Portrait of a True Bruin family

Think your family's the blue-and-goldest? Hold Roxanne Neal and Chris Palomo's Bruin bear … er, beer.

The married UCLA College alumni, who collectively served 61 years as professional staff before retirement, laugh about how deep their UCLA connection goes - and how Neal, as an assistant dean for New Student Academic Programs, would joke about it during orientations.

"When I would do presentations at the parent sessions, I would mention Chris' and my connections, and that our son Brendan also graduated from here," she said. "Then I'd point to our dog Clara and say, 'Oh, she's a Bruin, too.'"

Neal wasn't kidding. The family's yellow Labrador retrievers have participated in UCLA Health's People-Animal Connection, or PAC, where trained volunteer teams (a human and therapy dog or miniature horse) bring comfort to those in need, from stressed students on campus to patients at the Westwood and Santa Monica medical centers.

Becoming a super Bruin wasn't something Neal set out to do. When the first-generation college student arrived on campus, she could only think about keeping her head and finances above water, while juggling her schoolwork with campus jobs.

But as Neal became more enmeshed in the fabric of the campus, she saw the beauty in the idea of service to the university. Lena Brown, assistant director for UCLA undergraduate admissions - and one of Neal's supervisors - gave the history major some transformative advice.

"She said, 'We work here because of the students,'" Neal said. "I was a sophomore, but I embraced that idea for the rest of my career."

Helping students became a big part of Neal's Bruin legacy. Through her work welcoming new Bruins, she reached more than 230,000 incoming first-year and transfer students - and more than 60,000 of their family members.

That inspired Palomo. The two met via their shared love of rock climbing, bonded over long conversations up and down mountains, and eventually married. When looking for a career change, Palomo saw how much his wife enjoyed her work. So he applied for and got an information technology job on campus.

"The people at UCLA - especially the students and faculty - are such a special community, they made me want to be a part of it," he said. "Roxanne and I talked about me going back and getting my college degree, but I was worried because I was older and came away from high school not sure that I could ever be college material."

After taking a night class at Santa Monica College, Palomo was so engaged and excited that he kept signing up for more. He eventually transferred to UCLA, where he double-majored in anthropology and art history while he and Neal worked on campus full time - as well as off campus, as new parents.

"My very first memory of UCLA was when I was very little, hanging around with the counselors at orientation," said their son, Brendan Palomo. "It was like having a lot of older siblings. My parents had such pride for UCLA that it was natural for me to have it, too. That's why when it was time to apply to college, UCLA was my first choice by far."

In love with music since attending UCLA Lab School and hearing its orchestra rehearse, Brendan ended up in the first class to graduate from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music with a degree in music history and industry.

The family even found a way to include Brendan's "sister" - their dog, Clara. While working at UCLA, Neal was so moved when she learned about the PAC program that she and the banana-loving Clara went through training to become volunteers. When Clara died, her watermelon-preferring sister Opal stepped in.

Even after retirement, Neal and Opal continue to volunteer. Opal has visited every floor of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, helping reduce anxiety in patients, from the UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital to the emergency room to the intensive care unit.

"I see every day how you can't overstate the impact of the People-Animal Connection," Neal said. "We had a patient in the cardiac care unit who was too anxious to get the surgery she needed. After a visit with Opal, who cuddled her for quite some time, the patient called over to her husband, 'Tell the doctor I'm ready now.'"

Even if they're no longer on campus daily, giving back to the Bruin community remains important to all the members of the family. Sharing their UCLA story is helping them redefine what "Bruin family" means.

While Roxanne and Opal are his Bruin family, Palomo says, when he worked on campus, the staff and faculty in his departments were also his Bruin family.

"Now that Roxanne and I are retired and traveling around, we're visiting Bruins that we both know who live in other countries and all over, and they're our Bruin family, too," he said. "Being in the Bruin family - all of our Bruin families - never stops expanding our world and what we can give back to it."

See Opal and her true Bruin family in action here!

Tags: alumni | UCLA campus | students | health