SANTA ANA : Luncheon Guest Fills a Tall Order

Excited and disbelieving students jostled for position in a lunch line Wednesday, not so much for the food but to see the man dishing it out.

After all, none of them had ever seen a man who could call Wilt Chamberlain or Andre the Giant “shorty” and mean it.

In fact, few of them had ever met anyone nearly as big as Alam Channa, who at 7-foot-8 is the tallest man in the world.

As part of the Garden Grove School District’s observance of National School Lunch Week, Channa, 49, helped serve barbecue lunches at Stephen R. Fitz Intermediate School. The district’s theme this year is “We’re big on school lunches,” and Channa appeared on behalf of one of the district’s food suppliers with whom he is friends.

“I feel short. I’m 5-foot-4 and I feel very, very short,” said Vicky Hamassian, 13, after seeing Channa.

She was not alone. The tallest students who gathered around Channa stood only as high as his sternum. Students could see him eye to eye only when he was sitting down at a picnic table.

“This is cool. We’ve never had anything like this. He’s taller than a door,” said Joey Amicay, 14.

Channa, who will appear in the next edition of the “Guinness Book of World Records,” amazed the crowd with his size 22 Nike shoes. Students mobbed him when he began passing out trading cards with his picture and vital statistics.

The Pakistan native, who weighs in at 401 pounds, does not speak English, but he answered questions about himself through an interpreter. He told the audience that he lives in Pakistan, although he is staying for a few months in Paramount, and that he is married to a 6-foot-tall woman and has one son.

He also said that he enjoyed the visit with the students. “Nothing’s more precious than kids. They are our future,” Channa said, adding later: “I’m a kid myself, just a little bigger size.”

Wearing a white apron and tall chef’s hat during his hourlong visit, he helped serve lunches that included grilled beef fajitas , fruit salad, chocolate chip cookies and milk. He plucked eight-ounce cartons of milk from a box, pinching them between his thumb and index finger like most people would pick up a thimble, and passed them out to youngsters.

The event was a success, even if word of his visit leaked out before lunch, said district dietitian Sue McCann. “It was supposed to be a surprise for our kids, but you can’t hide a guy this big walking through the school.”