Remember When: 2002 Angora National in Oregon

Angora National 2002 was held in Oregon.  The show room was in a nice airy building.
From the picture, I could see tall Charlie in the middle and the one with back to us is Linda Rossell of WA.   There were the national plus two specialty shows. The national was judged by Cindy Wickzer, the two specialties were judged by Judy Paris and Jan Coffelt.  

This blue tort English Angora was my "major" show rabbit during those few months but she only won the Best In Show in the show judged by Judy Paris.

The white doe on the right is Chu's Charlize who won the 2002 Angora National Best In Show judged by Cindy Wickizer.   The Best In Show under Jan Coffelt was a young fawn doe shown by Linda Rossell, this fawn doe went on to win the English Angora BOB at the 2002 ARBA convention at Peoria, IL. 
As you may notice, it was not common to take a lot of photos at the time, especially not with the judge who awarded the honor.   These are the only three photos of the 2002 Angora National that I found in my collection.    

 

Remeber When: Randy Judged 2005 Angora National

The 2005 Angora National was held in CA.   Randy Shumaker judged it.   Though Randy judges in CA and all over the country and out of the country, he seldom judges the major Angora shows.  Why?  Our national club is a bit slow in confirming judges for conventions.  Randy has been contracted all the way to 2041 ARBA convention judging all different breeds but not the Angoras .  You are not reading it wrong, 2041!

Here is Charlie helping me to carry my white English Angora. Charlie has been our NCAG president for many years.  Though not as active as in the past, he is still totally supportive of our activies.   We'll be seeing him tomorrow! 

Pat Duggan is the French Angora BOB winner.

Tracy Rios gets the BOB Satin Angora.

My white doe gets the BOB English Angora and Best In Show but unfortunately a part of her was out of the photo.

Here is the full photo of the white doe, Chu's Ashka.   Ashka was also the white junior doe class winner at the 2004 ARBA convention at Providence, RI.

This was the only time Randy judged Angoras at an ARBA convention.  It was 1997, he was a farily new judge who received his license in 1996.  We were able to grab him to judge for us.   If it were today, there is no such chance unless we want to wait until 2042!

 

Remember When: Movie Set at Barbars' Ranch in 1994

Today we'll look at a few photos taken at the Tilton Ranch in 1994.   

When I started in rabbits in 1981 with a French Lop, I was very fortunate to have met Barbara Baird who became my mentor.   See:

Northern California Angora Guild: Barbara Baird Remembered

Though Barbara never raised any of the Angora breeds, she was knowledgeable, helpful and kind.  The family ran a ranch that included 2,500 acres of land that raised cattle.   The cattle raising land was high on the hills, what us visitors saw were about 5 acres that had several residential houses and many barns.   Barbara and her husband Harold had both passed away, a majority part of their ranch is currently an open space reserve, see Morgan Hill’s Historic Tilton Ranch Protected Forever  while other parts are now used for various other purposes.

In 1994, a movie scout selected the front part of the ranch to be a part of the movie set, and we were able to have a sneak peek of movie making.   The title of the movie at the time of shooting was "The Lies Boys Tell" but later when released it was retitled as "Take Me Home Again".   The stars of the movie were Kirk Douglas, Craig T. Nelson and Bess Armstrong.     

All three stars of the movie were captured in this photo that I took.   Kirk Douglas then Bess Armstrong and next to a young lady was Craig T. Nelson.

Tilton Ranch was used as the residence of Bess Armstrong who played the ex-wife of Craig T. Nelson.   Kirk Douglas played a dying old man who wanted to go back to his childhood home to die and his son Craig T. Nelson helped him to accomplish the wish.  They stopped by at the ex-wife's home to visit the grandkids.    Kirk Douglas in white walking to the van, they are leaving for the destination of Kirk Douglas's childhood home.  (The location of the home was off San Carlos Street in San Jose, the building was about to be demonished at the time, in very bad shape.  It was just walking distance away from a feed store that we sometimes visit: Sam's Downtown Feed Store.   The feedstore had closed down in December 2022 after 40 plus years in business.)

