Members of the Palisades High band demonstrate the skills that helped them win the Highlander Marching Band Competition in Granada Hills. Photo: Mark Galasso
Palisades High’s marching band won the Sweepstakes title at the Highlander Marching Band Competition in Granada Hills on November 13, outscoring 27 other bands. PaliHi marchers also took first place in both percussion and band and second in color guard.   Band Director Arwen Hernandez explained how the Sweepstakes title is determined by a band’s overall performance.   ’All aspects of program design, execution and coordination are analyzed,’ she said. ‘Judges note their impression of the emotional, intellectual and aesthetic efforts and the judge thinks, ‘Which band did I like the most?’ In this case, it was us!’   The songs and overall marching design were crafted by Hernandez, Paul Revere Band Director Yosuki Miyoshi, PaliHi percussion instructor Jeremy Miller and marching instructor Sean McDermott.   ’We decided that our 2010 show needed to be entertaining and appeal to Pali’s diverse student body,’ Hernandez said. ‘Our show title is ‘Beyond The Sea,’ and includes songs ‘La Mer,’ ‘Misirlou,’ ‘Surfer Girl’ and ‘Good Vibrations.”’   The sweepstakes victory was a testament to Hernandez, who was hired in the summer of 2008 after repeated cries from Paul Revere Middle School parents that the high school’s program was lackluster. At the time, the marching band was student-led and the band hadn’t participated in a competition since 1994.   Hernandez had 35 students the first year, 49 last year and 62 instrumental members and a six-member color guard this fall.   Color guards, which are common in marching bands, are used to heighten the field drills’through the addition of color, and to interpret the music visually.’   ’These six girls [Alex Cordova, Judy Joo, Chanel Lee, Lauren Madrid, Ashley Madrigal and Natalie Mena] are the reason the color guard exists this year,’ Hernandez said.”They wanted do to it and kept asking.”   With the growth of the band, PaliHi has moved from Division 1A (for bands with 50 musicians or less) to 2A, for bands with 51 to 70 members. Drum majors are Alex Dale and Daniel Ward, the drum captain is Jesse Victoroff and the’color guard captain is Judy Joo.   Hernandez modestly credits Revere for the growth of the band. ‘They have a wonderful program,’ she said. ‘They send the musicians to us and we are so happy to have a program for them to join.’   PaliHi, which has entered four competitions this season, is now preparing for the LAUSD Championship at East Los Angeles College on December 11.   Additionally, the band performs at halftime of PaliHi football games, at the Village Green on various Sundays to raise money, and in the Palisades Fourth of July parade.   Donations to help purchase additional instruments can be made by check to Palisades Charter High School (write Marching Band in the memo) and mailed to the school, c/o Arwen Hernandez, 15777 Bowdoin St., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272.
A long-abandoned construction shed along Pacific Coast Highway that had been turned into a home by a transient was bulldozed by a Los Angeles Recreation and Parks crew on Tuesday morning, near the mouth of Potrero Canyon. Thus ended the homesteading by Tachowa (‘Rollerball’) Covington, following months of complaints by Pacific Palisades residents that the shack was an eyesore. Their next goal is to have the City remove the adjacent water tank, where Covington has also been living.
