President’s Message
by Hal Horne
It’s difficult to write about all the things that have happened in the past four years since I first became President of your Historical Society. I spent the last column talking about the future, so now’s the time to reflect on the past and to thank a lot of very special people.
Of the accomplishments I’m most proud of, two stand out. First, we’ve advanced our Reel Life in Culver City documentary project. The tremendous effort expended by Ross Hawkins and Julie Lugo Cerra has made our project known to producers, studio executives, film historians, film critics, actors, studio employees and distributors. We are optimistic that the first chapter, dealing with the period 1915-24, will be completed by mid-year. Reel Life will be an important contribution to our archive of history and to media history.
Second, the Historical Society’s standing as a tax-exempt organization has been finalized. This accomplishment will enable us to conduct more extensive fundraising and outreach in the years ahead to attain the one goal we’ve had above all others: our own museum
Along the way, we also produced and have had very healthy sales of Historic Culver City, a 30-minute video; we continued our popular city bus tours during Fiesta La Ballona; we sold hundreds of “Culver City…Heart of Screenland” license plate frames (we’re still getting orders, and every fire department vehicle in the city has one!); we continued to provide people locally and from around the country with information about our town; and we maintained excellent relationships with the City Council and staff administration, planning and redevelopment.
I’ve already mentioned the work of Julie and Ross have done on Reel Life. Their efforts also extended to other tasks, and their opinions and input were always appreciated. I also want to thank for their counsel work, discussions, disagreements and fun times: Connie Powell, Linda Edell, David Henderson, Bonnie Walsh, Lupe Smith, Cathy Zermeno, Judy Stangler, Jo Ellen Weaver, Esther Tarn, Joan Jakubowski, Sam Cerra, Lee Bixler, Ken Ruben, Edith Prager, Virgie Eskridge, Stuart Freeman, Kirk MacArthur Judy, Syd Kronenthal, Marc Wanamaker, Bob Sirchia, Todd Tipton, Susan Berg, Jody Hall-Esser, Mark Winogrond, Miriam Mack, Dora Gallo, Margaret Liu, Linda Shimada, and many, many others.
And, thank you to all the members of the Historical Society for your support. It was a fun four years of great learning and accomplishments.
I salute the incoming President and elected officers, and wish them the successes I’ve had.