Bunnies of '78

Everyone knows nothing multiplies faster than rabbits. And, as you'll see on the following pages, our own crew of cottontails, the Playboy Bunnies, is growing larger and lovelier by--uh--leaps and bounds.

New hutches are springing up all over the place. Just over a year ago, for instance, we christened our new Dallas Playboy Club. Already, Big D Bunnies threaten to take over Playboy's annual pictorial report. Six--count'em, six--Lone Star ladies caught our roving photog's eye. Our new Playboy Casino in the Bahamas at Nassau's Ambassador Beach Hotel was opened last spring and was still expanding at presstime.(text concluded on page 164)Bunnies of '78(continued from page 131) By next month, the whole 7500-square-foot casino will be in full swing, with some of the sexiest croupiers ever to shuffle a deck. In Japan, a new Club in Osaka joined our Tokyo hutch and two more are already under discussion. Scheduled for opening during the next 12 months are a Club in Manila in the Philippines, a Club-Hotel in Costa Rica and a fantastic penthouse Club on the island of Hawaii; and we're making good progress on our Atlantic City Hotel and Casino. It's no wonder more than 160,000 new keyholders were registered last year.

But there's more to being a Bunny than attending to all those keyholders. We've found over the years that when you get a wide range of Bunnies, you also get a wide range of interests and talents, not to mention social concerns. Indeed, the most pervasive interest of the Bunnies world-wide has been helping to raise funds for a number of charitable organizations.

In New York, for instance, a softball team dubbed the Bad News Bunnies took on the city's 11th Homicide Division in a benefit game for the Guild for Exceptional Children, followed by a party at which bandleader and drummer extraordinaire Buddy Rich played.

Two of the New York Bunnies, Reily Rehn and Bibi Rebosio (honest, that's her name), took part in a Celebrity Splash for Easter Seals last June with the cast from the Broadway show Annie, the New York Jets and local media celebs.

Chicago Bunnies participated in the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities Hutchinson Fund Golf Tournament. Among the more interesting Chicago cottontails are Maynell Thomas, who takes her long-anticipated bar exams in January; Claudia Mendron, who's in her second year as a Honey Bear cheerleader for the Chicago Bears; and Michelle Pease, who, for some reason or other, has adopted a ten-foot boa constrictor.

Apparently, they're education oriented in Cincinnati. Bunny Evvie Highouse has a degree in respiratory therapy; Cleo Wilson just got her bachelor's degree in history and is off to law school; Patti Seaman has a master's degree in educational counseling; Bobbi Goodman has a sociology degree; and Lauren Kraft is a medical nuclear technician. On the sports front, keep your eye on the ladies' pro-golf circuit for Cincy Bunny Vickie Dickerson, an impressive amateur golfer who could easily turn pro soon.

Over at the Great Gorge Resort and Country Club in New Jersey, Bunnies got together a softball game for the World Hunger League.

Actually, all kinds of talent abounds at Great Gorge. Bunny Janie Cupit is soon due to receive her pilot's license and Terre Woodards regularly serenades keyholders with her renditions of popular tunes. Diane Schwehr, whom you'll find in our pictorial, proved so good at her duties that she has just been promoted to Assistant Bunny Mother; hutchmate Heaven Fulmer spent the spring in Japan prepping the new cottontail contingent for the Osaka Club.

Down in Miami, Bunnies make regular trips to the Veterans Administration Hospital to cheer patients, but keyholders get their share of cheer, too. It might be from Melissa Schiffman, who puts on disco-dancing exhibitions for the feverish Saturday-night crowd or, if you're really lucky, you can get Sabrina Barlowe to do her famous Steve Martin impression. She's a wild and cuh-razy kinda girl!

Boasting an undefeated softball season are the Bunnies of the St. Louis Club. When they played the managers of the Khoury League (children's baseball) in a special benefit game in Belleville, Illinois, they sold more than 1000 tickets. People actually camped out overnight at the ball field to await the coming of the St. Louis Bunny bunch--thanks to the local media promotion.

If you're in St. Louis, by the way, be sure to stop by and catch the cocktail hour at the Club. You'll find Bunny Heather Davis onstage body-painting a Bunny pal. It's a popular attraction and smart folks take their cameras to capture the action.

As you know, the Dallas Playboy Club is in the same office building as the Dallas Cowboys' headquarters. So, naturally, the Bunnies there play football. It's the flag variety, but even at that, the games are played for real. A recent game against a team from the JabberWocky Lounge in the LeBaron Hotel benefited the Ileitis Foundation.

The St. Louis softball contingent isn't the only road team in the Rabbit league. The girls of the Lake Geneva Resort and Country Club last summer bussed it to Brookfield, Wisconsin, where they challenged a team headed by Brookfield's mayor for the sake of Jerry Lewis' Muscular Dystrophy drive.

While you're visiting Lake Geneva, you might want to strike up a conversation with Jeryl Dezlick, who is working toward a degree in biochemistry but spends her weekends at the Resort's stables, assisting on the trail rides; or with Bunny Rebecca Steadman, who used to be an assistant golf pro. No doubt, she finds the Resort's Brute course a good way to keep in practice. If disco is your thing, look for Bunny Lesley Parker, a dance instructor from Scotland, who keeps herself in practice tripping the light fantastic in the Bunny Hutch.

Speaking of discos, by the time you read this, our Phoenix Club will have a spanking new discothèque complete with a regular "Bunny's Choice" dance feature. If Bunny Christy Brumfield chooses you as her partner, be sure to ask her about the furniture she makes for herself.

The hottest thing in pastimes among the cottontails at the Phoenix hutch is tubing--getting a rubber inner tube and floating down the Salt River. Anywhere along the bank is a good place to watch the fun.

Out in Los Angeles, the Bunnies indulge in widely varied off-duty pursuits. What do you suppose Sarah Driver does in her off hours? Times race cars for Mario Andretti, that's what. Bunny Kat Flores, who is working on a degree in criminology, will attack law soon, while Kate Hovey has a children's book due to be published. As you might expect from the Century City crowd, showbiz is in their blood. Shane Lain has appeared in a Baretta and a Quincy episode. Gayla Maxson does voice-overs for TV cartoon shows and Monique George studies opera. So many of the girls are into either modeling or acting, in fact, that a Hollywood casting director could easily fill his bills right there at the Club.

There are four Clubs in Great Britain: The Playboy Clubs of London, Portsmouth and Manchester and The Clermont Club Limited in London. More than 300 present and past Bunnies gathered in mid-July at the suburban London digs of Playboy Clubs International President Victor Lownes for a gala reunion. Among the guests: Ringo Starr, Susan George and Dudley Moore, plus a host (is that the word?) of lords and eligible bachelors. Prince Charles declined an invitation, but then, he didn't attend Princess Caroline's wedding, either. Even without him, all those in attendance said Lownes' Bunny reunion was the highlight of the season.

Obviously, if we ran down everything that everybody was doing on the entire Club circuit, we'd have to go into extra innings, er, pages. But you get the idea. The best solution is to simply invite you out to the Clubs. What do we promise? Well, if what you've seen on these pages isn't enough of an inducement, we don't know what is.

"Miami Bunnies make regular trips to the Veterans Administration Hospital to cheer patients."