In mid-December, the City of Los Angeles will begin construction of a 4,500-foot Coastal Interceptor Relief Sewer that will increase capacity of the existing sewer and is intended to keep dry-water runoff from draining into Santa Monica Bay.   About 3,100 feet of the sewer will be built on Pacific Coast Highway between Annenberg Community Beach House and the Will Rogers State Beach’s parking lot (across from Potrero Canyon) and 1,400 feet in the parking lots for Will Rogers and Santa Monica Beach Club. Lanes on PCH will not be closed while work is taking place in the parking lots.   The entire $10-million project should be complete by fall 2012. The sewer is part of Proposition O, which was passed in 2004 by Los Angeles voters to improve water quality in the city’s beaches, harbors and lakes.   The contractor, Blois Construction, based in Oxnard, will first begin work on the channel that runs under PCH, north of Entrada Drive and south of Channel Road, said Michelle Vargas, public information officer for the L.A. Department of Public Works. A portion of the sewer will run beneath the channel.   In January, construction will begin on PCH and result in lane closures, Vargas said. She has not yet received an exact schedule from the contractor, but she said that throughout the two years of construction, there will be reduced southbound traffic lanes Mondays through Fridays when work is being done on PCH.   One of the three southbound lanes between the Will Rogers State Beach parking lot and the Annenberg will be closed from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Two lanes will be closed from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. The three northbound lanes will not be affected.   The Pacific Palisades Community Council asked Andy Flores, project manager of the Proposition O Clean Water Bond Program, during its August meeting to take all possible measures to reduce traffic on PCH. Since then, Flores has consulted with Caltrans to come up with a traffic mitigation plan.   At last Thursday’s Council meeting, Flores reported that two weeks before any construction begins, portable electronic signs will be placed on the 101 Freeway at Kanan Road, Los Virgenes Road and Topanga Canyon Road.   ’The goal is to keep those vehicles on the 101 and discourage them from coming down to the PCH,’ Flores said of the commuters.   To inform local drivers, electronic signs will be placed on the PCH at Topanga Canyon Road and Sunset Boulevard. Two additional signs will be installed on Sunset near Temescal Canyon Road.   Since the electronic signs cost $500 a day to operate, the city will have them up for only two weeks before construction begins, Flores said. After that, the city will put up traditional signs at those locations to notify drivers of the construction.   Information on the lane closures will be available at www.lapropo.org, on Twitter @ PCHPartners or by calling (877) 700-3069 or (213) 978-0333.
Andrew Frew at the sound and light board inside the Pierson Playhouse, where he has volunteered for Theatre Palisades since 1994. Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
Andrew Frew, who works behind the scenes at Theatre Palisades, Movies in the Park and the Chamber of Commerce Teen Pageant, will receive a Community Service Award from the Pacific Palisades Community Council on December 9.   The Council’s annual award recognizes Pacific Palisades residents who have made important contributions to the community through their longtime volunteer efforts. This year’s other winners are Arnold and Sigrid Hofer.   Frew, a neuroscientist at UCLA, said he was surprised he won because he calls himself ‘the geeky guy.’   At Theatre Palisades, Frew has been a volunteer in the Pierson Playhouse control booth since 1994, running the sound and light cues for TP productions.   A co-founder of Movies in the Park in 2004, Frew’s role has been to ensure that sound, screening and projection occurs without a hitch every Saturday night in August at the Recreation Center.   He has worked the teen pageant at Pierson Playhouse for eight years, handling the technical aspects of production. ‘Arnie would pay me, even though I asked him not to,’ said Frew, referring to Arnie Wishnick, the Chamber’s executive director. ‘I joined the pageant committee three years ago because I figured if I was on the committee, he couldn’t pay me.’   Frew’s numerous volunteer commitments are actually a break from his serious professional life at UCLA, where he uses a software program called BrainLAB to map brain tumors after a person has undergone magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).   Using the 3-D ‘maps,’ Frew works with surgeons to guide brain-tumor operations, allowing doctors to cut away the tumor and leave areas of the brain responsible for speech, vision, memory and movement intact.   When not mapping, Frew uses a high-field small-bore MRI machine to examine brain tumor tissue with the hopes of improving imaging. ‘I have no aspiration of curing cancer, but if I can do one little step that leads someone else to maybe discover an enzyme, then I’ve done something,’ he said.   