Sequels of ’95

The following stories were written by Kathleen Doheny, Irene Lacher, Elizabeth Mehren, Duane Noriyuki, Michael Quintanilla, Shari Roan, Dennis Romero and Suzanne Schlosberg.

He’s Out, but Not Down

Robert Sam Anson entered the doors of Los Angeles magazine with a mandate for change (“Last of a Breed,” Sept. 24). But the veteran journalist clashed with management and staffers. Temper, temper, said some. After only five months as editor, he was fired (his side of the story) or quit (management’s side).

Now the dust has settled and Los Angeles magazine has a new editor: 34-year-old Michael Caruso, formerly of Vanity Fair.

Anson, 50, has moved on. His much-talked-about book in the works, an expose of Disney, needs updating since the Mouseketeer merger with Capital Cities/ABC Inc. (which happens to own Los Angeles magazine, by the way). Now, he says his forthcoming “The Rules of Magic” (Pantheon) will be out late next year.

Village School Makes Progress

Villagers of Sasekofe, Ghana, are building bricks of mud as they lay the foundation for their first school. The first building is expected to be completed by Easter.

Dolores Sheen, executive director of the Sheenway School and Culture Center in South-Central Los Angeles (“Going to the Source,” Jan. 22), came upon the village last year while searching for her roots in West Africa.

Residents embraced her proposal to build a school in the village, which is without running water or electricity. Meanwhile, a statue of Dr. Herbert Sheen, Dolores’ father and founder of Sheenway School, has been erected at the site of the new campus.

113 and Still Counting

For a guy who just entered his teens, Chris Mortensen isn’t too rebellious; in fact, his major hobby is napping. Then again, the Northern Californian is no ordinary teen. In August, he turned 113 (“Man of the Century,” May 15).

Mortensen, who lives at a San Rafael retirement home, is the oldest man alive whose age has been verified. Although he is blind and hard of hearing, he continues to enjoy good health. Next month, John Wilmoth, an assistant professor of demography at UC Berkeley’s Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging, will begin formal psychological tests to determine Mortensen’s level of cognitive functioning.

Prop. 187 Working Its Way to the Top

Major portions of Proposition 187 may be legally dead because of U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer’s decision last month to throw out significant chunks of the initiative.

But Harold Ezell, co-author of the proposition--designed to bar illegal immigrants from receiving public education, nonemergency health care and certain social welfare services--isn’t bitter (“Rage and Raves,” Jan. 11). Pfaelzer’s decision is expected to be appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court. And that’s music to Ezell’s ears.

“Even though this was a state initiative,” Ezell says, “we always wanted to go to the Supreme Court.”

Helping Women Become Moms

After earning a national reputation at USC as a champion of menopausal moms, fertility expert Dr. Mark V. Sauer pulled up stakes to continue his IVF work at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York (“A Priceless Possibility,” March 19).

“Right now we’re building the program, trying to get it user-friendly,” says Sauer, who as a professor and chief of the college’s division of reproductive endocrinology still mainly treats women 40 and older who are attempting pregnancy via egg donation.

And he has not lost sight of a long-term goal: egg banking. “We’re trying to get it going.”

Outstanding Service Is Awarded

In a Herculean effort, Forrest Barker, a volunteer counselor for the Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program in Los Angeles (HICAP), helped retired L.A. schoolteacher Annabel Townsend obtain a $14,137 reimbursement. (HICAP is a free service from the California Department of Aging to help Medicare beneficiaries navigate the rough terrain of insurance reimbursement.)

It took 2 1/2 years of hard work and the patience of Job, but Townsend got the L.A. widow a check for the full amount. (“One Man’s Determination Beats the Odds,” March 21).

Barker, a retired L.A. City College instructor, was summoned to suburban Washington and on May 25 received the Health Care Financing Administration’s 1995 Beneficiary Services Certificate of Merit for “consistent and outstanding service to individual beneficiaries” from federal Medicare Administrator Bruce Vladeck.

Brisk Business in Beverly Hills

Just like any proper Hollywood dowager, the Beverly Hills Hotel hid behind closed doors when it underwent a face lift, leaving some to wonder whether the historic hotel’s occupancy rates would weather the long goodbye. After all, Los Angeles managed without the hotel and its iconic Polo Lounge for the two years it took to complete the $100-million overhaul (“Always on Stage,” June 4).

The hotel doesn’t divulge occupancy rates, but it does report brisk business since its June reopening. What’s more, the Beverly Hills’ bigger, more lush function rooms have lured big-ticket events honoring luminaries as diverse as Irish President Mary Robinson and Sharon Stone.

“It’s my impression they’re doing very well, but I don’t have particulars,” says Erik Lars Hansen, a hotel consultant for Arthur Andersen. “All of the Westside hotels have either recovered or are on their way to recovering. The business is being driven by the entertainment industry, which is strong.”

On the Go and Making His Mark

Milton Tepper, 80, hasn’t let colon cancer surgery get in the way of life as a senior-citizen activist (“The Human Tornado,” April 9).

“They told me it would take a year to snap back and that even a younger person would have a hard time,” says Tepper about the operation last summer. “I don’t have the steam I had, but I’m doing as much as I can with what I’ve got. That is true of aging.”

On his good days, Tepper, president of the Los Angeles County Commission on Aging, is on the go, working the phones at USC’s Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center, where he’s a volunteer.

This month he was named winner of the American Society on Aging’s Senior Award and will be honored for his lifetime work at the group’s convention in March. The organization wants him to give a lecture. “I’d like to talk about sex,” says Tepper, laughing, “but that’s a thing of the past.”

A Victory for Children’s Safety

Just before Thanksgiving, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission successfully tied up its effort to eliminate or shorten drawstrings from children’s garments. The movement was spurred on by Thelma Sibley, a Michigan mother whose daughter died when her coat’s drawstring caught on a playground slide (“A Powerful Pair,” Oct. 16).

Work commitments prevented Sibley from attending a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, where commission chairman Ann Brown announced that such well-known kids’ clothing manufacturers as Oshkosh B’Gosh and Levi Strauss had agreed to voluntary guidelines that would replace drawstrings with snaps, buttons, elastic, Velcro or other fasteners.

Brown said 17 children in the United States died from drawstring-caused accidents in the past 10 years and 42 have been injured.