Music front and center to arts champion Reynolds

BARBARA DIAMOND

Music and the company of friends and family define Carol Reynolds.

So, planning her 70th birthday party was a no-brainer for daughter

Patti Jo Kiraly. Just order food and plentiful libations; send

invitations to neighbors, former students and members of all the

organizations that have benefited from Reynolds’ participation,

including the Laguna Beach branch of the American Assn. of University

Women, the Arts Commission, the Laguna Beach Woman’s Club and the

Laguna Beach Community Concert Band; and arrange for music.

“Music is core to her,” Kiraly said.

Reynolds led the guests in a sing-along, accompanied by the

Contraband, an outtake from the community band, which she helped

organize and is a past-president.

The song-fest concluded with “The Old Grey Mare, she’s just like

she used to be.”

Heaven knows, the woman hasn’t lost a step in the years since she

taught music and English at Bernardo Yorba Junior High School to

Virginia Snow, who attended the party with her husband, Daniel.

Following her retirement from teaching, Reynolds applied for an

appointment to the Arts Commission. Past and present commissioners

Suzi Chauvel, Mary Ferguson, Les Thomas, Terry Smith and Pat Kollenda

were among the party guests.

“I met Carol when she and I worked on the city’s Cultural Arts

Plan,” Kollenda said. “She is such a gifted contributor and has such

an amazing sense of humor.

“We had a lot of laughs and a lot of wine, but most importantly,

we lobbied [successfully] for a city arts coordinator, and that has

made an enormous difference.”

Chauvel also met Reynolds through membership on the Arts

Commission.

“I was appointed to the commission in 1996,” Chauvel said. “She

was very accepting, when others weren’t. We became friends and have

been partners in crime ever since.”

Smith cherishes Reynolds’ wackadoo sense of humor.

Reynolds lives across the street from Smith’s church, which brings

a lot of parking to the neighborhood.

“She put up a sign, ‘Thou Shalt Not Park Here,” that just cracked

me up,” Smith said. “She is such a warm person -- how can you not

love her?”

Smith met Reynolds at Soup, the casual, monthly get-together

hosted by Michael and Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman at their Three Arch

Bay home.

The councilwoman attended the party, a measure of the regard in

which she holds Reynolds. Kinsman is a CPA in the last hellish days

of tax season and barely takes time to sleep, let alone socialize.

The AAUW branch, which Reynolds served as president and founder of

the annual Women of Distinction Dinners, was represented by Katie

Haven, Janet Eichel, Pat Jamieson, Muriel Foster, Jean Brotherton and

Cindy Prewitt, also a music entrepreneur who founded the Laguna Live!

concert series and the annual Chamber Music Festival.

“I met Carol through the AAUW,” said Marilyn Thomas. “We were

trying to get people involved in the after-school program at El

Morro. She tutored bi-lingual students; then she spread her wings.”

Reynolds helped to organize an AAUW-sponsored and -funded field

trip for 20 girls to the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, to which

Thomas is deeply committed.

“She is an incredible lady,” Thomas said.

Band members at the party included Bill Foster, Mike Fickling,

Carol Sporleder, Brian and Bobbette Cameron, Niko Theris and vocalist

and keyboard player Linda Hughes.

“The diversity of the group invited to the party just blew me

away,” Planning Commissioner and neighbor Anne Johnson said.

Among the guests: granddaughters Katie Kiraly and Sarah White,

former Councilman Wayne Peterson, Corin and Daniel Mulrenin, Sande

St. John, Ken Jamieson, Bobbi Cox and sculptor Marv Johnson.

“I think everyone who was invited, came,” Kiraly said.

That included her husband, author and Coastline Pilot columnist

Sherwood Kiraly, who is not always as comfortable in a crowd as his

mother-in-law.

Reynolds treats an audience of 50 or 500 as if she is having cozy

tete-a-tete in her living room.

“That comes from 35 years of teaching 35 to 50 kids, six classes a

day,” her daughter said. “I don’t always know what she will say, but

I know it will be fun. What you see is what you get.”

MAYOR PRO TEM HONORED

The South Coast Branch of YMCA recently honored Mayor Pro Tem

Steven Dicterow for his support for children’s programs in Laguna

Beach.

“You are the only person on the council that seems to understand

that Laguna Beach has as many kids as people over 55,” said Laguna

Beach attorney Larry Nokes, branch chair.

Nokes presented Dicterow with a commemorative plaque from the

branch, which has been trying for about a decade to build and

maintain a skateboard park in Laguna, endorsed by Dicterow.

“I am very honored and grateful,” Dicterow said. “When I heard

about this, my wife and daughter said, ‘Why you? You haven’t done

anything.’

“They are right. It’s been 10 1/2 years, and I don’t feel we are

any closer to the goal.”

Dicterow said he was frustrated he hadn’t done more.

* 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; hand-deliver to Suite 222 in the

Lumberyard, 384 Forest Ave.; call (949) 494-4321 or fax (949)

494-8979.