Born in Phoenix, Frew graduated from the University of Arizona with an engineering degree in 1982, and moved to Los Angeles to work for the L.A. Department of Water and Power.   In 1989, he purchased a condominium on Via de la Paz, within walking distance to all his eventual off-hour ‘jobs.’    ‘I really didn’t take advantage of the community in the beginning, just some weekend hiking,’ Frew said. But after reading a blurb in the Palisadian-Post in 1994 that Theatre Palisades was looking for volunteers, he offered his services. ‘I’ve never left. It’s like family.’   Although his initial position at the DWP was water plant structural designs, Frew eventually transitioned to waste-minimization recycling, which meant working with City Council members and the Mayor’s office. The experience was frustrating.   ’If there was a city furniture auction, a councilman might want it for his office, so we had to cart it over to him to look at and if he didn’t want it, then we had to move it again,’ Frew said, noting that with all the manpower and effort used, ‘We might as well have set fire to it’ and bought new furniture.   Frew’s life took a turn when a close friend, Steve DePesa, was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1996 and underwent surgery. Frew spent time investigating the disease and the prognosis. He also helped his divorced friend obtain MediCal funds, and moved him in his spare bedroom. The two wrote an informational Internet guide about the disease, treatments and contacts.   ’I decided engineering was pointless and started volunteering at UCLA,’ Frew said.   After DePesa died in Frew’s arms in July 1998, Frew quit his job and took time off. Fluent in Portuguese, he went to Brazil for two months to visit his ‘other’ family, which he had known since spending a college semester in Rio de Janeiro.   When Frew returned to the United States, he was accepted into a Ph.D. program in biomedical physics at UCLA, which included CT scans and MRI imaging, neuroanatomy, the effects of radiation, and health. He completed his degree in 2005.’   ’Everything I do [in Pacific Palisades] is all about feel good, have fun,’ said Frew, who has worked in the Pierson Playhouse booth for every production except one musical since joining the crew.   As a Community Service Award winner, Frew plans to ride in the Fourth of July parade with his long-time girlfriend, Paula DeSano, although this presents a dilemma.   ’I’ll have to find someone to drive the Theatre Palisades float,’ said Frew, who has driven it for 16 years and professes it is great fun. ‘I get to run every signal on Sunset, even if it’s at two miles an hour.’
Juliette and Lek, nicknamed Thailand’s “Elephant Lady,” purchase bananas for Ratree, whom they rescued in Surin. Photo Courtesy of Lee West
By TIM GORSKI Special to the Palisadian-Post Each November, the city of Surin plays host to Thailand?s annual Elephant Roundup with 300 captive elephants performing for thousands of spectators. Elephants and their mahouts (handlers) travel hundreds of miles to perform a host of historical reenactments, tricks and circus routines for eager spectators. It is the largest elephant event in Southeast Asia and possibly the world. In 2009, Pacific Palisades resident Juliette West joined Lek Chailert of Thailand, who has rescued elephants for the past 30 years, to save an elephant from the Elephant Roundup, while I captured it all on video for a documentary project called ?How I Became an Elephant.? The film premieres at the Artivist Film Festival at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood tonight at 9:30 p.m. ?What the handlers do to the elephants behind the scenes is cruel,? says Juliette, a ninth grader at Harvard-Westlake. ?The elephants are separated from their mothers when they are babies and beaten with a bullhook to break their spirit. They are starved for days and sometimes even weeks. Then, they are taught tricks and abused daily for the rest of their lives to stay submissive.? I met Juliette, who was then 14 years old and an eighth grader at St. Matthew?s Episcopal School, while attending the 2009 National Animal Rights Conference in Los Angeles. I have been filming Asian elephants in Nepal, Burma and Thailand for six years and was looking for an angle to bring my elephant stories to an American audience. Juliette first became interested in animal rights at age 9 when she adopted a cat from the Voice for the Animals Foundation in Santa Monica. After that, she asked her friends to donate money to the foundation rather than give her birthday presents. Last year, the foundation?s Executive Director Melya Kaplan alerted her to the controversy over the living arrangements of Billy, an elephant who has lived alone in a half-acre enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo for 20 years. The city planned to construct a new $42-million elephant habitat, the Pachyderm Forest, with a roaming area of 3.6 acres for Billy and