HOOKED ON HISTORY: Library director Peggy Conaway is hoping to snare a national leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to complete the job of digitizing the history of Los Gatos and to preserve the historical—and very perishable—materials that are part of the library's collection.
Rita Baum has been working with Conaway to put together a winning, irresistible 70-page application. The grant and project are being pursued in conjunction with the History Museum of Los Gatos, whose head is Laura Bajuk. She's the project archivist. Paul Kopach is project manager and Maureen Roll is system administrator. Volunteers helping out include former Mayor Egon Jensen, Frank Gualtieri, Lyn Dougherty and Doris Keh. Members of this group are often found sequestered in the tight confines of the History Room.
The project is expected to be a model for other Los Gatossized towns. So, as usual, Los Gatos is leading the pack. So fetching is the grant description of Los Gatos that one feels sorrow for anyone not living here.
The grant title is "Hooked on History: Using New Technology to Bring the Past Alive—The Los Gatos Library-Museum Small Town Model."
NEW TITLE: Artist/designer Jade Bradbury has been appointed history curator of the Forbes Mill History Museum. The new post means a broader set of responsibilities than the old title, exhibit curator. Bradbury guest-curated a Gold Rush exhibit at Forbes two years ago.
She guest-curated the first show at the new downstairs gallery at the Art Museum of Los Gatos, a tribute to the Beats, particularly Neal Cassady, who lived in Los Gatos. Bradbury taught high school English and art and coached debate teams and drama students.
She's worked on documentary films and TV productions, from voice-overs to scriptwriting, also serving stints as story editor and segment producer. Other titles include editor's assistant for a book publisher and a reader and researcher for movies.
She's written for National Press Service and the Los Angeles Times, as well as Bay Area papers. She will be part of Silicon Valley Open Studios May 1 and 2 at her studio at Alameda Artworks. She's also a member of the Gateway Design Project, a group that's involved in designing signage for the town's opening arteries.
TENNIS (SHOES) ANYONE?: Barb and Vic Ulmer, co-directors of Our Developing World, will be taking suitcases full of gently used tennis shoes to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam this summer and will return with bags stuffed full of native crafts from those countries.
The Ulmers will lead a Reality Tour for a group of 10 from July 17 to Aug. 8. "We take people from 18 to 95 if they are flexible and want to see for themselves how people live and help each other make a better life," Barb says. "We promise a non-Hilton adventure that will bring them home energized and full of hope."
The shoes will be used for land-mine survivors. Our Developing World is a Saratoga nonprofit educational project whose email is odw@magiclink.net and phone is 408.379.4431. Donations of children's clothes, medicines and shoes are always appreciated. The Ulmers are retired teachers.
They began ODW in '70, started leading tours in '75 and incorporated in '83. They retired early, now doing their part for worldwide rehab.
LONGITUDE EXPEDITION UPDATE: Drive Around the World participants are anticipating a reunion with teammates and vehicles in Brisbane, Australia, on or about April 17. A freighter, carrying all four Land Rovers within its iron confines, will be offloading the cargo onto Aussie shores about then.
They'll reunite with the rest of the expedition team for customs processing before hitting the road again. Up 'til now, the team has been spread out in clumps in Brazil, Argentina and Australia. The film crew has just completed a five-minute video and it's available for downloading.
The team website is www.drivearoundtheworld.com. Organizers of Drive Around the World, a longitudinal geographic adventure that benefits Parkinson's disease research, are Los Gatans Nick and Chanda Baggarly and Todd Knowles.
PAN AMERICAN: The Pan American Roundtable of Los GatosSaratoga will hold a spring luncheon May 1, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at Michael's Restaurant in Mountain View. Speaker will be Dr. Pedro Hernandez Ramos, director of the Center for Science, Technology and Society at Santa Clara U.
For more information: Helen Lemmon at 408.867.0575.
BEAK/FEATHER BOUTIQUE: A secondhand sale of binoculars, artwork, field guides and other bird-related items will be held April 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at McClellan Ranch Park, Cupertino.
For more information, call Susan Bell at 408.252.3747.
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By Mary Ann Cook