Egbok for Group Effort’s 4-Way Cause
It says so on the Group Effort invitation: Everything’s Gonna Be OK for the Arthritis Foundation, the Diabetes Unit for Cedars-Sinai, the Leukemia Society of America and for Loyola Marymount University.
They’re going egbok (everything’s gonna be OK) for their seventh annual Gala Dinner and Auction April 19 in the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Wilshire. The big invitation, designed like a tux shirt with a black bow tie, is dotted with a red egbok button. That, of course, is a sign that they’ve booked Ken (Minyard) and Bob (Arthur) of KABC Talkradio (egbok people) as celebrity chairmen. And, more good news: honorary chairmen, John and Donna (Mr. and Mrs.) Crean have donated a beautiful Bounder motor home valued at $50,000 to the event.
Says Louise V. Davis: “Needless to say, we are excited.” Crean is the chief executive officer of Fleetwood Enterprises Inc., a Fortune 500 corporation, and, as a Horatio Alger type, will help Group Effort generate its second million for this four-way cause.
Auctioneers Robert and Barry Abell will play roles in boosting the bids on a balloon trip over France, a Danube cruise, a golfing trip to Ireland and a Hong Kong shopping spree.
Group Effort was founded in 1979 by Lynn Klinenberg and Bob Abell. At that time, she was president of the Diabetes Unit of Cedars and was looking for a special fund-raising event to benefit the unit. Abell, whose son is a diabetic, discussed the group concept with friends and the effort was begun.
It was a beautiful and chic crowd of ladies who turned out to salute Mrs. Albert D. Lasker at the Luminaires “Spring Visions” luncheon for the Estelle Doheny Eye Foundation at the Century Plaza Tower. It wasn’t exactly chance that daffodils and tulips turned the ballroom into a garden for Mary Lasker, whom Dr. Stephen Ryan, the foundation’s medical director, called “the No. 1 citizen in this country for the support of medical research.”
The woman who likes a beautiful world, as well as a healthy one, is responsible for the 10,000 azaleas along Pennsylvania Avenue, the 900 flowering cherry trees on Hains Point, the 2,500 dogwood trees in Lady Bird Johnson Park and more than 1,210,000 daffodil bulbs--all around Washington.
Keeping her closest company at the luncheon chaired by Tamra Dickerson were her daughter-in-law Francie Brody, former Ambassador William McCormick Blair (Denmark and the Philippines), Virginia Ramo, Harriet Deutsch and Luminaires president Billie Dea Crowe.
Hostesses Betty Williams, Onnalee Doheny, Patti Doheny, Lucy Hromadka, Topsy Doheny, Athena Pitchess, Anne Ryan, Julia Dockweiler and Georgia Dahl helped welcome the group, which oohed and aahed over Michael Novarese’s couture--among them, Barbara McGinnis, Betty Strub, Mollie Bergesch, Doris Heller, Louise Morgan, Elinor Griffin, Harriet Luckman, Alyce Williamson (who organized a van of friends), Marie Jones, Madge Burford, Janice Boswell, Lorna Reed, Veva McKee, Pam King, Ginie Braun, Sharon Black, Carol Henry, Patricia Trenton, Eleanor Phillips Colt and Louise Jones.
Charlton Heston will be honored as “1986 Responsible Citizen” by the Thomas Jefferson Research Center April 9 at the Beverly Hilton. Dr. Steven Muller, president, Johns Hopkins, will speak.
The center has spent 23 years working through the school system to champion the cause of “character education.” As an example of what responsibility is all about, Heston will be the year’s role model for young people benefiting from education designed to improve attitudes and self-esteem.
Rain or shine, the traditional Sunday after Easter Children’s Hospital Garden Tour goes on. Santa Monica Bay Auxiliary has five unusually beautiful gardens in Brentwood Park for the 26th annual event April 6. Leading nurseries in the area are selling tickets, or drive out Sunset Boulevard on tour day (west of the San Diego Freeway) and look for yellow arrows. Tickets are $7. Mary Ruth Watkins, president, and Janice Ruck, tour chairman, have lined up the gardens of Diane and Sol Rosenthal, Susan and Tom Connors, Betty and Murray Leonard, and two others (wishing anonymity) for this spring fling.
Rightfully, there’s a lot of well-deserved pride at the McCarthy household. Kathleen McCarthy (Mrs. J. Thomas) has been elected to the USC board of trustees. Wallis Annenberg, Virginia Ramo and Jane Popovich are current members. Phyllis Cooper and Lorna Reed have completed terms and are now associate trustees. Anna Bing Arnold and Mrs. Frank Seaver are life trustees. She’ll join community and national leaders such as John F. King and Peter Ueberroth.
Leadership is nothing new to the new appointee. A graduate of the USC School of Education with a baccalaureate degree in English, she was 1954 Homecoming Queen, serves as a trustee for both Marlborough School and Loyola Marymount University, is past president of both Las Madrinas (support group for Childrens Hospital) and the Social Service Auxiliary.
Reminiscences of the long weekend of Joffrey Ballet lavish and delightful parties (some 40) are abundant. Party chairman Patti Skouras was grateful that although her good friend Christopher Idone (author of “Glorious American Food”) lost his luggage, he arrived to cook dinner with his handbag carrying culinary knives and two quarts of stock reduced from 70 pounds of lobster. Who could forget the tulips to the top of the ceiling at Chasen’s? Or triplet kids born to the mother goat at Douglas Cramer’s wine country lunch at his ranch in the Santa Inez Valley. Too bad, Chardee Trainer breaking a toe and having to cancel her Vins De France black-tie dinner the day before. But, how nice, Ingrid and Paul Mitchell of Rolling Hills paying $2,000 for tickets for five events. Serena Tripi of the Joffrey calculated that, with clever footwork, one might have attended nine parties. No one did, but the results still will be over $140,000.
