Bill Edmonds

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It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Bill Edmonds.

Bill and Lynn began their life together serving in Venezuela in the Peace Corp in 1964, an exciting time for the newly married couple. While there they adopted two little girls and would go onto have two more children.

Bill graduated from UC Berkeley with a Masters and worked in Community Organizing for 8-years with the YMCA. While at Berkeley he was on the track & field team, starting what would become a life-long passion. For years he was an official with the NCAA, travelling across the US to college track events, an activity Lynn said he loved. He began his teaching career in Lynwood before coming to Fillmore, where he taught from 1984 to 1996 at Sespe Elementary.

He was a member of the Fillmore Lions Club since 1984, serving several times as President. Bill was also the chairperson of the Lions Student Speaker Contest since 1987, just retiring in February of this year.

Bill was an avid Wizard of Oz Club member, collecting memorabilia and 1st editions of the popular L Frank Baum series.

Together Bill and Lynn raised their four children, though they unofficially adopted two more girls, taking them into their home for 12 years. Other youngsters were invited into their family at different times, and that shared love of family is the Edmunds’ true legacy. Lynn said Bill was always “very open and giving, very accepting and loving” about having the house full of children. The names of their children are: Petra, Carmen Felicia, Bill, Jon , Maria de Carmen and Maria Guadalupe. “Each of our children have added to our lives in amazing ways. Bill delighted in watching musicals with them, going to sporting events, coaching their softball teams, celebrating their lives as they grew up, each in very different ways,” said Lynn.

Bill and Lynn also have nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

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Lynn is out of town, spending time with her family, but she was kind enough to send the following memories of Bill to the Gazette to share with the community that loved and respected him.

“As I am contacted by persons who are offering their condolence, I am amazed by the number of people that knew Bill closely. He knew many people that I didn’t even know that he knew and considered him a good friend.

Bill and I were married in 1964 and had been moved by President Kennedy’s words to “not ask what the country can do for you, but for what you can do for the country”. In response we joined the Peace Corps seven days after we were married and after training in Massachusetts, we moved to Caripito, Venezuela where we were assigned to teach Physical Education in the local high school, Liceo Monagas. With our faltering Spanish and our lack of understanding of the culture, it was difficult. Bill was well prepared for the assignment as he had been a PE major at UC Berkeley, but I was not. Every day he taught me the lesson that I would teach the next day and we both then researched the vocabulary that we would need to teach the lesson.

The high school at that time was run similar to colleges in the United States. The students would all arrive at school at 8 but many wouldn’t have a class until 10 or later. Their classes were spaced irregularly, so there were always students roaming the campus and it became the habit of many of those roaming to go to the outside bleachers to watch the “gringos” teach. Many of the students were delightful, supportive, and caring but some were out to heckle and abuse us. They would shout profanities, throw items onto the court, and interfere in our lessons to the best of their ability. This was a challenging time for us. Bill simply ignored it, but I was miserable. Every day I told Bill that I wanted to return to the USA. Every day he answered with the same phrase; “I understand how miserable you feel, and you certainly have the right to return. I’ll take you to the airport and see you when my tour of duty ends, and I return”. I stayed one more day an additional 634 more days and now consider it a major and enduring turning point in my life. This story is to me an example of his love but also his drive to make the world a better place in our small way as well as cementing our relationship. We both felt that our time in the Peace Corps improved and changed us much more that we changed Venezuela.

Bill carried his drive to improve not only himself, but his community. He celebrated the service and multiple ways that the Lions Club interacted with the community through the Peace Poster Contest, the Student Speaker Program, and the Scholarship for high school seniors.

Bill enjoyed teaching and often invited his students to go to movies, athletic games, museums, and hikes with us. He would load five or six students into the bed of his small pickup (impossible to do now) and head out. One day I was waiting for him at the Fillmore High School bleachers to watch the Santa Paula/Fillmore game and he and his students came up the steps to sit with me. I heard one of the fans say, “Here comes Bill Edmonds with his flock of chickens.”

