Close encounters of the celebrity kind, right in the heart of Covington.

Referring here to Fabulous Furs, the Donna Salyers firm that makes some pretty convincing fur products - coats, throws, gloves, accessories - without using real fur.

Big news over there is the recent phone call from All My Children and an order for a $299 faux lynx blanket for Susan Lucci. She'll use it in a segment airing Nov. 21.

Same day, a little while later, Universal Studios called and ordered exactly the same thing for a film name of Full Throttle, the Charlie's Angels sequel starring Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore. No telling which "Angel" will wrap up in the thing.

Oh, and royalty's getting in on the act, too. Earlier this year, after a People magazine feature on Fabulous Furs, Salyers got an order from a London address: Buckingham Palace Lane. Leading us to wonder if her highness, Queen Elizabeth II, reads People. Or maybe surfs the Net.

And look for Salyers' faux white mink throw ($189) to star in a cold-weather comforts feature in the February Home magazine.

Whew.

Boost it: So we were wondering, can anyone give Linda Andriot some help? Turns out she has 8,000 mysterious names and she'd like to track down the people who go with them.

Here's the deal: A while back, Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes turned over a boxful of papers listing the original members of his mid-'60s Beatles Boosters Club. At the time, Rhodes was a WSAI-AM disc jockey and such a Beatles fan that he brought them to town, twice.

So now, here sits Andriot, president of today's Beatles Boosters, atop all these names, wishing she could contact them and maybe sign them up for the club. Or at least get them to some functions - picnics, mixers, a pilgrimage to Liverpool, that sort of thing.

Her problem with the list is that all the names have 1964 and '65 addresses, so they're probably no good. And since most of the fans were female, many of the last names probably aren't any good either.

So she and fellow Boosters turned to the Internet and listed all the names in alphabetical order. Now she wants the original members to log on, find their listing and contact her with an update.

Go to www.beatlesboosters.tripod.com and sign in please.

Top honors: Taking a moment here for a round of applause. Clap it please for UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning School of Design director Robert Probst.

Turns out I.D. Magazine - yeah, we know, it doesn't mean much to you, but it means a heck of a lot to the world's designers - did an online survey asking professors, designers and students to name the A-list of design schools.

UC finished in the top 10, the only public university to do so. As designer Andy Kuick told the magazine, "UC features a rock-solid design education in all disciplines interspersed with `real-world' job experience."

So then, in their honor: ClapClapClap.

E-mail jknippenberg@enquirer.com