Saratoga Sampler
Debbie Ellis rides in Tour des Trees to benefit research
By Mary Ann Cook
TOUR DES TREES: Arborist and Saratogan Debbie Ellis will take part in the Tour des Trees, a 550-mile bike ride that journeys from Williamsburg, Va., to Baltimore, Md. Money raised by participants in the week-long ride benefits the International Society of Arborists for funding research.
Riders need to amass at least $3,000 in pledges. Some 60 cyclists are signed up. Ellis says she will do no special training for the event, since she regularly bikes three times a week, swims three times a week and also allots time for some weight training.
She's been hoping to do the Tour ever since its inception seven years ago and this time it worked out. Her husband Jim and daughter Sara, 6, will join her in Washington, D.C., at the conclusion of the tour. Ellis has already benefited from ISA research money in an earlier study in which she took part.
That study examined different ways of pruning urban trees under electric wires. Ellis, a consulting horticulturist, is arborist for the Saratoga Union School District. The ISA Research Trust would appreciate any contributions made on behalf of the Tour des Trees Ride for Research.
For pledge forms, phone Ellis at 408.725.1357, or email at decah@ix.netcom.com.
BIRTHDAY GIRL: Georgia Travis, who lent her name and tireless efforts to founding a drop-in center for homeless women and children, spent her 92nd birthday lunching with the homeless at the center named for her. She brought and hosted her favorite midday meal for the assembled--hot dogs, potato salad and sliced tomatoes.
Legislators and op/ed page editors need to be forewarned: Travis this year mastered the computer and the Internet. She'll be using more modern techniques from now on in her role as community watchdog. As witness in a recent letter in San Jose's daily newspaper.
In this letter, written on the computer, she warned that no election is humdrum or insignificant, citing Supreme Court appointments as one example where the man sitting in the White House makes an immense difference. Travis was a Fulbright professor and teacher, as well as a continuing and dedicated social activist.
The AAUW's Committee on Homeless Women and Children (of which she was a member) was the original impetus of the Georgia Travis drop-in center in San Jose. There homeless women can get a meal, do their laundry, learn computer skills and launch their search for a job.
VOLUNTEERS OF YEAR: Publicists Marie Low of Saratoga and Cathy Gillum of Los Gatos were named Volunteers of the Year by the Silicon Valley Charity Ball Awards Committee and were honored this week in an awards presentation at the Triton Museum of Art.
More than $1 million in charitable contributions to 44 different nonprofit organizations were awarded at the ceremony, from money raised at the May ball. The Low/Gillum team has handled publicity for the event for the past few years.
NEW HOME: Gallery House has a new home--in the same building as Printer's Ink at 320 California St in Palo Alto. A group show there called New Home, New Start features the work of Saratogans Theresa Robinson and Starr Davis and Los Gatan Betty Rogers.
Robinson, who works with found objects, has two pieces in the show: Winged Woman with Hooded Eye and An Artist's Burden, which she describes as something of a self portrait, a large figurative assemblage nearly 40 inches high.
Davis works in both watercolors and ceramics and included in the show is a watercolor, Yosemite Happy Isles, and a Grecian-type urn with pressed circles. Her raku pieces include a mermaid head and an iris vase. Rogers has two brilliantly colored watercolors on display.
ACTING OFFSPRING: In other Robinson news, daughter Karen is directing Tartuffe in the Georgia Shakespeare Festival this summer in Atlanta and her husband, Richard Garner, who founded the festival, is appearing in Twelfth Night.
Meanwhile, the other Carl/Theresa Robinson offspring, Dean, is acting with a new Los Angeles-area theater called Banter, a company established by his girlfriend after a successful production last fall of The Servant of Two Masters.
TOURNEY: A golf tournament on Aug. 10, will benefit the San Jose Symphony's annual fund for music, which directly supports innovative youth outreach programs such as Project Music. Golfers will play the Rancho Canada Golf Course in Carmel Valley.
Besides the luxurious setting, the tournament will offer the company of noted baseball players. Scheduled to tee off with the nonbaseball elite are former Giant Mike McCormick (winner of the Cy Young Award), Bobby Bonds, Hobie Landrith, Jim Davenport, Jim Ray Hart and Rich Murray.
Cost is $225 and includes greens fees, cart, continental breakfast, box lunch, cocktail hour, awards dinner, silent auction and prizes. For reservations, call Gail Mohr at 408.287.7383, or email gmohr@sanjosesymphony.org.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
