Welcome to Torrey Pines GullsBozorn Byrd – Modeler of the Year - 1982
With the departure of Pepper Kay as Club President, a largely new crew took over the reins for 1982 including Dave Watson as president, Forrest Simmons as Vice President, and others including Steve Neu as Membership chairman, and Steve Manganelli as Secretary. Pepper continued on as newsletter editor, although the first issue of 1982 was a “January-February” issue indicating that it was perhaps difficult to round up the troops after the holidays.
The club found itself going through several transitions all at the same time. The core group of older individuals who had helped form the club as mentors were either passing on or passing the reigns of mentorship to others. The younger core group now found themselves in club leadership roles. There was also a continued dichotomy in the club of thermal or slope (it really should have been thermal AND slope but for whatever reason, the two camps rarely overlapped). There was also a dichotomy about the importance of competitions vs. simply enjoying the hobby for fun with perhaps fun fly events as “important” as they get. Pepper Kay in particular did his best at trying to represent all of these views in the newsletter, stressing the importance of “AND” rather than “OR” when it comes to these decisions – There is a place for competition just as there is a place for relaxation.
Flying at Torrey Pines was becoming increasingly onerous, with additional growth of hang gliders, and City interest in rules and regulations. The City required a Flight Director to be at the site monitoring flight safety and the Gulls worked hard to preserve a safe and fun flying environment for everyone.
In the early 1980s, “Bozo the Clown” was making a sort of resurgence of popularity through syndication on this new thing called “cable TV”. Thus the term “bozo” was more common in the local vernacular of the time – and as newsletter editor, Pepper used the term more than once. But, in the August 1982 newsletter, Pepper provided a write up of the TPG SC2 contest that he had run as contest director:
“2 gliders were lost on launch, with a 3rd making a beautiful flight which ended in a tree, sans radio. Other than that, not even the famous Hourglass 00-grit landing surface, seemed to take much toll of planes or pilots. One bozo, who shall remain nameless, began whining about the scoring, halfway through the 2nd round, with a result being all scores for the 2nd round having to be re-computed, and this new method incorporated for round 3. The humor of the situation becomes apparent, when you learn that said bozo dropped from XX place to YY place, in the final standings.”
Readers today need to remember that others in the club, such as Al Doig had a dry wit, and so did Pepper, but the above description was not seen as humorous to all, especially the member who was “bozo.” Pepper left the club soon after this, reportedly due to a lack of free time as a real estate agent, but truly more as the result of this incident. The club was now left without a newsletter editor. As incoming president, Dave Watson now found himself in the unusual place of having to mend fences between those who took competition “sort of” seriously and those who took competition “very” seriously, while also searching for a new newsletter editor, and producing one every month… Dave Watson flew at both Torrey and Hourglass but mostly enjoyed flying for fun rather than competition.
For instance, Dave Watson was one of the earlier members to adopt and interest in simply flying scale sailplanes just to enjoy their grace. Then, in November of 1982 just when fences were being mended, the club lost its club meeting location – the second story of the San Diego Federal Bank on Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla. The club had met there for many years, nearly since the time of its inception. Losing it was a huge blow. Dave Watson initiated contact with the San Diego Air and Space Museum about seeing if the club could meet there instead.
The newsletters began to make fun of the crazy situation by listing the position of “R\&D” in the list of board directors with the word “BOZO” as the person in charge of that position. Meanwhile, Steve Manganelli resigned as Secretary, was replaced by Bob Maldonado for a time in that role before John Brunner agreed to serve as Secretary while Bob Maldonado moved to Cliff Coordinator. It seemed that just about everything that could happen to the club was all happening in just one year. The January 1983 issue cover had a clear “No Bozo” sign on the front as a way of hopefully ridding the club of these demons. If Dave Watson could have found a Bozo the Clown voodoo doll, he probably would have used it.
Steve Neu very kindly took the reins as club President in 1983 during this tumultuous time. David Watson wrote a personal note to the membership in the January 1983 newsletter “It was a long year with many problems, but we made it. Many of the problems continue however and I hope the new board will receive the same excellent support the 82 board had.” Given no one else stepped up, David Watson volunteered to be newsletter editor in 1983 and remain in service to the club.
By March 1983 it was announced that the club had finally come to an agreement with the San Diego Air and Space Museum to have monthly meetings there. It actually probably was a good thing that there was a hiatus in the club monthly meetings as that allowed cooler heads to prevail with a fresh start in this new location. New meetings helped get everyone in the club back on the same page – we are all in this to enjoy RC soaring in many forms, and not about saying which type is “better” than another, or about calling each other names in the newsletter!
As a result of all of the difficulties of 1982, the club elected to present the Modeler of the Year trophy to a fictitious “Bozorn Byrd.” It just as easily could have gone to Dave Watson for surviving 1982 as club president among all the turmoil but I bet Dave would have still wanted the trophy to honor Bozo instead. It was just that kind of year.