NEIGHBORS : Baby Beauties : A veterans’ group is gearing up for its baby pageant, complete with swimsuit competition.

This weekend the California Veterans Advocacy Corp. will hold the preliminary round of its Ventura County baby beauty pageant. But the real action takes place May 27 at the Doubletree Hotel when the swimsuit competition gets under way. That’s right, baby bathing beauties.

“The judges will look at how cute they are right then,” organizer Dee Newcomb said. “Babies over six months have to wear bathing suits because sometimes the well-to-do parents spend $200-$300 for a tux and the judges are saying, ‘Ooh, look at that pretty suit’ and not ‘Ooh, look at that pretty baby.’ And the welfare parents can’t afford the expensive suits.”

Newcomb is a perfect choice to work on the event. He’s not only a veteran of the army, but a former baby beauty as well.

“I won second place for beauty and I was named champion chubby in a contest,” he said. “When I grew up I thought it was neat. It wasn’t depressing or nothing. I knew I was chubby.”

Speaking of babies, few people around town are more familiar with them than Melody Young. She has four children, with a fifth due in about a week. The birth date is good timing because it coincides with the end of her term as president of the Ventura Mothers of Twins Club next week.

Yes, she has a 5-year-old pair of her own.

“Because I’m a twin myself, they looked really early in the pregnancy and said no, I wasn’t going to have twins,” she said. “Then about midway through they changed their minds. My initial reaction was hysterical laughter.”

The 45-member local Mothers of Twins chapter is part of a nationwide organization that, among other things, offers its members discussion groups, clothing exchanges and diapers.

“You’re probably changing 140 diapers a week,” Young said. “If you’re not feeding them, you’re changing them, is what it boils down to.”

Mesa Union School in Somis will celebrate its 50th anniversary May 20, and for the occasion, Bonnie Wascher’s class of gifted fourth- through seventh-graders have dug up some interesting documents.

By going through a couple of boxes of papers and interviewing people associated with the school, the students found information dating back to the ‘20s.

For one, hiring was done differently decades ago. “We saw a resume of a man who had applied for a job,” Wascher said. “It was with a photo and an envelope with a 3-cent stamp. The resume gave his height and weight. As far as we could tell, he wasn’t hired.”

It’s a safe bet that no one will be playing chess at the Thousand Oaks Community Center Saturday. human tick-tack-toe maybe, but not chess. What else would you expect on Crazy Games Day, for 6- to 12-year-olds.

There will be a watermelon-eating contest, an obstacle toss, Simon Un-Says, bobbing for doughnuts (powdered, of course) and a water balloon toss. And what better way to get the kids in the mood than with a good handshake.

“I ask them to shake hands in the craziest way they can possible find,” said Mike Gonzalez, the organizer of the event and a Leisure Studies and Recreation student at Cal State Northridge. “Possibly I’ll have them shake their feet. That works real well if they don’t lose their balance.”