George Millay

The $14-million, 26-acre Wet 'n Wild, the first major non-gambling attraction on the Las Vegas Strip, has opened between the Sahara and El Rancho hotels. The developer is Wet 'n Wild Inc., headed by George D. Millay, who built the first Wet 'n Wild park in Orlando, Fla., and the second in Arlington, Tex., near Dallas. The general contractor was Harper Development & Construction Co., San Diego. Ronald D.

Wesray Capital Corp., a New Jersey investment firm active in leveraged buyouts, has emerged as one of at least four companies interested in buying the four Sea Worlds and two other theme parks from parent Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, sources close to the sale said Tuesday. A purchase of the Harcourt properties would not be the first foray into theme parks by Wesray, a Morristown, N.J. firm co-founded by former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon.

When he was 5, he stood on the Santa Monica Pier and fished for smelt, beginning a lifelong love affair with the sea and all the creatures in it. Before he died Friday, he had spent more than 3,500 days on the ocean and extracted untold numbers of striped marlin and white sea bass. But he put back far more than the fish or the profits he took out as an experienced angler and manufacturer of fishing tackle. Milton C.

David C. Tallichet Jr., a World War II bomber pilot who made his money building destination restaurants and often spent it preserving warplanes, a hobby he once called "foolish" for its expense but which turned him into a leading collector of the aircraft, has died. He was 84. Tallichet, whose restaurants include the Proud Bird adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport and 94th Aero Squadron near Van Nuys Airport, died Oct.

After graduating from UCLA 25 years ago, four fraternity brothers decided they could earn a living and have fun in the San Diego sun by opening a restaurant and aquatic floor show on Mission Bay. But building underwater windows in the bay's slushy shore proved a more formidable task than the optimistic restaurateurs envisioned. "They found out it was an expensive process . . . so they decided they might as well build a neat aquarium instead," Bob Gault.

Wesray Capital Corp., a New Jersey investment firm active in leveraged buyouts, has emerged as one of at least four companies interested in buying the four Sea Worlds and two other theme parks from parent Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, sources close to the sale said Tuesday. A purchase of the HBJ properties would not be the first foray into theme parks by Wesray, a Morristown, N.J., firm co-founded by former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon.

Three former Sea World executives say they plan to make an offer to buy the four Sea Worlds and two other amusement parks that were put up for sale last month by owner Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Former executives Jan Schultz, Robert Hillebrecht and George Millay are the first group to publicly acknowledge that they are making a run at the parks, which HBJ is selling to reduce the massive debt it incurred last year to fend off a hostile takeover attempt by British corporate raider Robert Maxwell.

It would seem like a mirage on a hot summer's day--a cascade of water slides, a lazy river for inner-tube floating, a wave machine churning up surf in a gigantic pool--all in the dusty-dry countryside along Interstate 15 north of Escondido. But White Water Canyon water park may remain just a mirage.

Representatives of a Florida-based company want to slip and slide their way into Santee, where Tuesday they formally proposed building a water amusement park and family recreation center on 45 acres at Santee Lakes Recreation Park. Wet 'n Wild Inc. presented officials from the Padre Dam Municipal Water District with their park plan in an effort to gain a long-term lease. The proposed water park would be situated in the western part of the Santee park.