From the Redwood Record of June 25, 1981
Gerry Stewart, called the founding father of the Southern Humboldt Unified School District, announced his decision not to seek another term on the school board. The Fort Seward resident had been first elected in 1947, at the same time the school district was unified. He had accumulated more than 33 years of uninterrupted years with the district.
Another original member of that board, Mal Coombs, had passed away the week previous to Stewart’s announcement. The school board had been expanded to seven members in the early sixties. School board president Allan Katz told Stewart, “The district, the community owes you a great debt.” Stewart said he would be around for a while yet.
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Two long-time veterans of the Garberville Rodeo took one last turn down Garberville’s main street on Saturday morning and then eased into retirement. Clarence French of Garberville and his favorite mare, Trample, finished their 24th year together in as many rodeo parades. Raised by French from a colt, Trample was 28 years old and shared with French the honor as Grand Marshall of the 1981 rodeo parade. Born in 1905 in Loleta, French was reared on a
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Support for undergrounding Garberville’s utility lines, given by public officials and private citizens at a meeting in town last week, will help clench the trenching of some of downtown’s ubiquitous wires, according to a county spokesman.
Though the streets will not actually be dug up, nor the poles and their lines felled for almost two years, all signals are currently go for the over $400,000 project, discussed for nearly a decade. The discourse was brought to a point of resolution when the county undergrounding subcommittee of the Board of Supervisors told Garberville undergrounding proponents to let the county know by June whether or not the business community and citizens backed the project. Currently, Garberville enjoys top priority with the county for undergrounding. The Chamber of Commerce has acted as mediator between the county and the utilities and the businesses of Garberville, which will fund the project. PG&E, Continental Telephone, and the local cable TV franchise was set to pick up the tab for the main trenching. An underground district would be formed in Garberville and the Board of Supervisors will schedule a hearing on the matter.
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A recent letter from the federal government to the county announced that the feds did not plan to enforce federal flood act regulations on trailers and motor homes parked on flood plains in Myers Flat. Myers Flat had found itself in the limelight after the county planning department red-tagged for removal some 30 trailers on the flood plain. The county had been told by a state agency of the many trailers parked there in violation of federal flood insurance program guidelines. According to the interpretation of the program’s rules, permits were no longer to be issued for year-round habitation of the flood plain, except for those already issued which were “grandfathered” in. Owners of the trailers had gone to the county to plead their case and were allowed to remain in place while the county studied the matter. However, the letter from the feds was seen as a cause to discontinue enforcement and allow the trailers to remain.
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Finally, 40,000 steelhead fry were deposited at the rearing ponds at the mouth of Sprowel Creek, southwest of Garberville. Some 70,000 will be slipped into the two ponds there this summer, with an additional 30,999 being readied for deposit at a sister site near the Chimney Tree south of Phillipsville. A photograph accompanying the notice shows Jim Johnson hand-casting food into the pond for the fry.
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