Saratoga News

Saratoga Sampler

Mary Ann Cook

Girl Scout patch reflects a day in the park

PATCH DESIGNER: Winning patch designer for the Saratoga Girl Scouts' recent park cleanup project was Katrin Cooper, a second-grader at Foothill School. More than 80 Scouts submitted designs. Katrin's rendition was colorful, made an impact on the judges and could be relatively easily translated into an embroidered patch to be worn on the Scout scarf. It features a bright blue background, four yellow tulips, a tree, a park bench and the sun.

The Scouts' park project involved two hours of painting benches, picnic tables, park railings and shuffleboard backings in four parks--Congress Springs, Wildwood, Kevin Moran and El Quito. The scouts are first- through eighth-graders, and some 200 participated to earn the Katrin Kleanup patch. David Mooney of the city's park department instructed the girls on procedure--sanding, painting and safety.

CHOIR SHOWCASE: Two Saratoga church choirs--St. Andrews Episcopal and Saratoga Federated--will be among the 14 to participate in "Music From the Heart," the showcase that benefits the San Jose Family Shelter. The choir showcase will be April 25 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Santa Clara Mission Church on the Santa Clara University campus.

St. Andrews will perform at 10:30 a.m. and Saratoga Federated at 2:30 p.m. Tina Sundquist is music director for St. Andrews, and Miriam Meeker is choir director of Saratoga Federated.

The choir showcase directly benefits the San Jose Family Shelter, which provides a child-care center, a Head Start program, a medical program, laundry facilities and three meals a day. Tickets to the concert are $10, and the information number is 926-8885. This is the third year of the choir conglomerate event.

NEW CATTLE BARONS: Lynda M. Evjen of Monte Sereno and Zoe Cowherd Alameda of Saratoga were named co-chairwomen of the 1998 Cattle Baron's Ball, which will be held Sept. 26 in Hangar No. 3 at Moffett Field.

The ball is a benefit for the American Cancer Society and in its two years of existence has raised more than $1.1 million dollars, becoming a national model for successful fundraising.

Alameda owns Alameda Family Saratoga-Cupertino Funeral Home, and Evjen is co-founder and former executive vice president of Med-Cor, a health-care supplier. Theme of the 1998 ball will be Wild West Gold Rush.

SNOWBOARD CHAMP: Griselda Gonzalez of Saratoga collected her first national snowboarding title, winning the halfpipe X-nix U.S. snowboarding championship at Sunday River, Maine, on March 27. The event was held at the Sunday River Ski Resort in softening snow at night.

Gonzalez, 22, earned 69.4 points, while the second-place winner received 66.9 and third place garnered 60.l. Both those contestants were from the New England region. A halfpipe event in snowboarding is very similar to performing freestyle skateboarding.

An arc (the halfpipe) is positioned in the snow about 10 to 15 feet deep and 30 to 50 feet long, and snowboarders perform tricks on this arc as they come down the hill.

TEATIMES AT HAKONE: The honorary board members of the Hakone Foundation were feted recently with a tea ceremony and entertainment at the gardens. Those celebrated for their contributions were William Glennon, Floyd Kvamme, Donald Miller, Norman Mineta, Morihito Nagai, Kent Nagano, Yoshihiro Uchida, Henry Yamate and Kiyoshi Yasui.

Later that same weekend, practitioners of the tea ceremony from Japanese cultural centers throughout the Bay Area convened at Hakone for tea (but of course) and to be introduced to the many charms and amenities of Hakone Gardens.

SPRING BREAK: Some 88 eighth-graders from Redwood Middle School took their annual field trip to Washington, D.C., and New York City during Easter week. And as they waited outside the National Cathedral in Washington, some of the group with a songbird proclivity began to rhapsodize.

The song they started singing was "Goin' to the Chapel," from the musical that Redwood is offering April 24-26 called Leader of the Pack. Seems eight of the girls who were waiting in line are in the show, and the temptation and the setting were just too made-to-order to pass up for a practice warble. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

BRIDGE CROSSOUT: Sad news for craftspeople and all those who delight in bedecking their homes. The venerable Across the Bridge will be closing in May. Everything in the store now is 30 percent off the marked price, and further reductions are on the way.

Thanks for the 16 wonderful years, says owner Marie Hochman. A rent increase is forcing the closure. Across the Bridge has appeared in three locations during its tenure here--on Main Street (across the bridge, of course), in Old Town and in its present location at 210 N. Santa Cruz.

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