additional elephants. Juliette wrote letters to the L.A. City Council advocating that Billy instead be transferred to a wildlife sanctuary. ?Elephants need to walk at least 20 miles a day,? Juliette told the Palisadian-Post, pointing out that the Pachyderm Forest would not be large enough. She also noted that it was cruel to keep Billy alone for so many years: ?Elephants are social just like human beings, and they should not be isolated.? The Council decided to move forward with constructing the Pachyderm Forest, set to open with two additional elephants, Jewel and Tina, this month. The controversy, however, made Juliette more interested in elephant rights, and she met with representatives of the L.A. Zoo, Oakland Zoo, Oregon Zoo and Performing Animal Welfare Society, a wildlife sanctuary in Galt, California, to educate herself about the treatment of elephants. I immediately saw the spark in her eyes and an idea was born. ?Juliette, how do you feel about going on an adventure?? I asked. I took her to Thailand for three weeks last November to work alongside Lek, an unlikely hero from a small village who overcame overwhelming odds in her lifelong quest to save Asian elephants. Born in 1963 in a small hill-tribe in northern Thailand, Lek was one of the first girls in her village to receive an education. She learned a great deal about elephants in captivity after witnessing wild captures and the ?breaking? of wild elephants in rural Thailand. After rescuing dozens of sick and injured elephants, Lek quickly earned the nickname ?The Elephant Lady.? In 2000, she incorporated Thailand?s first sanctuary in Chiang Mai for abused elephants. She also earned the TIME Magazine accolade as one of Asia?s 50 most influential women. ?Lek was almost like a celebrity to me because I had read so much about her before meeting her,? Juliette says. ?She?s this tiny woman, 4-feet 9-inches tall, next to these huge elephants that all love her. She is so amazing with them.? At the Surin Elephant Roundup last November, the stands were filled with excited spectators. Smoke permeated the thick humid air as pyrotechnics exploded and 300 elephants and mahouts poured onto a football-field-sized fairground. A 10th-century mock battle ensued; opposing elephants locked trunks and swords clashed. The morning progressed with demonstrations of elephant strength and agility. They pulled logs, twirled hula-hoops, threw darts, played soccer and painted portraits. ?It was heartbreaking and really hard to watch,? Juliette says. ?I could see the bullhook wounds. Everyone was cheering and so happy because they don?t know how the elephants are treated.? Lek, Juliette, and I slipped out to choose an elephant in the worst condition to save. We selected a 40-year-old female named Ratree (Thai for midnight) who was used for decades in an unsuccessful breeding program. Elephant transactions are not uncommon here. It cost about $10,000 to purchase Ratree and to transport her to the sanctuary. Through generous donations from family members and her father?s colleagues, Juliette raised the finances necessary to save the elephant. Her father, Lee, works as a money manager and her mother, Kimberly is a homemaker. Her brother, Jameson, is a junior at Harvard-Westlake. Ratree suffered from a broken hip and broken ankle, common injuries in captive breeding programs. Mahouts restrain and force female elephants into a submissive position and encourage visiting bulls to mount them. Many females die of internal injuries and less than two percent of the newborns survive. Ratree, who was blind in one eye, displayed serious mental issues, evidenced by moaning, blank staring, continuous drooling, a listless trunk and constant swaying; she panicked easily and cowered fearfully at everything around her, including approaching elephants. ?In Thailand, they drug the elephants, so they are comfortable in a crowd,? Juliette says. ?Ratree had been drugged for so many years.? Lek and Juliette purchased Ratree and transported her 18 hours to the sanctuary. They also bought bananas, watermelon and sugarcane to feed Ratree on the long journey. ?Unfortunately, she ended up dying a few months later in March,? Juliette says. ?It was just so sad because she had been through so much and had finally reached the sanctuary. At least she died in a happy place.? Since returning from Thailand, Juliette says her goal is to create awareness about elephants? rights by speaking at local schools. In the documentary, Juliette?s genuine curiosity and compassion, her charm and on-screen charisma all serve to deliver Lek?s message loud and clear in a compelling and entertaining (at times heart-wrenching) manner. (Tim Gorski founded Rattle the Cage in 2003 and has filmed all over the world. ?How I Became an Elephant? was filmed by Gorski and his Rattle the Cage crew, produced by Rattle the Cage Productions, Juliette West and Jorja Fox (star of ?CSI?) and edited by Synthian Sharp. Palisadian-Post staff writer Danielle Gillespie edited and contributed additional reporting to this article.)
