Our Laguna: Warmth and whimsy at Kelly Boyd fete

Councilman Kelly Boyd Kelly Boyd was honored at the Laguna Beach Woman’s Club’s annual luncheon for the outgoing mayor Feb. 5.

“For three plus years I have been sitting on the council with four women — where better to have this luncheon than the Woman’s Club?” Boyd told the standing-room-only audience, which included family, friends, City Hall employees, elected officials and about 20 of the city’s most prominent architects.

Sitting Councilwomen Elizabeth Pearson, Toni Iseman, and Jane Egly, and former Mayor Cheryl Kinsman, who shared the dais with Boyd for the first two years of his term, attended the luncheon. And the three current members provided one of the highlights of the day.

They sang their tribute: “Can’t Help Lovin’ that Kelly Boyd,” to lyrics by Chris Quilter set to the music of Jerome Kern.

“Oh listen sisters, we love that Mister Man and we can tell you why.

“He’s got a big heart and his pheromone its part tobacco and all testosterone.

“Fish gotta swim and Boyd’s gotta fry. He’s not mayor but what a great guy.

“Can’t help lovin’ that Kelly Boyd

“His hair just slays me, it’s real you know. It drives me crazy his voice is so low.

“Can’t help lovin’ that Kelly Boyd

“When he votes my way, it just makes my day and we give him flack when he declines, but he’s so fine.

“He can vote no as much as he pleases, this town without him is no town for me.

“Can’t help lovin’ that Kelly Boyd.”

Only in Laguna.

The trio was followed by Bree Burgess Rosen’s soaring soprano rendition of Quilter’s spin on “Oh Danny Boy.”

“Oh Kelly Boyd, we’re here ‘cause you’re not mayor. Your term is done, you’re just a councilman.

“The year flew by and though you’re still a player, your time, your time is up.

“But I’ve a plan. You could come back. If you run in November, in four more years, again you’d run the show.

“Then we would cheer and no one would remember when Kelly Boyd, Kelly Boyd, you had to go

“If you don’t run, if that’s what you’re deciding because you’re done as done you well may be, we’ll come and find the bar where you’re presiding

“And we’ll all say you did a thing or three. Look at Act V where homeless are residing, the angling ban against which you did preach.

“The fish aren’t dead, they just gone into hiding and you helped keep the peace here in Laguna Beach.

“But if you run when summer turns to fall again and when the votes are tallied you will know that in four years, the mayor you’ll be called again.

“Oh Kelly Boyd, Oh Kelly Boyd, we’d love it so.”

Boyd put an end to the speculation, and he couldn’t have chosen a more receptive audience to make the announcement of his candidacy.

“I am running,” he said to a standing ovation.

Boyd admitted he was overwhelmed by the turnout, but the words spoken by his daughter (by their choice, not blood), Kirsten Rugg, almost caused him to lose it, he was so touched.

“My biological parents are my birth parents, but Michelle and Kelly are my real parents,” she said.

Rugg and her husband, Doug, were seated at the head table with the Boyds, along with their nephew, Robert (brother Bo’s son) and his wife, Carrie; and childhood friends Donnie Crevier and Bruce Smith.

“It’s interesting that you’ve come this far,” Crevier said.

“When we were drinking a quart of Ranier Ale at about 14 or 15, if you had told me you thought you might be mayor — I would have thought it was funny. The only thing funnier would have been me up here.

“One thing I have to say: Kelly was not our class valedictorian. We explained to him that he had to go to school to do that. But we graduated.”

Boyd went on to community college and USC, and he served in the armed forces.

Smith’s recollections went back further.

“We met in kindergarten,” Smith said. “Kelly didn’t like dentists. We were supposed to meet his mother outside the office, but Kelly decided he wasn’t going to the dentist. So he climbed up on the roof of the building and hid.

“His mom, Doris, asked me where he was, and I said I didn’t know. She said,’ I’m going to ask you one more time’ — Kelly, I sold you out.”

Other speakers included arts patron and businesswoman Bobbi Cox, the Rev. Colin Henderson, Old Pottery Place owner Joe Hanaeur and former Mayor Paul Freeman, whose association with Boyd began 16 years ago when Freeman first ran for the council.

“He called me out of the blue,” Freeman said. “He told me that most of his friends were conservative Republicans, and he had heard that I was a Gary Hart liberal Commie, but I seemed normal and he invited me to come and talk.”

They have been talking ever since.

Iseman’s relationship goes back to 1971, but it’s Boyd’s mother that she remembers with affection from that time.

“Kelly’s dear mother opened her home for children, and I took my toddler there,” Iseman said.

Then she went home and kicked back.

She has gotten to know Boyd better since they worked together on homeless issues.

“He is a man who cares deeply,” Iseman said. “We are lucky to have you.”

Pearson confided her early relationship with Boyd was rocky. The first time she ran for office, she called Boyd, but he didn’t return her calls. Same thing the second time she ran.

“So when he ran and called me, I didn’t call back,” Pearson confessed.

In fact, she tried to get everyone in town to run against him.

“But we have become the best of friends,” Pearson said.

Another longtime friend, retired U.S. Marine Corps Col. Charles Quilter also had early memories of Boyd.

“Kelly has been a friend for 52 years,” Quilter said. “And we all turned out better than expected when we were teenagers terrorizing the town.”

Ed Sauls said many people expected Boyd to represent the business community and be against the homeless when he was elected.

“But he has one of the most compassionate hearts in town,” said Sauls, who served as chairman of the Homeless Task Force and the Advisory Committee on Homelessness.

Pat Kollenda, who served as mistress of ceremonies for the luncheon, lauded Boyd’s strong support for the arts and hiring Ken Frank as a 34-year-old city manager during his first term in office in the 1970s, to which the audience responded with vigorous applause.

She also complimented Boyd on the audience he had drawn for the luncheon.

“I have never seen so many men in this room, and they are all good-looking,” Kollenda said.

The usually impeccably dressed and coiffed Kollenda donned a cap decorated with a shocking pink felt fish for the luncheon and presented Boyd with a fish sculpture that, unbeknownst to the luncheon committee, Michelle had donated to the Tarnished Treasures white elephant sale last year.

And some poor sea lion may have gotten a light lunch that day.

Pacific Marine Mammal Center board member Mary Ferguson filched a dead fish that Kollenda presented to Boyd — another light-hearted jab at his stance against a citywide marine reserve that would ban fishing for five years.

Connie Burlin presented Boyd with a plaque honoring him for “his love of Laguna,” “his old-fashioned common sense” and his “links to Laguna’s past.”

Boyd was serenaded by the audience singing “Irish Eyes,” accompanied by Carol Reynolds on the keyboard, to conclude the luncheon.

Stephany Skenderian and Anne Johnson co-chaired the luncheon. Their committee included Burlin, Peggy Ford, Karin Godfrey, Sande St. John, Peggie Thomas, club President Gayle Waite, Robin Zur Schmiede and Lee Winocur Field, assisted by club members.

OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot. Contributions are welcomed. Write to Barbara Diamond, P.O. Box 248, Laguna Beach, 92652; call (949) 380-4321 or e-mail coastlinepilot@latimes.com