Last review of the dialog before Kirk Douglas enter the van.

Production assistant accompany Kirk Douglas to get into the van.

If you think the van is driving like how we do it, wrong.    As you can see there is a truck in front of the van with all the equipment to film and to record the dialogs. 

Craig T. Nelson in the driving seat and Kirk Douglas in the passenger seat.    In the movie, you'll see just two of them having a conversation.   For spectators outside, we saw all the wire, camera, sound equipment, .... attached to the van with a large number of crew working around the van.

Here is a close up of Craig T. Nelson and Kirk Douglas inside the van.

See how many workers surrounging the van?

This bedroom was decorated to be the grandkids' bedroom.  No shoot at this room on the day we visited.   

If you are interested, you can view the full length movie on YouTube:

 (187) The Lies Boys Tell AKA Take Me Home Again- HQ - YouTube

It has been over 30 years I had these photos in my stash.   When looking for historical photos for NARBC, I saw these photos again, thought our reader may have fun seeing them.   In case anyone wants to know whether this was the first time I visited a movie shoot, no.   I lived in Hong Kong for several years and my family had some connections to the old time Hong Kong movie studios.  I watched movie making when I was as young as 9 or 10 years old.  Then I watched movie making again about 10 years later when I return to Hong Kong for a visit.      Movie making is very slow, it takes hours and hours of repetition to make a few minutes on the screen.   These few hours in 1994 reinforced my experience of the past.

Remember When: 1999 ARBA Convention at Louisville, KY

1999 Convention was held in Louisville, Ky.  It seems that Louisville is one of the most used locations for the ARBA coventions.   I went to this location in 1995, 1999 and 2008.  In recent years, the 2022 and 2023 conventions were also held at the same venue.    This is the NARBC booth in 1999, the two ladies who are chatting are Chris Oliver and Anne Jackson.   

From left to right are Anne Jackson, Vicki Johnston and Kelly Johnston.   Anne's main breed was the Giant Angora and side breed was the English Angora.   She also did a lot of fiber activities.   Vicki Johnston was the secretary of NARBC for many years, she is organized, prompt, personable, .... just a great person and great secretary.   The t-shirt she is wearing is from the 1998 Angora National at Reno, the graphics were designed by the late Laika Rummelhoff.     Kelly Johnston won the youth Best In Show at the 1998 ARBA convention at Portland, Oregon.  This is her first open convention show.

Happy ladies: left to right are Anne Jackson, Betty Chu, Wendy Tietz, Chris Oliver, Suzanne Brady and the very right, I can't recall her name.

I was getting my English Angora doe ready for competition.   Wendy Tietz was kind enough to allow me to use her show equipment.  This is her grooming table.    Wendy has now move on to her academic career of being a Professor of Accounting at Kent State University.  

Judy Paris was the Angora judge at the 1999 convention.   I am holding the BOSB winner colored senior buck Chu's Bradley who also won BOV colored, judge Judy is holding my white senior doe Chu's Bernadette who won the BOB.  

It's customery to have a photo taken at the Heinold booth with the winners.  Left is Chu's Bradley and right Chu's Bernadette.

 

Bernadette for sure has a round of fluff ball look.   

 

Celebrating 20 Years of NCAG Blog

Twenty years ago in August 2005, we started our blog: Northern California Angora Guild Blog on Google Blogspot site.   How and why having a blog?  

Northern California Angora Guild was conceived in 1982 by three Angora lovers: Bonnie Almond, Gini Campbell and Judy Fisher.  Bonnie assumed the position of President, Gini the secretary, Judy the newsletter editor.  They recruited Sandy Kelly as the Vice President, Lil King as the treasurer and myself, Betty Chu, as one of the board members.     The club charter went into effect on Janaury 1, 1983, held a board meeting at the Sonoma Marin RA show at Santa Rosa.   I was very new, only acquired my first English Angora in 1982, I was happy to be able to help but really not sure what was going on.    