Christi Wilhelmi is growing four varieties of Kohlrabi in her backyard. This vegetable has the look of an organic green Sputnik, with a taste like fresh, crunchy broccoli stems accented by radish. Photo: Courtesy Christi Wilhelmi
With four different varieties of kohlrabi, red and golden Swiss chard, plus parsnips, carrots and peas growing happily in her garden, Christi Wilhelmi knows a little about vegetable gardening at home. She will be sharing this knowledge with members and guests of the Pacific Palisades Garden Club on Monday, December 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the Woman’s Club, 901 Haverford. Wilhelmi’s enthusiasm for organic gardening started while she was a student at UC Irvine, where she ‘got a huge nesting urge and wanted to make bread and grow food. I became a vegetarian, which pulled me more toward planting gardens on balconies and patios,’ the Mar Vista resident recalls. Nowadays, she grows vegetables in her own back yard as well as at the Ocean View Farms Organic Community Garden in Mar Vista. ’When I moved back to Los Angeles in 1997, I drove by Ocean View and thought, ‘Here is an oasis in the center of the city.’ I stopped, sighed up for a plot and eight months later I got my own 15 x15 space.’ Wilhelmi has served on the board of directors of the community garden for 12 years, during which time she started offering her four-week gardening workshops publicly and for private groups. Topics range from soils and composting to planning garden on a seasonal basis. For her Garden Club talk, Wilhelmi says that she begins with the foundation of ‘gardening’ the soil. ‘I emphasize the importance of creating your own ecosystem that welcomes beneficial insects’and you. I also touch on timing,’ adding that she adjusts the information in most gardening books to reflect the benign climate in Southern California. ‘Most garden books and seed catalogues are geared for parts of the country where there is snow.’ She also talks about space: ‘You don’t need as much as you think you need, so I talk about bio-intensity gardening.’ This organic agricultural system focuses on maximum yields from the minimum area of land, while simultaneously improving the soil. As the seasons come and go, Wilhelmi has dedicated herself to the study of organic gardening and through her Web site (Gardenerd.com.) she offers links and resources in her blog and newsletter archives. Wilhelmi, who is married to ‘a Renaissance man’ who is currently producing interactive digital play games for Mattel, focuses her teaching on the benefits of gardening. ‘It unifies both physical activity and healthy food choices, while providing a grounding spiritual and creative outlet.’ Currently, Wilhelmi is working with the Dream Center to develop a horticultural therapy program. She has designed raised beds for a vacant lot adjacent to their facility in the Silverlake area. If this activity weren’t enough to keep any sensible person busy, Wilhelmi is also completing a novel’set in a community garden, naturally.
Jacquie Israel will host an art open house on the weekend of December 4 and 5 in her Pacific Palisades home, 943 Iliff St. Guests (kids included) are invited to view a selection of photography, painting, textiles, multimedia, collage and video art from noon to 7 p. artist Chase will execute a ‘live painting.’ Guests are encouraged to bring a personalized item, such as a skateboard, cell phone, notebook or T-shirt that Chase will customize. An artist/designer and Belgian transplant now living in Los Angeles, Chase has mural installations that revolve around’his ‘Awareness Geezers,’ who are best described as colorful characters who have stumbled upon spirituality and awareness not by following the suggested path in life, but rather by having created their own path, guided by their sense of adventure and an ‘irreducible element of rascality.’ The ‘Awareness Geezers’ bring with them the fruits of their experiences in the form of uplifting messages such as ‘You can’t until you say you can,’ ‘Be peace,’ and ‘Go without if you don’t go within.” In October 2006, Italian Vogue named Chase one of its favorite artists in the world. Since then he has been featured in more than 40 magazines in a half-dozen countries. An art consultant, Jacquie Israel synthesizes the vast amount of art that is being created all over the city by selecting an eclectic array of work, which she presents at her open houses. ‘I’ve done the legwork and brought the very best of what I’ve seen back to my house,’ Israel says. This helps overcome a certain timidity when it comes to buying art. ‘The gallery environment can be intimidating, and people often feel inadequately educated to buy art.’ She adds, ‘People don’t have time to travel looking for art. I am constantly visiting galleries in every part of L.A. as well as Santa Barbara and San Francisco.’ A 16-year Palisades resident, Israel says that gallery owners ‘find my events helpful in giving their artists more exposure.’
