entering guests. Palm trees turned into decor elements with the aid of cascades of tiny lights, some suspended inside tomato cages, and 10-foot-tall cattails looked fresh from the river but actually were composed of poles wrapped in thousands of yards of greenhouse netting. Tables bloomed with primly extravagant centerpieces that evoked both Ecke’s secret garden and, in their pinkness, Ford’s flamingos.

Those flamingos posed a problem for decorations chairwoman Liz Smith, who said the 20,000 tiny reflective discs that made up their bodies (the same kind used in the signs on the Sparkletts water trucks) were so hard to find locally that a supplementary supply had to be air-expressed at the last moment “right out of the Florida swamps, from a town so tiny it doesn’t even have a UPS office.” The work of assembling them into bird figures lasted through Friday, but the effect was dazzling; one transplant from Baltimore gazed reflectively at the parade of pink flamingos and exclaimed, “Divine!”

The ballroom featured bandstands at each end for the revolving performances by Shep Meyer’s Orchestra and Lil’ Elmo and the Cosmos, and a podium in the middle for the pre-dinner use of emcee Hal Clement and a roster of zoo dignitaries. Zoo spokesperson Joan Embery presided over the traditional parade of animals that opened the formal ballroom proceedings, and first in line was Carol the elephant, bearing Ecke (in a flowing pink trouser suit) on her truck and Zoological Society President Al Anderson on her back. Carol evidently liked Anderson’s company, because she didn’t seem to want him to dismount when they arrived at the podium, but dismount he did, while the band played “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and Carol shaped her mouth into an elephantine grin. Taking the microphone, Anderson compared the San Diego Zoo’s financial health to that of zoos that depend on public funding. “We’re real lucky in our town, because we take care of our zoo ourselves,” he said.

Zoo executive director Douglas Myers rose to thank the crowd for its support of Heart of the Zoo II, which he said will open next Easter as the “big happening” of the zoo’s 75th anniversary. “But, of course, our 75th anniversary RITZ will be even bigger,” he continued, adding, “Put it on your social calendars now.”

Even the meal continued the party’s themes. Menu chairwoman Martha Culbertson said that she aimed at as many pink foods as possible, and the dinner included sole Waleska garnished with rosy salmon mousse, rare beef tenderloin Murat and grandly silly desserts crowned with meringue pink flamingos; their legs and feet were piped onto the stems and bases of the glass goblets. The main dessert component was one of the few ecologically aware trademarked foods, the “Rainforest Crunch” ice cream made by Ben & Jerry’s, which donates some of the profits from this flavor to a rain forest preservation fund. The firm contributed the ice cream to RITZ.

The event lasted later than most, with many guests departing after midnight. Some paused to pick up the small Brazilian palm trees distributed as favors; others left theirs to be planted in the secret heart of the zoo as living memorials to “A Secret Garden.”

Among key committee members were Bill Evans, Annette Ford, Kay Biszantz, Judy Bieler, Joan Wilson, Ilene Swartz, Sue Raffee, Kay North, Audrey Geisel, Cherry Whitteker, Ron and Cheryl Kendrick, Dixie and Ken Unruh, Lyn Krant, Jane Moyle, Bette Coates and Dottie Georgens.

Table sponsors included Paul Ecke, Paul and Ione Harter, James Haugh, Hal and B.J. Williams, Arthur and Eleanor Herzman, Dirk and Doris Broekema, Bruce and Mary Hazard, Judson and Rachel Grosvenor, Ivor and Edele deKirby, Tom and Suzanne Warner, Sid and Jenny Craig, George and Anne Coleman, Ralph Pesquiera, Tom and Jane Fetter, Dean and Shirley Pape, and Bill and Jeanne Larson.