Bill would often be found with his dog, Oreo, at Starbucks, going to the Union Bank, walking around town. He loved animals and over the years we had multiple pets, most of them rescues, including dogs, cats, fish, parrots, miniature rabbits, Indian Runner ducks and chickens. When we lived in Downey, we had a rooster that would wake the neighbors much earlier than they wanted to be awakened, so Bill decided to quiet his crowing. Every night he put the rooster in a cage and then loaded 10 blankets tucked around it. He then added wooden sides and a wooden top. We could still hear the muffled crowing, but we thought that the neighbors were saved. When we moved to Fillmore we gave the rooster to a friend that had a ranch...much to the delight of the neighbors who told us that they still heard his muffled crowing in spite of all Bill’s attempts to quiet it.”

Bill passed away quietly at home, surrounded by his family and loved ones.

To honor his life and legacy, Friends and Admirers were invited to Bill and Lynn’s home in Fillmore on Saturday, August 8th to drive thru/walk up and contribute to a remembrance table that was set up in the front yard (inset). They were welcome to bring a note or item associated with Bill to honor him. Please consider making a donation to One Step a La Vez (PO Box 192, Fillmore, CA 93016), the Fillmore Lions Club Scholarship Fund, or to a charity of your choice in Bill’s name.

“Thank you for having a special place in Bill's big heart. He truly loved his family, friends, and his community”. With gratitude, Lynn and family.

On 7/24/2020 at approximately 1:34pm, Santa Paula Police Dispatch received a call of shots fired in the area of Peck Rd and Telegraph Rd. Patrol Officers responded and located evidence of a shooting. SPPD Detectives and Special Enforcement Officers responded to the area to investigate. While on scene, SPPD was notified of a gunshot victim at Ventura County Medical Center. Detectives responded to VCMC and contacted the victim, a 25 year old male. During the investigation it was learned that a car to car shooting had taken place with one male subject sustaining a non-life threating gunshot wound. Through the investigation a suspect was identified as 21 year old Alec Ochoa. SPPD Detectives and Special Enforcement Officers conducted a search warrant of Ochoa’s residence with the assistance of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department SWAT team. Ochoa was taken into custody without incident. Anyone with information regarding the shooting is asked to contact Detective Dan Potter at (805) 525-4474 Ext 287 or dpotter@spcity.org.

NATURE OF INCIDENT: Attempt Murder
DATE AND TIME: 07/24/20 1334 hours
LOCATION: 800 block E Telegraph Rd.
VICTIM(S): Male Adult Age: 25 City of Residence Santa Paula
SUSPECT(S): Alec Ochoa Age: 21 City of Residence Fillmore
PREPARED BY: (a)Detective Sergeant Dan McCarthy
CONTACT PERSON: Detective Dan Potter
APPROVED BY: Commander Scott Varner

Advanced Beef Showmanship Champion Kayla Carrillo Fillmore FFA
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Novice Beef Showmanship Champion Alex Avila Fillmore FFA
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Advanced Goat Showmanship Brooke Allen Sespe 4-H
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Advanced Swine Showmanship Champion Jordyn Blankenship Fillmore FFA
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Junior Goat Showmanship Champion Jennifer Olivera Bardsdale 4-H
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Novice Lamb Showmanship Champion Emma Ramos Fillmore FFA
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Pygmy Goat Showmanship Champion Ethan Zavala Sespe 4-H
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Submitted by Pam Klittich of Fillmore FFA