Brentwood/Westwood Orchestra to Present Haydn and Mozart
The Brentwood-Westwood Symphony Orchestra continues its 58th season series with a free concert on Sunday, December 5, at 3 p.m. in the auditorium at Paul Revere Middle School, 1450 Allenford St. Founding Conductor Alvin Mills and Music Director Cary Belling will present the concert with trumpet soloist Michael Goode. The program includes Haydn Trumpet Concerto in E Flat; Mozart’s Impresario Overture and Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, and holiday music. For more information, call (661) 248-3885 or visit info@breantwoodwestwoodsymphony.org.
Santa Monica Symphony Sets Free Concert
The Santa Monica Symphony will give an afternoon free concert on Saturday December 11 at 3:30 p.m. to which school-age children are especially invited in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Maestro Allen Robert Gross has selected Haydn’s ‘Surprise’ symphony, which children always enjoy, Ticheli’s ‘Shooting Stars,’ Dvor’k’s ‘The Noon Witch’ and Ginastera’s Dances from ‘Estancia.’ The Santa Monica Symphony reaches out to all ages and segments of the community with admission free concerts, open rehearsals for music students, and special concerts for schoolchildren. The symphony’s Woodwind Quintet gives performances in the schools and at community events. Gross often features the works of emerging Los Angeles composers of symphonic music. Contact: SMSymphony.org
Hammer Series Focuses on New American Work
Ann Beattie and Thaisa Frank, both renowned short story authors, will be featured guests at the New American Writing series on December 8 at 7 p.m. at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire. Beattie is a recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story form and the Rea Award for the short story. Her new collection is ‘Ann Beattie: The New Yorker Stories.’ Frank is author of the short story collections ‘A Brief History of Camouflage’ and ‘Sleeping in Velvet,’ and a recent novel, ‘Heidegger’s Glasses.’ The New American Writing series of contemporary fiction and po’etry is organized by Benjamin Weissman, author of two books of short fiction, most recently ‘Headless,’ and professor of creative writ’ing at Art Center College of Design and Otis College of Art and Design. Future writers include poet Jennifer L Knox and memoirist Sarah Manguso on January 25 and Aminatta Forna and Janice Shapiro on February 1. Forna has been named by Vanity Fair as one of Africa’s most promising new writers, and Shapiro is author of the new story collection, ‘Bummer.’ Free tickets are required for program entry and are available from the Billy Wilder Theater box office at the Hammer. All attendees should arrive at least a half-hour before the program.
Methodist Women to Host Madrigal Singers and Tea
The Women of Community United Methodist Church will host a holiday tea on Thursday, December 9, at 12:30 p.m. in Tauxe Hall, 901 Via de la Paz. The Palisades High School Madrigal Singers, under the direction of Josh Elson, will present a medley of holiday songs at 1 p.m., followed by tea. In addition, a mini-bazaar, offering handmade gifts, will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on that day.
