Christmas Brought to You by Santa, His Elves and His Leopard

There is a stunning picture gracing the cover of this year’s Wildlife Waystation holiday cards featuring an 80-year-old Santa and a gorgeous leopard of indeterminate age named Hymie.

The cards have been produced largely due to the efforts of the pictured Father Christmas, who is also known as Gaspar Barnette of Tujunga. He knows what Christmas is all about.

Barnette spent $300 out of pocket to have a “perfect” Santa suit custom created. He’s let his beard grow for two years (“including during the summer, when it itches”) so that it would be perfect for playing the lead seasonal role.

Then Barnette contacted a professional photographer, Bob Bronson of Montrose, who agreed to produce the card’s cover picture at no charge to the facility.

He also got a printer, Bill James of Glendale Printing, to agree to do the printing and donate all the stationery-quality paper for the cards.

Ergo, the picture was taken and the cards are being sold at the price of $8.50 for a packet of eight at the Waystation.

It took a lot of effort and planning on the part of Barnette, who has been a volunteer at the animal sanctuary for about four years, since his wife of 51 years died.

The retired educator and businessman says he took one look at the place, in 1989, and lost his heart.

“Working there makes me feel as good as anything I’ve ever done. I’m still taking classes to learn how to work with the animals.”

The photo shoot took four hours and the efforts of the photographer, his assistant, two animal handlers, Father Christmas and Martine Colette, the president and founder of the facility.

After everything was set up and there was quiet on the set--a corner of the Waystation--Hymie was brought out, under Colette’s supervision, and gently led to a dirt mound.

The leopard looked around, walked around and finally sat down.

Then, with a show of big-cat cool, he stretched out on the ground elegantly, and Barnette, in his Santa suit, crept to his assigned spot behind the animal.

A hush settled over everyone as the assembled waited to see what Hymie would do when the photographer started clicking.

Just then, Hymie decided to roll over and check out the guy standing behind him in the funny red suit.

The shoot got done, but it took some doing.

One spectator said Hymie gave new meaning to the term “short attention span.”

Of course, Colette would be quick to point out that a leopard is not just a great big kitty. He has his own ideas about what a creature such as he should do and for how long.

So, when asked to re-create the cover picture, the folks at the facility were not eager for a repeat performance.

How about a raccoon, they asked? So the photo that accompanies this column shows a raccoon brought into the facility as an orphan and raised until it was able to return to the wilderness.

This past Wednesday was the raccoon’s liberation day.

Waystation spokeswoman Jan Brown says the leopard and raccoon represent two different jobs taken on by the sanctuary. One is to act as a permanent home for large animals that have been abused or are uncared for and are shipped to the Tujunga facility from around the world.

The second is to take in baby or injured animals from the wild and care for them until they are able to return to their natural habitat. These animals, like the raccoon, are usually brought in by local animal-control people or concerned citizens, Brown says.

Santa and the animals will be meeting visitors to the facility on Sunday and again Dec. 19. Brown says the public is invited but should call for reservations, times and directions.

Kids can have their picture taken with Santa before or after visiting the animals for $3.

Dueling Class Reunions Double the Fun--Not!

It’s a freak of fate that it hasn’t happened sooner.

It sounds like a situation comedy, except that no one is laughing.

Two groups are planning the 10th reunion party for Kennedy High School’s Class of 1984, and neither is willing to give up.

One group says it was first. The other says it’s the legitimate organization.

It’s pretty confusing, and there’s no truce in sight.

The group led by Artanzia Parker Hosch of Valencia is offering a two-day event starting June 25 with the traditional banquet and dance at the Glendale Red Lion. That’s to be followed by a picnic to include families. Cost per person is $75.

Invitations went out July 25, according to Hosch, so imagine the confusion of the class members when they received another invitation last week, announcing that the Kennedy High Class of 1984 would reune July 23 for traditional festivities at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City. Cost would be $55 per.

Marlene Abronson Widawer of West Hills, a member of the July 23 group, says the situation is not only confusing but ridiculous.

But she admits that she doesn’t know how to make it right.

“We don’t know why the other group is doing this. We asked them to join us, but they refused. We just can’t figure it out,” she says.

“The reason we’re doing it is because we started almost a year before these other people,” says Hosch, a personnel manager at College of the Canyons in Valencia. “I have been to other reunions where people didn’t seem satisfied, so I wanted to start early and make ours great.”

Both sides agree that Hosch called Kennedy High School and asked for a list of 1984 alumni and that she did it in October, 1992.

Remember that date.

Once she received the list, she says, she started contacting as many of the class of 650 as possible, and not only those who came from Granada Hills and neighboring communities, but those who were bused in from other areas.

Both sides agree that the July 23 group, which includes Widawer, called the school in April, 1993, about six months after the other group, and, after saying they were going to organize the reunion, also received a list of alumni.

The burning question is why did the school release a class list to two different groups of reunion planners?

The official answer is: “We have nothing to say on the subject. We are not taking sides. This is the first time anything like this has happened, and it has become most unpleasant,” says Kennedy administrative aide Ruth Blackwell, who routinely helps such committees.

Since each group learned about the other--by both making an appointment to talk to the banquet people at the Warner Center Marriott--things have not been happy on the Kennedy 10th-reunion front.

At one point, Hosch says, she would have sued both the school and the other committee until she realized she was getting upset about a social occasion.

Still, she’s not backing down.

According to Widawer, “When we realized Artanzia was serious about the event, our group asked her to join with us, but she never showed up for our meetings.

“She didn’t seem interested in a combined effort, so we are just going to go ahead.”

Hosch says she was invited to join the July 23’s group planning sessions, “as long as I went along with all of their plans. They were not at all interested in anything I had done. You can imagine what my reaction was after all our group’s hard work and planning.”

So it seems that the Class of ’84 will have a choice of price, location and party planners when they do their reuning.

Each planning group is afraid, however, that neither will get enough reservations to put on a party, so the reunion may not be held at all.

Overheard

“Could you cut it so it will grow in curly?”

6-year-old to Pam Pepper, owner of Peppermints Children’s Hairstyling shop in Sherman Oaks.