On Friday, August 7th the Fillmore FFA hosted a virtual Showmanship Day. Due to COVID-19 restrictions instead of hosting the annual show live Ag teachers Veronica Lemus and Pam Klittich set up a website where local youth could virtually compete with their livestock animals in showmanship. The show was open to any FFA, 4-H, Grange, or Independent youth who lived within the Fillmore and Piru community. Competitors entered with videos of them and their livestock looking and acting their best. Videos were sent to outside judges in the livestock industry and were placed in their class. Many of the livestock will be sold on Saturday, August 15th in the 2020 Junior Livestock Virtual Auction hosted through 805agkids.com. Fillmore FFA strongly encourages anyone interested in buying, adding-on, or supporting these youth livestock projects to go to 805agkids.com and click on the BUY button. The results of the 2020 Fillmore FFA Showmanship day were as follows; Advanced Beef Showmanship: Champion Kayla Carrillo/Fillmore FFA, 2nd Juan Jimenez/Fillmore FFA, 3rd Michael Frost/Fillmore FFA. Novice Beef Showman: Champion Alex Avila/Fillmore FFA. Novice Lamb Showmanship: Champion Emma Ramos/ Fillmore FFA, 2nd Erika Luis/Fillmore FFA, 3rd Vicente Lopez/Fillmore FFA. Advanced Swine Showmanship: Champion Jordyn Blankenship/Fillmore FFA, 2nd Ryan Gonzalez/Fillmore FFA, 3rd Natalie Parrish/Fillmore FFA, 4th Paul Smith/Fillmore FFA, 5th Della Alamillo/Fillmore FFA. Junior Swine Showmanship: Champion Jessika Aguilar/Sespe 4-H, 2nd Miguel Rincon/Sespe 4-H, 3rd Gabriella Bingham/Bardsdale 4-H, 4th Zachariah Garcia/Sespe 4-H, 5th Mathew Zavala/Sespe 4-H. Novice Swine Showmanship: Champion Alanna Garcia/Fillmore FFA, 2nd Marcelo Perez/Simoore Grange, 3rd Maribel Ruiz/Simoor Grange, 4th Holly Parrish/Bardsdale 4-H, 5th Landyn Long/Simoore Grange. Advanced Goat Showmanship: Champion Brooke Allen/Sespe 4-H, 2nd Jashua Olivera/Bardsdale 4-H, 3rd Michael Olivera/Bardsdale 4-H. Junior Goat Showmanship: Champion Jennifer Olivera/Bardsdale 4-H. Novice Goat Showmanship: Champion Sophia Michel/Sespe 4-H, 2nd Bibiano Hernandez/Fillmore FFA, 3rd Gisel Arrendondo/Fillmore FFA, 4th Arianna Vargas/Sespe 4-H. Pygmy Goat Showmanship: Champion Ethan Zavala/Sespe 4-H, 2nd Isabella Zavala/Sespe 4-H, 3rd Mathew Zavala/Sespe 4-H.

Home Entertainment circa 1909.
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Harmonson and Rood Orchestra.
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Star Theatre.
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Wilmer Akers Music Box.
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Courtesy of Fillmore Historical Museum

Did you ever wonder why so many of the old photos showed mom, dad and a couple of children in their simple living room gathered around the piano, daughter playing the piano, dad playing a violin and the rest singing or just enjoying the music?

In those days entertainment was a do it yourself project. Playing the piano was almost a required skill. There was no TV, no radio. Fillmore didn’t even have electricity until 1907 when electric lights came to Central Ave. and were installed between Richard Stephens’ store on the southwest corner and Harmonson and Rood store on the south east corner of Central.

So, in the evening families and friends gathered around the piano and entertained themselves. The violin or fiddle as it was often called was also popular. It was transportable. Having a party? Invite someone who could play the fiddle and dancing ensued. Taking a long trip such as a wagon train west, don’t forget the fiddle.

One of the earliest entertainment venues here was the Bardsdale Social Hall on Ventura St. just north of the Methodist church in Bardsdale south of the Santa Clara River. Saturday nights in 1893 found the oil crews down from the hills and ready to party. There was a small band, the Harmonson and Rood band, and, of course, dancing. It went very well for a time until the local minister up the street decided to have a visiting preacher for a revival meeting. When the preacher, a woman, found out that that wonderful band that entertained in her revival meeting had the night before entertained the partiers down the street she put up such a fuss that the local minister never again could have that band play for church. Too bad because the band was good and had played for free.