Dr. Joseph Raymond, a longtime Pacific Palisades physician and educator, died on November 26 in Miami, Florida.’He was 89. For nearly three decades,’Dr. Raymond’ran a family medical practice that embraced members of the local community and numerous distinguished personalities. He afforded everyone the same attention and care, earning him a reputation as a benevolent and generous doctor.’ ‘ The community loved him too.’He was named the 31st Pacific Palisades Citizen of the Year in 1977 for his contributions to youth sports. ’Our community, our youth organizations, our families, all who come in contact with Doc go on about their lives the richer because he is there,’ said one community member the night of the’ceremony. ‘He exudes a genuineness and warmth which is indeed most rare.’ Dr. Raymond, his wife Alyce (whom he married in 1950 while attending medical school), and their six children lived in Pacific Palisades for nearly 40 years. They arrived in 1967 when’he began his more than 30-year career helping to make the UCLA Medical Center one of the world’s leading research and care facilities. Dr. Raymond had been one of the first residents in pathology at the UCLA Medical School.’In 1968, he was asked to come back to establish and operate the medical center’s clinical laboratories. He went on to become an associate director. In this role, he developed one of the first allied health programs. He also served as an assistant dean at the medical school, where he taught clinical and dental students.’ Despite his busy career, Dr. Raymond’also served as physician for the Palisades High football team for over a decade. He also found time to be active in local youth swimming, football and Scouting programs, where his six children participated.” ’Without his countless hours of unselfish, professional, volunteered help, the youth programs of the Palisades would be at a loss,’ read one letter nominating’Dr. Raymond for Citizen of the Year. ‘The young people adore him, the parents thank him.” The Raymond family lived for seven years in an historic home on Pampas Ricas in the Huntington Palisades that was the original office of the Santa Monica Land and Water Company. Dr. Raymond dreamed of restoring the property and grounds, and worked in his spare time with architects on preliminary drawings.’But the family needed more space and moved farther down Sunset to the Riviera and another Spanish Revival home that they still own today. Raymond grew up in Newark, New Jersey, one of six boys raised by a widowed mother. He attended Montclair State University at the urging of his older brother Thomas, who became the first Italian-American professor at the Harvard Business School. During World War II, Raymond served in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Cambridgeshire, England. The GI bill helped him study at Cornell and Lehigh Universities until he was accepted at Jefferson Medical’College’in Philadelphia. He graduated second in the class in 1952.” His son Joshua, now a physician and assistant professor in gerontology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, also graduated from Jefferson. Dr. Raymond’and his brothers were pioneers in the San Francisco biotechnology industry.’In the 1970s, they founded and ran a chain of plasma centers later acquired by Abbott Laboratories.’ Dr. Raymond remained active as a physician and hospital administrator until he was in his late 70s. In retirement, he took up painting. After Dr. Raymond’s wife Alyce died in 2005, he created the Alyce Raymond Scholarship at UCLA’s David Geffen Medical School. The fund helps students facing economic and personal challenges pursue careers in public service and medicine.’ In 2006,’Dr. Raymond’moved to Bal Harbour, Florida, where he remained an avid supporter of the arts and an active community member. He is survived by his six children, Anthea, Toby, Zachary, Briony, Melissa and Joshua; two grandchildren, Peter and Charles; and two brothers, Robert and Charles.’ The funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, December 4, at Corpus Christi Church, with burial at Holy Cross Cemetary. A wake and memorial will follow at 2 p.m. at 212 Entrada in Santa Monica Canyon. Donations may be sent in lieu of flowers to the Alyce Raymond Scholarship Fund/UC Regents, 845 Via de la Paz, #6A, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. ‘
Audrey Rice Boyle, a 53-year resident of Pacific Palisades, died on November 22 after a brief illness. She was 88 years old. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 22, 1922, Audrey was the daughter of the late Beatrice and Ted Rice. Her father was a famous jockey, who won the 1920 Kentucky Derby and was later killed in a spill during a horse race in 1923. After graduating from high school and studying music, Audrey went to work at the Watson Elevator Company in New York City in 1942. It was here she met the love of her life, Matthew Boyle, whom she married in July 1943. The couple moved to Englewood, New Jersey, and in 1946, their daughter Audrey Ann was born. In 1957, Matt was transferred to Los Angeles and the couple bought one of the first homes on Paseo Miramar in the Palisades, where Audrey resided until her death. She was a longtime member of Riviera Country Club, where she became an avid golfer and bridge player. She loved to entertain and was a gourmet cook. Audrey was an active member of Corpus Christi Church, where she attended daily mass until she could no longer drive. Her deep religious faith was an important part of her life and sustained her after the death of her husband in 2005 and the untimely death of her daughter and only child in 2009. A Mass of Christian Burial was held at Corpus Christi on November 29.
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