Benefit Welcomes New S.D. Bishop

Robert Hoehn, the Carlsbad auto magnate, chaired Saturday’s seventh annual Spirit of Charity gala and said that, compared to selling cars, running a major fund-raiser required a pedal-to-the-floor mentality at all times.

Hoehn and his wife, Karen, were among about 300 guests who turned out in the Aventine Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency for the black-tie benefit for Catholic Charities.

“I never heard of this organization until two years ago, but the more involved I have become, the more impressed I have become,” said Hoehn, explaining his role in the event. “This is an organization that combines charity and vision with a lot of hard work.”

Besides raising funds for Catholic Charities, the event welcomed Bishop Robert A. Brom to town on the eve of his assumption of duties as new bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego and honored The Country Friends, the Rancho Santa Fe-based philanthropic group, for its countywide charitable activities.

The cocktail hour devolved into two primary activities: Standing in line to bid on such silent auction items as the use of beach cottage in Ireland, and standing in line to meet Brom. (Bishop Leo T. Maher, retiring after a long tenure as spiritual leader of the San Diego diocese, had been expected to attend the gala but was kept away by poor health.)

Brom, the former bishop of Duluth, Minn., suggested that San Diego in many ways seemed an entirely new world to him. Like all new San Diegans, he offered the weather as one of the city’s more spectacular attractions.

“I teased my successor as bishop of Duluth the other week by quoting Mark Twain,” laughed Brom. “Twain said that the coldest winter he ever spent was the summer he spent in Duluth. Summer there occurs on the Fourth of July, and we say that everything before and after is winter. But that one day is nice.”

Brom added that he found rather more differences than the weather between his new and old home towns.

“The opportunity to be in a large city with such ethnic and racial diversity is a blessing because we didn’t have this diversity in Duluth,” he said. “But apropos to Catholic Charities, I have never seen poverty such as exists here except in mission magazines, and, on the other hand, the only place I’ve ever seen such immense affluence is in the movies. The challenge will be to bring these two elements to interface so that each brings to the other the special things it has to offer.”

Country Friends President Jean Newman attended to accept the award granted her group by Catholic Charities.

“We’re being recognized for doing good works by an organization that does so many good works, and we at Country Friends will cherish and treasure the award,” she said. Newman added that the 36th annual “Appearance of Autumn” fashion show, traditionally the largest such event given outdoors in the United States, will be held on the lawns of the Inn at Rancho Santa Fe on Sept. 18. “We’re always the biggest and the best, and we’ll sell out at 2,000,” Newman predicted.

The “Spirit of Charity” arrangements were pleasant but low-key. The menu included Greek salad and chicken breast served at tables modestly decorated with a few Gerbera daisies each; after the brief program of formal remarks by Brom, Hoehn and Catholic Charities executive director Sister RayMonda DuVall, quests stepped out to the Big Band tunes offered by The Mellotones.

Before the dinner, DuVall said her organization undertakes to perform “all the corporal works of mercy.” “We’re diverse, and we address the needs of individuals and families,” she said, adding that she hopes to expand efforts in the directions of seniors, recovering addicts and the housing crisis encountered by migrant farm workers.

The guest list included Frank and Linda Alessio, Nancy Podbielniak, University of San Diego President Author Hughes and his wife, Marge; Sara and Tom Finn; Maggie and John Mazur; Gloria and Charles Melville; Mary and Dan Mulvihill; Kay and John Upton; Mim and Al Sally; Norma Bustamante; Anita Figueredo and Bill Doyle; Annette and Joe Fritzenkotter; Marian and Al Graff; Madeline and Lawrence Mascari; Marvie and John Norris; Paula and William Taylor, and Kathy and Brian Wilson.

Many of the 130 guests who assembled Thursday at San Diego Natural History Museum may have felt somewhat steamed, but none of them were hot under the collar.

The temperature in the museum’s main exhibit hall seemed just right for the preview of “Tropical Rainforests: A Disappearing Treasure,” the Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibit that has brought to San Diego a glimpse of the drama and tragedy of the planet’s endangered tropical rain forests. The humidity in the hall seemed on the verge of precipitation, and the pot of plaster stew at the focus of a vignette of rain forest village life had an appropriately greenish and rather moldy-looking tinge to it.

Even so, the intrepid museum principals and primary supporters took it all in stride with a rather pukka sahib nonchalance as they toured the exhibit, the largest ever mounted by San Diego Natural History Museum. Some turned out in plain old San Diego coat-and-tie, but others--including the San Diego Zoo’s Joan Embery and her husband, Duane Pillsbury--looked cool and comfy in stylish safari gear. One woman rather inexplicably wore a fright wig and appeared to be having a very good time.

Museum board of trustees President Pam Bruder said the exhibit did not signify the turning of a new leaf for the institution, but rather as very much a fine feather in its cap.

“This is the largest exhibit we’ve ever had, and in this year of the environment--it’s the 20th anniversary of Earth Day--it’s a very timely exhibit,” said Bruder. “It also is very important for the museum, since this is the first time we have ever had a Smithsonian traveling exhibit. We’re concerned with habitats, and one of our functions is to educate the public on the environment. We’ve brought something special to the city of San Diego.”

After sweating out the stroll through the exhibit halls, guests descended to the cool depths of the basement for a light buffet and further fellowship. The tables featured, to a degree, a selection of rain forest foods, such as fried yam chips and a tangerine-kiwi dipping sauce. Even so, it seemed doubtful that the carved wooden snake curled near a display of skewered, grilled meat was intended to identify the kebabs’ main ingredient.

Ella Isabel Flores, the consul of Honduras, headed a guest list that included Jim and Carrie Buccellato, Ray and Romona Burk, Clifford Graves, Dick and Betty Meads, Jim Nauman, Jean-Pierre Paris, Lane and Diane Pearson, Joe and Joan Parker, Don and Dragon Sherman, Homer and Betty Peabody, Hugh and Pat Carter, and Tom and Diane Berghage.