In 1894 Richard Stephens repurposed a packinghouse north of a vacant lot on Central Ave. and Main St. for a theater which he called naturally, “Stephens Hall”. Stephens used packing boxes left from the packinghouse for seats and built a 3 foot stage in one corner. A variety of traveling shows performed in the Hall. These included minstrel shows, a traveling hypnotist, Pavilla Comedy Company and, for the teenagers of the time, social dances by printed invitations to “Yourself and Your Lady”. He eventually built a store on the lot south of the theater. Today it is the location of La Estrella market. You can still see his name in the tiles at the front entrance of the store on Main St. The theater is long gone but can be seen in old photos of Central Ave.

The first real theater built in town was the Star Theater. It was built by Wilmer Akers in about 1900 in the 300 block of Fillmore St. It was a vaudeville house and silent movie palace. In 1902 Akers purchased a giant music box which played a 27” disc. That music box is still playing and can be heard at the Fillmore Historical Museum.

By the teens, Fillmore was awash in entertainment not all of it welcomed. The Fillmore Herald in September, 1913, noted that The California Carnival Company was headed for town. They had visited Fillmore twice before and had apparently found the locals “easy pickins”. The sheriff and the city fathers called the carnival “loathsome” and they were told in no uncertain terms to find some other place to go. They were advertising something called “Barbary Coast Attractions.” One can only imagine!

According to an early story by museum founder, Edith Jarrett, Medicine Shows often set up for business on Main St. near Central Ave. One in 1909 displayed pickled tapeworms, roundworms, and unidentifiable pieces of anatomy making the audience queasily in need of his medication. The barker, dressed in a gaudy velvet vest, sold pain killers and a variety of cure-alls. The “doctor” entertained by playing a banjo, tossing out silver dollars and when the audience was completely taken in by the show, began to curetoothaches or other pains by using a little of his magic medicine. By the time he was finished he had sold out of wares, mostly laudanum in a syrup, and was ready to quickly move on to another town.

There was also less formal entertainment. Fishing, hiking, swimming and hunting were popular. There were two “pool halls”. Church activities kept bored youngsters from getting into trouble. Although with all the work kids did in those days on the farm, being bored was not generally a childhood problem.

In 1911, Merton Barnes came to Fillmore and leased the new Brinley building on the North West end of Central and Sespe. His “Empire” theater had a sloping floor and a screen. He hand lettered glass plates for a fee for local businesses and showed them on the screen using a “magic lantern”. (Advertising obviously has been around since the beginning of entertainment.)Vaudeville was the popular entertainment of the day with comedy, singing and dancing acts. But Barnes also showed the latest craze, motion pictures. The serial, “The Perils of Pauline” was shown in 1914. He also booked William S. Hart movies. (Many of you may remember the theater in the 1940s and 50s, known then as The Palm Theater.)

Barnes moved across the street in 1917 when he built the Barnes Theater on a lot which had been the location of Leon Hammond’s home. The theater had 500 seats and was state of the art with a stage door at the back for scenery, a trapdoor in the stage floor,and an orchestra pit. In addition to silent movies, it was used for musical recitals and vaudeville road shows. One of the major events at the theater in 1919 was a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest. Boys dressed up like Charlie Chaplin complete with moustaches, hats and canes. Gerald “Sadie” Davis won the contest and received $1.00 Ingersoll watch. Today the theater is vacant waiting for some creative individual to find a new use for it.

So the next time you are bored and in need of entertainment, look beyond the internet, cable or TV and remember how for most of history people entertained themselves and had a wonderful time doing it.

Opposition builds at the approach of the August 14 deadline for the public to comment on the Forest Service’s proposal to log trees and grind up chaparral along six miles of the prominent ridge known as Pine Mountain, deep in the Ventura County backcountry.

Local tribal groups, businesses, elected representatives, and members of the public, from Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties, and beyond, have submitted well over 10,000 comments to the Forest Service opposing its proposal to remove old-growth trees and chaparral across 755 acres—the equivalent of 575 American football fields—without an environmental assessment.

