The La Honda Voice

It Started at the Cuesta Pool...

Joel and Angela Mansfield met in the 1960s in La Honda. He was  a lifeguard at the pool. She and her family spent summers at their family cabin in Cuesta.  As part of the choir at Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church during the summer, Angela's mother played the organ, Joel played the mandolin and Angela sang.

 

Angela and Joel Mansfield

This year on July 29, 2012, the couple celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary at Our Lady of Refuge with a blessing at Sunday Mass and a barbecue on the church grounds afterwards. Family and friends joined the local church community in celebrating the couple's 40 years together.

Although Joel and Angela Mansfield

Father Charles and the Mansfield choir

 have lived in San Francisco for most of their married life, La Honda has always occupied a special place in their hearts. Besides driving from San Francisco twice a month to provide music for Mass at Our Lady of Refuge, they have spent hours at other times cleaning and polishing, doing general repairs and helping out with fundraisers. Their children, who are now grown and living away from home, "grew up" singing and playing instruments with their parents at Our Lady of Refuge.

Back in 1973 Joel and Angela were asked to play regularly at Our Lady of the Pillar in Half Moon Bay, where they provided music for 17 years on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. But with three children they found their life growing more hectic and time in short supply and so they

The cake was baked and decorated by Angela's sister

decided not to make the weekly drive to Half Moon Bay from San Francisco. For many years now they have "commuted" to La Honda where the whole family and now just the two of them have played and sung at least two Sundays a month. For the past 20 years they have also provided music for the children's liturgy at their local San Franscico parish --the Church of the Epiphany.

Familly and community enjoying the celebration

True to their giving nature, the couple not only supplied the music on this day, they also brought  the food and planned the anniversary celebration--right down to games that were played after lunch.

They may not reside  in La Honda but they have certainly given much to our community.

 

Local girl makes good with American Miss Cal Pageant

Excerpts by Stacy Trevenon in the half Moon Bay Review
(http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2007/05/31/community/community_news/story4.txt)
         
"La Honda resident Shailo Rae Rushing is hopping with excitement these days. The athletic, animal-loving 12-year-old was recently picked as a state finalist in the National American Miss California Pageant. The pageant, set for late June, will culminate Saturday, June 30, when the new Miss National Pre-Teen of California is crowned at the Marriott Hotel in Santa Clara. Rushing was beside herself when she learned she was in the running. "She screamed and cried and hugged me," said her mother, Rebekah Rushing of La Honda...the National American Miss pageant celebrates the country and encourages future leaders, according to its Web site. It emphasizes self-confidence, learning new skills, good attitudes about competition, achievements and setting and reaching goals. Each year, it awards 1 million in cash, scholarships and prizes to assist in the development of young women nationwide. With family-oriented and age-appropriate activities, the pageant is held for girls ages 4 to 19 in five age groups. Shailo Rushing auditioned  in Santa Clara in late March and was told by pageant officials she had what it took...On her application,  Shailo, who attends sixth grade at Pescadero Elementary School, listed soccer and swimming, shopping, Girl Scouts, drama and dancing, hanging out with friends, going to movies and theme parks, fashion, animals and music as her interests. She hopes to be an actress, her mother said, or to work toward protecting animals. "She doesn't want anybody to hurt anything that's living," her mother said. Shailo is ready for the pageant. "Of course, I hope to win," she said with poise. "But I also want to learn how to be a better lady. Have more confidence."

Local Scientist Recognized as World Expert on Quakes

Just a note of recognition: La Honda resident Carol Prentice has been published and cited in a number of recent articles, especially concerning the Centennial of the Great San Francisco earthquake, which occurred on April 18, 1906. Some examples include:

April National Geographic magazine, author Joel Achenbach said, "Scientist Carol Prentice and I scrambled through dense woods in search of something she promised would be impressive: a redwood stump split down the middle by an earthquake. I feared we wouldn't find it. We seemed lost. The forest was a mad tangle. Huffing and puffing, I turned and saw it: a stump the size of a small living room, distinctly offset in line with the San Andreas, the gap in the middle so big I could climb into it. Carol let me help take measurements, and for a moment I could pretend to be a field scientist, not just a scribbler." [http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0604/feature6/assignment1.html ]

Time magazine (week of April 10): http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1179365,00.html
"Thanks to the efforts of USGS paleoseismologist Carol Prentice and her colleagues, however, residents of the Bay Area will have a much better sense of the precise path the earthquake took. Working with old photographs, Prentice has found a number of the missing signs of 1906--abrupt jogs in fences that once straddled the rupture zone, for example--and located them on aerial photos. Among the communities bisected by the fault break is San Bruno, a city of 40,000 that borders San Francisco international airport…"

April-June edition of Bay Nature magazine (http://www.baynature.com/v06n02/v06n02s_main.html),  "Watch out for the poison oak," warns Carol Prentice as we clamber down a steep slope above the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir near Interstate 280. The freeway noise behind us begins to ebb as we descend into the valley bounded on the west side by the dark slopes of the northern reach of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Prentice stops for a moment and we look down the slope. "I have had two distinct reactions from the people I've shown the actual fault line to," she says. "They're either disappointed and say: 'What! This is it?' Or they are utterly impressed to be standing on the boundary between two of the giant plates of the earth's outer layer." I get the feeling that my guide, a research seismologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, wants to test my reaction, too. She has brought me into the valley west of Hillsborough on land owned by the San Francisco Public Utility Commission to show me one of the few traces left of the biggest natural disaster ever known to strike the Bay Area, the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906."

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/science/11quak.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (needs registration)…and many more.
Congratulations Carol!…

[Note: Jim Warren posted on the LH news group (msg #11445) this link: http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/2005/15/ ,which contains additional good information on earthquakes and preparedness]

Limey Kay Passes Away

Limey Kay Passes Away
"Limey passed away yesterday afternoon at 4:30 PM, peacefully. He had been in the VA hospital for some time. He was a very colorful character around here for many years. His wife Nancy and children are going up to his daughter, Cherie's, in Oregon for services, and will have a memorial service for his remembrance when they return." From Jim Adams (message #7785 from May 28)
See Bill Underwood's, "Welcome to Limey's Page -Putting you in the Limey Light!" at http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/4495/limeylight.html for photos of and by Limey.

Larry Whitney is finalist for the 2005 Jefferson Award for Public Service

Larry Whitney is finalist for the 2005 Jefferson Award for Public Service

"Congratulations Mr. Larry Whitney, Chief of the La Honda Fire Brigade for being a finalist for the 2005 Jefferson Award for Public Service. Knowing both Larry and Cathy he would probably frown on me publicizing this but in my book if there was ever a town hero it's him.Thanks for everything Larry and to your whole team."
From Carl Bralts Family (message #7455)