Atherton plans Easter egg hunt

Atherton's annual Easter egg hunt for children in grades 3 and under will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 11, at Holbrook-Palmer Park. Cost is $3 per child. Sponsor is the Atherton Dames. For information, call 688-6536.

Computer classes. Registration for Peninsula Volunteers Little House computer classes will be held on Wednesday, April 8, from 9 a.m. to noon. During that time, there will also be an open house for those who wish to discuss the classes with instructors. Classes, which are open to Peninsula adults over age 50, begin on Monday, April 13, and include Mac and PC introductions to Windows and the Internet, word processing, spreadsheets, data bases and genealogy. Little House is located at 800 Middle Ave. in Menlo Park. For more information, call 326-2025.

Bike racer Mary Hearn of Menlo Park finished second in the lung-searing San Francisco race dubbed The Urban Hill Climb on Wednesday, March 25. The climb, which race organizer Rick Sutton of Redwood City's Galeforce Inc. said is a way of drawing public attention to bike racing, is a quick sprint up a four-block stretch of California Street from Grant to Taylor, ending at Grace Cathedral. Ms. Hearn's time -- an impressive 1:56.39 -- placed her 5.2 seconds behind winner Caroline Alexander.

Nigerian Mass. Students at St. Joseph's Elementary School in Atherton will get a jump on Palm Sunday celebrations by participating in a Nigerian Mass on Friday, April 3. Members of the Oriki Theatre, a Mountain View nonprofit organization, have been working with the students and teaching them African songs, dances and chants for the occasion. A Nigerian priest will fly in from Florida to act as celebrant, while the students play drums and perform portions of the ceremony in different African dialects. The idea came from a project the students were doing on the Nigerian classic, "Things Fall Apart," said Katherine Cance of the school's communications office. For information, call 473-4005.

New Auxiliary officers. Saundra MacGregor of Atherton is the new president of the board of the Woodside-Atherton Auxiliary to Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. Local women serving with her include: Sally Knorp, Jeanette Phelps, Barbra Wood, Jean Cooper, and Theresa Silva, all of Menlo Park; and Barbara Carson, Retta Farley, and Jackie Mitchell of Atherton. Norine Smith of San Mateo will be Tally Ho coordinator.

Local women who are new provisionals to the auxiliary include Joanne Ruffner of Portola Valley, Marianne Hoffman of Atherton, and Betty Witter of Menlo Park.

Tour of Italy. Giovanni Tempesta, lecturer of Italian at Stanford University, will lead a 17-day tour to Northern Italy June 12-28. This is the 15th tour that Mr. Tempesta, a native of Umbria, has led.

Highlights include two days in Orvieto for the annual Corpus Domino procession and parade, a visit to Deruta, ceramic capital of Italy, and cooking lessons with Alessandra Ritucci in the heart of Umbria.

Cost for double occupancy on the tour is $3,295, plus airfare. For more information, call Donna Ludlum at Little World Travel Inc., 592-0664.

Choose plush toy. The Peninsula Humane Society is urging parents to think twice before placing a live animal in a child's Easter basket on April 12.

"Baby bunnies, chicks and ducklings may be cute, but they are fragile and can be easily injured by young children," said Leslie Walker, director of community outreach. In the weeks following Easter, PHS and other animal shelters across the country receive many unwanted animals that were Easter gifts. The solution is simple, says Ms. Walker: Choose a plush toy, or a chocolate one, to celebrate the holiday.

For more information, call the Peninsula Humane Society at (415) 340-7022.