The project, located in some of the most diverse and unique habitats in the region, has received many times more comments than any single project proposed in the Los Padres National Forest. Concerns include the avoidance of appropriate environmental study and examination of alternatives normally required for such projects under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), disturbance of cultural sites, damage caused to a much-loved recreation area, impacts to sensitive plant and animal species, increased wildfire risks, weakening of the forest’s ability to adapt to climate change, and the possibility that the project will be conducted by a commercial logging company.

Signatures continue to be collected on a letter, already signed by over 30 area businesses including Patagonia, Toad & Co., outfitters, wineries, and breweries, that opposes the project based on the benefits that Pine Mountain ridge provide to the region’s economy and quality of life.

Nearly 70 environmental and social justice organizations have signed onto a separate letter challenging the Forest Service’s lack of collaboration and the skirting of NEPA studies. The letter also questions the efficacy of remote vegetation clearing to protect distant communities from wildfire.

“Our primary concern is the project’s lack of attention and near total insensitivity to the potential impact to Chumash cultural values and resources,” wrote Julie Tumamait-Stenslie, Chair of the Barbareno/Ventura Band of Mission Indians.

Chumash tribes including the Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians and Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, and elected officials including Congressmembers Julia Brownley and Salud Carbajal, Ventura County Supervisors Linda Parks and Steve Bennett, and Ojai mayor John Johnston have submitted letters to the Forest Service also calling for further environmental review and public engagement.

“I understand, the U.S. Forest Service’s own assessment of potential and existing fuel breaks in the southern Los Padres National Forest ranks this project as 118 out of 163 in terms of priority. Given the project’s low priority, it is unclear to me why this project has been selected to bypass complete environmental analysis,” said Representative Brownley of California’s 24th Congressional District, where thousands of Pine Mountain advocates live.

Despite its massive scale, the Forest Service intends to fast-track the project by categorizing it as “forest health and fuels reduction” to bypass requirements under the NEPA to conduct a detailed study of potential impacts on the area’s unique ecosystems, as well as to consider alternatives that may be more effective and less harmful. The agency has admitted that the project will do little to aid in fighting the type of fires that cause the vast majority of damage to communities each year. Further, vegetation removal projects can increase wildfire risk by removing fire-resistant trees, increasing heating and drying of the forest floor, and spreading non-native invasive grasses and weeds that ignite more easily and spread wildfire more quickly.

“The City of Ojai would recommend promoting defensible space requirements near homes rather than logging special and invaluable old growth forests of Pine Mountain,” stated a letter signed by Mayor Johnston

Over one-third of the project area is proposed for wilderness protection under the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act (H.R. 2199), approved in a bipartisan vote by the House of Representatives on February 12, 2020 and which waits approval in the Senate, and further included in the National Defense Authorization Act which will go to conference committee between the two houses in the coming weeks.

“Much of the project area is in its natural state, evolved over time without the disturbance of heavy modern machinery. Once trees are cut and the landscape is scarred by a project like this, the wilderness quality of the place is ruined,” said ForestWatch advocacy director Rebecca August. “We hope that those who have not yet spoken make their voices heard before it’s too late.”

The Forest Service will accept comments on the project until August 14. This may be the only opportunity the public will have to weigh in with concerns. To submit a comment online or learn more about the project, visit ProtectPineMountain.org

Bill Edmonds

Dear Fillmore Community, it is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our Bill Edmonds. To honor his life and legacy, we are inviting you to our home at 248 4th St. this Sat, Aug 8th between the hours of 8am to 11am to drive thru/walk up and contribute to a remembrance table that'll be set up in our front yard. You're welcome to bring a note or item that you associate with Bill. We'd appreciate if you added a brief message with your item that explains its significance. If you'd like to keep your thoughts associated with your remembrance private, please write "private" on you item or note. If you'd like the item returned please put a sticker or masking tape with your name and the word "return" on it.

We will be making a short video to share with you about the remembrance items. Please leave us your email when you come so we can share the link.

We look forward to seeing you. Thank you for having a special place in Bill's big heart. He truly loved his family, friends, and his community. With gratitude, Lynn and family.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to One Step a La Vez (PO Box 192 Fillmore, CA 93016) or to the Fillmore Lions Club Scholarship Fund.