‘Terminator’ Star Stops Off in Santa Clarita to Pump Up 6,500 Youths

Getting parents to chaperon field trips isn’t always easy, but Santa Clarita school officials seem to have terminated the problem.

Invite muscular actor and international sex symbol Arnold Schwarzenegger to lead a fitness rally for 6,500 elementary schoolchildren, and far more parents than necessary will line up to be chaperons.

At least that’s what happened Thursday, when Schwarzenegger, chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, exhorted thousands of excited children to eschew junk food and television and then led them in a brief exercise routine on a football field at College of the Canyons.

“So many moms wanted to come that we actually made them draw lots to pick chaperons,” said J. Michael McGrath, superintendent of the Newhall School District.

“Arnold! Arnold! Arnold!” screamed the kids--and some of the mothers--when their hero appeared on the temporary stage set up at the 50-yard line, festooned with red, white and blue balloons in the shape of a flag.

“We’re here to pump you up,” Schwarzenegger told the crowd, his Austrian accent providing the appropriate tone for the phrase made famous by the comic musclemen of TV’s “Saturday Night Live,” Hans and Franz.

Schwarzenegger, wearing a Windbreaker, T-shirt and sweat pants that clung to his massive physique, explained that he came to Santa Clarita at the behest of special education teacher Wendy Nelson of the Castaic Union Elementary School District. He met Nelson, who was visiting an actress friend, during the filming of “Total Recall.”

Nelson said it took more than a year to arrange the rally, calling it “a logistical nightmare.” More than 50 school buses and 10 Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were required to transport the children and provide security to keep the rally a private event.

The $18,000 rally was sponsored by Santa Clarita’s four elementary school districts and financed by the city, local businesses and developers. The cost included giving each child a blue baseball cap printed with the event’s motto, “Firm on Fitness.”

Schwarzenegger, whose career was launched by the 1977 film “Pumping Iron,” told the crowd that an increasing number of American adults are joining gyms and buying exercise magazines and equipment in an effort to slim down.

“But the kids are getting slower, getting fatter and more out of shape,” he said. “You have to commit to not watching TV all day. You have to not eat junk food and not play video games all day.”

The audience of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders groaned audibly.

But they cheerfully joined Schwarzenegger in a brief exercise routine, flocking toward the stage to do deep knee bends and jumping jacks.

“He’s such a hunk,” sighed 10-year-old Carrie Bence, as she stretched her arms overhead in imitation of Schwarzenegger. “I’d die for him.”

The rally coincided with Santa Clarita’s Red Ribbon Week, an annual anti-substance abuse campaign led by the Sheriff’s Department.

Schwarzenegger urged the children to exercise daily. “That way, when someone says to you, ‘Hey man, want to get high?’ you can say back, ‘I’m already high.’ ”

“If you do a good job,” said Schwarzenegger, repeating the most famous line from his first Terminator movie, “I’ll be back.”