Hawthorne Press Tribune Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - July 9, 2015 Food From The Bar Raises Half A Million Dollars For LA Food Bank Lawyers and legal organizations banded together for the Food from the Bar campaign, which raised $521,274 for the Los Angeles Food Bank. During the campaign, more than 11,000 pounds of food was collected and 819 hours of volunteer shifts were completed: the food will provide approximately 2,085,096 meals to those in need. Photo courtesy of LA Food Bank, lafoodbank.org. City Preps for Hall of Fame, Good Neighbors Day By Derrick Deane Nothing says “summertime” quite like The Beach Boys; and this year, the iconic surf rock band will be inducted into the Hawthorne Hall of Fame. It is just one of many events the Hawthorne Historical Society has planned for the community this summer. In addition to the Beach Boys, daredevil BASE jumper Carl Beonish, community servant Reese Walton, and “The World’s Greatest Athlete” Jim Thorpe will also be honored at a banquet held at the Memorial Center on July 17. Tickets for the event are $30 per person and are available via the Hawthorne Museum. “We have a list of roughly 90 people and we pick about five a year,” Hawthorne Historical Society president Thierry Lubenec said of the banquet which began last year. “We chose the people that we felt had the most impact to the city of Hawthorne. We have so many people to choose from that have done something for the city to help benefit it.” The Beach Boys have long held a place of reverence in the city, with the former location of Brian Wilson’s childhood home on 119th Street designated as a state landmark. The actual home was demolished in 2003 in order to make way for construction of the 105 Freeway. Meanwhile, Thorpe’s legacy with the South Bay and Hawthorne in particular are deeply rooted. The two-time gold medal winning Olympic decathlon athlete and football great lived in Hawthorne from 1946-1949 while working with a paint crew for Standard Oil. As Thorpe put it then, “Can’t keep the wife and kids in food on ancient glory.” Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox Native American tribe, also played professional baseball and basketball and remained active in the Native American community by playing a lead role in a 1935 celebration and parade in Hawthorne that attracted members from more than 100 different tribes. “I think Jim Thorpe is just more a celebration of the fact that he lived and let everybody know that he hung out here for a few years,” city clerk and Historical Society member Norb Huber said. In 1974, two decades after his death, the city of Hawthorne named a park on Prairie Avenue just north of Rosecrans in his honor. At the time of the park naming, Thorpe’s wife was working at City Hall. Among the other two inductees, Boenish is considered by many as the father of modern BASE jumping and was also a freefall cinematographer. “I don’t know if too many people know that he was pretty famous,” Huber said. “We had a friend who alerted us that Carl was a pretty well-known guy. We hadn’t selected him at first.” Boenish was killed in a BASE jump off the Troll Wall in Norway in 1984 and is the subject of the critically acclaimed 2014 documentary movie Sunshine Superman. “Carl was unique in what he did and he comes from Hawthorne,” Lubenec said as he explained why the society ended up adding him to the list of this year’s inductees. The fourth member of the Hall of Fame induction, Reese Walton, was designated by the Hawthorne City Council in 1983 to be their ambassador to the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. An estimated 50,000 people cheered Walton on as he carried the Olympic Torch down Hawthorne Boulevard just hours before the opening ceremony for the games in the L.A. Coliseum. “Reese fit the role model we look for probably more than the other inductees,” Huber said. “He may not be world famous, like the Beach Boys, but he was a true part of the community.” In addition to the human inductees, the Historical Society also includes one business each year. This year’s inductee will be Seers Lumber, which began in Hawthorne in the 1930s and has been family owned and operated ever since. Located on El Segundo Boulevard and Cordary Avenue, the business has been operating in the same location for three generations and, as the Historical Society puts it, “have kept the same customer friendly and community oriented spirit going for close to 80 years.” The day after the Hall of Fame induction will be the annual Good Neighbors Day street fair. Now in its fifth year, the community event held at the civic center will take place on July 18 and feature three bands performing as well as the annual car show early in the morning. “About the same time I came on as city clerk, this idea generated a bit from the annual parade that the city had,” Huber said. “When Walt Dixon passed away, this Historical Society formed and we were looking for an event that we could put on and do it totally away from the city funds.” The event began when one of the original Beach Boys, David Marks, reached out to say that he wanted to do a guitar seminar over at Hawthorne High School. “It went well enough the first time that we been able to continue to do it,” Huber said. “Now, instead of having it at Hawthorne High, we’ve moved it over to here.” While the event is free for the community to attend, the Historical Society raises funds through vendor booths and a car show entry fee. Owners of cars from 1975 or older are invited to participate in the show which includes trophies and a goodie bag for the first 50 entrants. Interested car owners may pick up an entry form from the Historical Society (located across the parking lot from the Hawthorne Library). The building is open Tuesdays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. “We have a celebration, people show up, we have good entertainment, a car show, a decent dinner, and time to enjoy the community,” Huber said. • Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................4 Classifieds............................2 Community Briefs...............3 Film Review..........................2 Food.......................................4 Hawthorne Happenings....2 Legals................................ 6-7 Looking Up...........................3 Police Reports.....................2 Sports....................................5 Weekend Forecast Friday Partly Cloudy 70˚/63˚ Saturday Partly Cloudy 72˚/63˚ Sunday Partly Cloudy 75˚/64˚ The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne
Haw_070915_FNL_lorez
To see the actual publication please follow the link above