California Pacific International

Alan Bond's flagship Bond Corp. Holdings Ltd. successfully fought Friday an attempt to liquidate his brewing and media empire, but it now faces new demands from U.S. creditors to repay $510 million immediately. Meanwhile, across the Pacific, an investment group emerged Friday with a possible offer to inject funds in cash-starved Bond Corp. in exchange for a controlling stake. Weatherby Investments Inc.

Alan Bond's flagship Bond Corp. Holdings Ltd. successfully fought Friday an attempt to liquidate his brewing and media empire, but it now faces new demands from U.S. creditors to repay $510 million immediately. Meanwhile, across the Pacific, an investment group emerged Friday with a possible offer to inject funds in cash-starved Bond Corp. in exchange for a controlling stake. Weatherby Investments Inc.

I'd like to correct Dirk Sutro's otherwise interesting and informative article on William Templeton Johnson ("Johnson Designs Still Stand Out in San Diego," Oct. 6, 1988). He states that the Panama Pacific Exposition opened in Balboa Park in 1915. In fact, it was the Panama California Exposition. This oft-repeated error may stem in part from the fact that in that same year the Panama Pacific Exposition opened in San Francisco.

The first phase of a $2.1-million renovation to the San Diego Civic Light Opera Assn.'s Starlight Bowl has been completed in Balboa Park. Designed by architect Gerald Garapich & Associates, San Diego, the more than $600,000 construction increment was done by Trepte Construction Co., San Diego.

A spokesman for the troubled Bond Corp. Holdings Ltd. said the company is willing to hear from Jeff Reynolds, a Los Angeles businessman who announced over the weekend that he wanted to take control of the Australian company. Bond Corp. executive Peter Lucas said Sunday that the company "looked forward to the next communication" from Reynolds but added that so far the proposal was lacking in detail.

The world's major powers are negotiating an arms reduction. The President is battling Congress over his controversial economic policies. The San Diego City Council is looking for a new city manager. The date is May 29, 1935. But on that day 50 years ago, local headlines were dominated by the opening of "America's Biggest Event," the spectacle that would raise San Diego to national and international prominence--the California Pacific International Exposition.

In the fall of 1883, novelist Helen Hunt Jackson, writing from her home in Colorado, penned a letter to a friend in San Diego: "I am going to write an Indian novel, the scene laid in So. California. I would rather you did not speak of this, as I shall keep it a secret, until the book is done." Less than a year later, Jackson's romantic novel, "Ramona," appeared in print. It has been a perennial bestseller ever since.

A controversial new sculpture for Balboa Park comes up for a vote today by the city's Commission for Arts and Culture, which will recommend whether the work is suitable for a prominent area of the park. The bronze sculpture, by Tijuana artist Guillermo Castano, depicts the Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa (1475-1519), credited as the first European to see the Pacific Ocean. It is being commissioned by local patrons Elizabeth and Gaye North to be given to the city as a gift.

Craig Noel, the founding director of San Diego's Old Globe who established a vital regional community theater that eventually became a Tony Award-winning font of dramatic productions bound for Broadway, has died. He was 94. Noel, who began his career as an actor before becoming a director and producer, died of natural causes Saturday at his home in San Diego, the Old Globe announced. He had been a fixture at the Globe since 1937, when as a 22-year-old actor he joined the playhouse troupe and landed a part in "The Distaff Side."

Ronnie Milsap, appearing Friday night at the Bacchanal nightclub in Kearny Mesa, is to country music what Stevie Wonder is to pop. They're both prodigious hit-makers, they're both considered legends in their respective genres and they're both blind. Tracing back each artist's career, one may or may not be surprised to find these parallels springing from the same point.

A little-known 28-year-old Texan has emerged as a possible savior of Alan Bond's flagship Bond Corp. Holdings Ltd., caught up in a legal morass that threatens its survival. Jeff H. Reynolds, who said during the weekend that he was interested in rescuing the debt-laden Australian brewing and media empire, has been instantly catapulted from a self-described "real private person" into the limelight of newspaper headlines.