What! No Tie? So Goes Tradition

That loud crash you just heard was the toppling of a 108-year-old tradition.

Come Jan. 1, 1997, the Rainier Club, the ivied Seattle social club on Fourth Avenue, will allow members and their guests to dine while wearing "casual business attire." Ties and coats - always the rule in every dining room - will not be required except in the formal Heritage Dining Room on the third floor.

The Rainier Club's board of trustees approved the relaxed dress code after several months of discussion. The change - revolutionary for a club that accepted women members only in 1977 - comes in response to member complaints that they were unable to invite casually dressed guests. Several have resigned.

The amended house rules spell out the new dress code. While in the clubhouse, coats and ties (turtleneck and ascots are acceptable) for men and business or social attire for women still are required.

But, in designated member dining rooms, in private dining rooms or for sporting events, "business casual attire" is permitted. It is defined as "a collared shirt for gentlemen, no denim, no athletic wear, no athletic shoes or shorts." (Athletic wear is permitted going to and from the health club.)

In other words, still no T-shirts or torn jeans, but the new code is quite a step for a club that, well into the 1970s, required women to enter through a side door and dine in a separate dining room.

What's up, doc? The Group Health executive committee has been interviewing candidates for one of the HMO's top positions, that of medical director. Sources say the search is down to a field of four finalists, including one local prospect and one woman.

The search is proceeding with maximum secrecy. It's so hush-hush that candidates were stashed in separate downtown hotels while the committee traveled, en masse, from hotel to hotel.

Commented one observer, "You'd have thought they were going Christmas caroling."

Basketball mom: Sen. Patty Murray, who stands barely 5 feet tall, not only is a soccer mom, but also a volunteer basketball coach. Tonight, she will coach the Everett High School girls' varsity basketball team in a home game against the Cascade High School team, a traditional rival.

Murray planned to don her trademark athletic shoes, deliver a pre-game pep talk and sit on the bench along with the team.

Murray is a longtime women's basketball fan. (You should hear her cheer for the Seattle Reign.)

Incomparable: Those who attended the Bette Midler concert Friday night are still raving over the performance and about Midler's enthusiasm for the restored Paramount Theatre.

Midler said: "This is one of the most beautiful houses - no, make that THE most beautiful house - I've ever performed in. I want to thank Ida Collins, Ida Cox, whatever her name is. (It's Ida Cole.) People in Seattle should kiss her tokhis."

Moving experience: The 4-year-old and her dad, a Tukwila resident, were watching the telecast of the Seattle Mariners press conference Saturday.

Told the baseball team might be moving, the tot asked, "To a house?"

When her baseball-fan dad stopped laughing at that notion, the 4-year-old had another theory. She persisted: "To Burien?"

Jean Godden's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the Local News section of The Times. Her phone is 464-8300.