“Tie a Yellow Ribbon” may have been his biggest hit, but a refrain from one of his other top-sellers – “knock three times on the ceiling if you want me, twice on the pipes if the answer is no” – proved to be very telling when award-winning entertainer Tony Orlando headlined the Latin American Educational Foundation’s annual gala. The response to his 30-minute set was so overwhelming that the three-time American Music Awards winner volunteered to return for a future gala and sing both longer and for free.
Like father, like …
It may be a cliché, but the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree. Attorney Don Mares, vice president of the Latin American Educational Foundation board and executive director of the Colorado Department of Labor, was proudly telling tablemates Rick and Sheila Bugdanowitz at the LAEF dinner about his daughter, Melissa. She’s a senior and head girl at George Washington High School, where she’s enrolled in the prestigious International Baccalaureate Program and recently received word that she has been accepted for early admission at Stanford University. Will she study law? Mares was asked. “She might,” he replied, “but only if it will help her achieve her goal of saving the world.”
