Raffle

Mike Sciacca, Independent The Huntington Beach Pro/Am Surf Series will hold its second event of the 2000 season today and Sunday at 9th St. in Huntington Beach. Top surfers from around the world will showcase their talents just north of the Huntington Beach Pier. Competition will be held in eight divisions: Super Groms (11 & Under); Juniors (15-17); Mens (18-28); Masters (29 and up); Longboard (all ages); Womens (all ages), and the series' signature division, the Pro/Am (all ages)

Taste of Huntington Beach tickets are on sale, and this year organizers are preparing to delight the palate while guarding against fraud. The Children’s Library, which benefits from the Taste’s proceeds, lost more than $11,000 last year when about 200 fake tickets were sold in May. Event coordinators have gone through lengthy precautions to make sure that doesn’t happen again, said Matt Liffreing, one of the event coordinators....

Whenever friends Keith McCracken and Anthony D. Grow collaborate they like to sign their art work, ?Artist Unknown.? Modesty, perhaps? Not really. ?We came up with the ?Artist Unknown? [title] five years ago for our collaborations,? McCracken said. ?The name makes sense for the pieces because they look like one person painted them.? McCracken and Grow will display their most recent work at the opening of their first ?Artist Unknown? exhibit from 7 p.m. to midnight Friday in an eVocal event that will also feature live music from Orange County Music Award nominees Venus Infers and Parker Macy Blues.

After settling a lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister Co., Robb Havassy ended up with 365 surfboards. Ever since then, he's set out to diminish that number. On Thursday, he'll be raffling off 150 of the boards in Huntington Beach. Sixteen years ago, the Costa Mesa resident painted and gifted a board to his friend - a Hollister Co. photographer who lived in Florida. When a photograph of Havassy's creation, with a purple phoenix on one side and a shield constructed from the words "peace," "love," "life" and "surf" on the other, reached the Ohio-headquartered apparel behemoth, it became a key part of the company's surf-centric ad campaign.

Tariq Malik HUNTINGTON BEACH -- It rained pennies from heaven, or at least from the generosity of others, for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley at their latest fund-raiser. The child-oriented organization, which serves both Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley, received a surprise at its 21st annual Benefit Dinner and Show last month when a city resident signed over a door prize to the club worth more than $8,000. Mike Haynes of Mercury Entertainment won the cash prize in a raffle and immediately signed it back over to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley.

With Huntington Beach’s adopted marine battalion back in the U.S. after seven months on the front lines of the Iraq War troop surge, the Huntington Beach 3/1 Marines Foundation intends to welcome them back in style Friday night. Marines mostly set foot in Camp Pendleton Nov. 17. Taking over almost every public room in the Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort, the party for the Third Battalion, First Marines, is set to entertain up to 1,000 people, said Cindy Cross, who heads the foundation.

Megan Hyde arrived at her workplace the morning of July 20 and heard a surprise mention of her former hometown. The surprise was not pleasant. A co-worker at United Auto Credit asked Hyde, a Huntington Beach resident since April, if she had heard about the mass shooting hours earlier at a theater in Aurora, Colo. Remembering the many times she attended the movies in Aurora while working as a server at Red Robin, Hyde logged onto Facebook to see if anyone she knew had been injured.

Jan Muholland’s students at John H. Eader Elementary School have already raised $300 for the World Wildlife Fund, but the final count is expected to exceed previous records. In honor of Earth Day, the third- and fourth-grade combination class has been raising money by selling 25-cent raffle tickets at lunch. For three years, Muholland’s classes have been raising wildlife awareness through helping charitable causes. “This is a way to show them that they can make a difference no matter how old they are,” she said.

Suds Sports Grill in Huntington Beach became a fundraising site Friday evening, as Megan Hyde, a former resident of Aurora, Colo., held a benefit concert, raffle and auction to raise money for three of her friends who were wounded in the theater shooting. Three bands - Rebellion 68, WKWS and With Strangers - took the stage along with a DJ, while customers bid on an autographed hockey stick, framed Angels portraits, a skateboard and more. According to Hyde, the event raised more than $2,000.

A Huntington Beach recycling company is hosting a phone book drive this month to raise money for Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Beachside Recycling, 8601 Edison Ave., will provide one raffle ticket for each person who brings in phone books through Wednesday. Thirty winners will be announced April 5 for prizes, including dinner for two at Benihana in Newport Beach and a free stay at Embassy Suites by John Wayne Airport. Beachside is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.