Boys and Girls Clubs Hailed at Gala Event

The walls of the California Room at the Town & Country Hotel were lined Saturday evening with black-and-white photographs, often dog-eared, taken in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s and borrowed from a number of personal scrapbooks.

The youngsters in the photos shared looks of confidence and pride. According to Cecil Steppe, chief probation officer for San Diego County, what they also had in common was being photographed in the team uniforms of the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Diego, rather than in police mug shots.

About 200 guests, mostly men, renewed old acquaintances and shared memories of triumphs on the field and in the crafts shops at the Boys and Girls Clubs Alumni Hall of Fame Dinner, the first to be given in what organizers anticipate will become an annual series.

Judge Earl B. Gilliam Jr., chairman of the committee that organized the induction dinner, said that the club (founded during his own youth in 1942) was especially helpful to youths whose parents worked overtime at defense plants.

“There’s a lot of nostalgia getting back together with a group you grew up with,” said Gilliam. Our ‘Hall of Famers’ have done a lot for the Boys Club and a lot for San Diego. We’re hopeful that this event will inspire some of those who were involved with the club at its inception will return with donations and support.”

Gilliam predicted that the alumni dinner will also become an alumnae affair, to reflect the participation of women in activities at the four club locations in Logan Heights, Linda Vista, Encanto and Clairemont.

“It’s a wonderful thing to see all these old friends together,” said Boys and Girls Clubs President Mike Alessio, himself a former member. “I’d like the young kids to see what the people here have done to make something of themselves.” He pointed out that the attendance included Judge Napoleon Jones, former boxing champ James “Junior” Washington, former Chicago White Sox player Floyd Robinson and former pro football player Arthur Powell.

Steppe credited the event with considerable significance.

“This dinner is one of the best things that’s happened to this town in 50 years. What you have in this room are people who have made it, and are prospering and successful because of the influence of the club. My friends say the same thing: Some of us would be in the graveyard or in prison if it weren’t for the club. The outgrowth of this has got to be a statement to all Boys Clubs members that no matter where they came from, they can be a success.”

Besides Jones, Robinson and Powell, inductees into the clubs’ newly founded Hall of Fame included landscape architect Joe Yamada; Michael Stringer, director of the UC-San Diego Medical Center; retired police officer Gilbert Garcia; attorney Clifton Blevins; county social worker Bob Lanser; former county Supervisor Jack Walsh; former volunteer wrestling coach Art Jacobs, and former club athletic director Augie Escamilla.

Also on Saturday, 31 models posed in frozen stances atop the display cases at the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Mission Valley, which presented “A Fashion Affair from the Heart” as a benefit for Heart Strings-San Diego, a project designed to raise funds for community-based AIDS agencies in this county.

The models maintained their sometimes impossible-looking attitudes in a store decked on both levels with festive--and occasionally maudlin--representations of hearts, including actors portraying the King and Queen of Hearts, a stacked display of hearts crisscrossed with bandages and a number of one-of-a-kind T-shirts and jackets designed for the event by top names in the American fashion world. These items, sold in a silent auction, included a sweat shirt from Geoffrey Beene, other shirts from Bill Blass, Carolyn Roehm, Bob Mackie and Oscar de la Renta, and a jacket from San Diego designer Elise Alessio.

According to Ron Ferrero, director of administration for Heart Strings-San Diego, the gala was designed as one of three major events that will lead up to the Feb. 8, 1992, national premiere of “Heart Strings-On the Road Again,” a traveling show put together by top choreographers, composers, set designers and performers that organizers hope will earn $8 million for AIDS agencies.

Besides a local fund-raising goal of $500,000, Ferrero said that Heart Strings has the secondary goal of involving “a greater part of the community” in the fight against the disease. “This idea is working, because there are people here tonight who never have worked in AIDS fund-raising,” he said.

Store manager Debbie Case expected the evening to net at least $20,000 for the Heart Strings project. She said that expenses were kept to a minimum, and that entertainment and most of the food and drink were donated. As proof, she pointed out the donated plastic drink cups, leftover from the holidays and bearing the words “Seasons Greetings.” The entertainment, offered on both levels of the luxury department store, singer-pianist duo Valaya& Mel Goot, Barbara Jamerson and Rob Gironda, Sandy the Mime, New Age musician Gary Backlund and the San Diego Men’s Chorus.

The honorary committee included such powerful patrons as Mayor Maureen O’Connor, in whose office Heart Strings is located (invitations directed that checks for admission to the affair be mailed to the Office of the Mayor), and San Diego Symphony benefactors Judson and Rachel Grosvenor. Others on the host and planning committee included Julie Golden, David Anderson, Susie Evarkiou, Paulette Gibson, Brad and Alice Saunders, Ken and Marlene Shook, Bill Bond, Linda Comer, Leonard Simpson, Barbara ZoBell, Steve Libowitz and Jim Crawford.

LA JOLLA--Last Thursday, the Cardiovascular Institute of Scripps Memorial Hospitals indulged 175 friends and benefactors in a little “heart healthy” cuisine at the newly constructed second floor bar of the landmark Top O’ the Cove restaurant.

Virginia and Jack Monday and Virginia and Robert Winegardner co-chaired the black tie fund-raiser, the second in several (the first was a Serve San Diego party benefitting the San Diego Opera) that will be given to introduce the new watering hole. Proprietor Ron Zappardino was on hand to point out the view of the La Jolla Cove, the Honduran ribbon-grain mahogany woodwork and the Carrara marble bar.

Though billed as a buffet, the size of the crowd--according to Scripps staffers, quite a number of ticket requests had to be turned down--required a change in plans, and notoriously diet-conscious chef Julius Seman sent up arranged plates of salmon, peppered swordfish and rigatoni tossed with tomato. The restaurant provided plenty of champagne as a lubricant.

Virginia Winegardner estimated net proceeds in the area of $13,000 for the cardiovascular institute, which she described as “a place where people think.”

Virginia Monday suggested a perfect meeting of opportunities between the institute and the restaurant, saying, “We wanted to use this new showplace to showcase an important medical facility. San Diego needs to know the great things that go on at the institute.”

Among the committee members and guests were Cardiovascular Institute director Dr. David Carmichael and his wife, Ava; Libby and Dr. John Carson; Bill and Rosemarie Flynn; Dempsey and Berneice Copeland; George and Martha Gafford; Barbara and Hal Stephens; Audrey Geisel; Betty Alexander with Jim McKellar; Carolyn Yorston; Mike and Alice Cavanaugh; Fred and Christine Stalder; Janet Gallison; Joan Gregg Palmer, and Peggy Siegener.