 The club started very ambiguous, there were stand-alone specialty shows, demos in big conferences, ...and published the first edition of the Northern California Angora Guild Angora Handbook.    I thought everything was going well but in 1986, just 3 years later, Bonnie, Gini, Judy and Lil all resigned.   What happened? I had no idea.   There was a meeting, the remaining people were given the choice of volunteering for these 4 jobs or the club would fold.   Sandy took the job of president, I took the job of secretary, Barbara Benjamin took the job of treasurer and Kathy Spalding took the job of newsletter editor.    Over the years, Sandy went out of rabbits but stayed on to help until the late 1990s, Barbara Benjamin left before Sandy.    Kathy revised the first edition and the club published the second edition of Angora Handbook, she stayed on as newsletter editor until 2011 when the printed newsletter ended.  Between the 1990s to the current, there has been several different presidents , vice presidents, treasurers.  I, Betty Chu, am still holding the secretary job for almost 40 years.    

During the 1980s and 1990s internet was not common, there was nothing called social media.  Information were spread via printed newsletters and books.  Our Angora Handbook was the "Bible" for Angora lovers for some 15 years.  To receive our printed newsletter, we had over 300 members all over the country and out of the country.   The $10 per year membership fee and the preceeds from book sales were more than enough to cover the cost of printing and mailing the newsletters.   In 2000s,  the internet became the place where people get information, social media started in its infancy having "lists", I recall one of the most popular one was "Showbunny" where the rabbit people shared information, helped each other and fought with each other.   Also people started to build individual websites of which I had one too.   Google offered free space to start blogs on "blogspot".   After a great show at Carol Green's place at the end of June 2005, others asked me to share some of the photos.   I thought, would it be easier to find a place to post the photos rather than trying to answer each individual requests?  On August 7, 2005, NCAG Blog was born.  See the first post:

Northern California Angora Guild: NCAG Activities

The blog started with occasional posts of our club activities only, gradually grew into posting everything relating to Angoras then to rabbits or not even related to rabbits.   In no time, it became a daily post for the next 20 years!

At the meantime, the number of people who were willing to pay to get newsletters got smaller and smaller while the printing cost and mailing cost got higher and higher.  Not only the membership and book sales income was not enough to cover the newsletter expenses, the expenses were starting to deplete the club's treasury.  In 2011 our printed newsletter was discontinued.  Our blog becomes a place where we can get news and share whatever is going on in shows and in our lives.    As of right now, there are over 7200 posts in 20 years, average more 360 posts a year, there has been over 1.5 million views.   This blog is not just for Northern California or for Angora or for show people, it is for all of the people who love rabbits, love shows, love life.    I don't know whether there will be another 20 years, but we'll try our best to keep going going and going.

 

I am Raeberta, the other Sister

Hi, Regal and Raeanna, don't forget me, I am Raeberta, your sister!

Regal forgot that I went to a show in July, I won over Regal and got BOB in my first show.

I agree with Regal that showing is a lot of fun.  Even though I had only gone to show once, I really enjoyed it.

I am telling Raeanna not to worry, not to be afraid.

All three of us will go to the show together this coming Saturday, will have fun.

This is my end.

 

Handsome Regal Continues in Shows

I am Regal, Raeanna's brother.   I have been going to shows for a while now, and I have been doing well.   Would you believe that I have won BOB over a big girl once?  No one would believe it, but it happened. 

I told Raeanna that it so much fun to be going to a show.  Mama Betty pretty me up, put me in her van and we were on our way.   I love going to shows.

  I remind Raeanna that we should also tell our sister Raeberta about shows, Raeanna says that I talk too much, told me that she will take care of herself and Raeberta, so I guess I have to say: .....  

The end.