09/18/2026
A very personal message from SCHS President Jim Gregory.
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The death of the South County Historical Society's treasurer, Jeff Kime, has hit me pretty hard, but not all of the impact is sad. Jeff's generosity of spirit, and that of his wife, Linda, remind me of a few facts from the South County's history:
--In the 1920s, when anti-Catholic bigotry was rife in America (PUT A CHRISTIAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE! read one Coolidge campaign button, a dig at his opponent, Catholic Al Smith) every flag in Arroyo Grande was lowered to half-staff on the death of Fr. Ferdinand Lack, the Alsatian-born pastor of St. Patrick's. Local editorial columns praised both the man's spirituality and the depth of his intellect.
--During the Great Depression, Muriel Loomis Bennett heard that "Okie" kids in the migrant camps on the Mesa were coming down with pneumonia. She was outraged. She commandeered her friends and her son, Gordon, drove up to the camps with stacks of blankets and cauldrons of hot soup and took care of those children.
--Not everyone knows the stories of the families, like the Loomises, who cared for the farms and the farm equipment of their Japanese-American neighbors during internment. They should.
--Some of the most vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric I've read came in the prewar issues of the Arroyo Grande "Herald-Recorder," directed against Filipinos. These young men--Filipinas were not allowed to immigrate--responded by rapidly filling two infantry regiments after war broke out in December 1941. They were superb combat soldiers. That allowed them to bring home "war brides" home once Japan had been defeated. There were no Filipino families in Arroyo Grande before the war.
--The South County had virtually no contact with African Americans before World War II. A wartime concert at the Army rec camp in Pismo Beach in 1943 featured an octet from the African American 54th Coast Artillery, based locally, and they sang what the paper called "Negro Spirituals." The local audience demanded, and got, four encores.
--Those Japanese Americans who came home to Arroyo Grande after World War II--fewer than half returned--responded by founding and coaching Little League and Babe Ruth, Biddy Basketball and high-school basketball, and the families of POVE, just now, are funding two basketball courts at the far end of the AGHS football field.
--In 1969, Latino students staged a walkout at Arroyo Grande High School because there was not a single Latino or Latina teacher in a school where at least 20% of the student body was Mexican-American. The leader of the walkout was named Rogelio R. Flores; I was his token gabacho in presenting a petition to Mr. Millard, our principal. I went on to teach under different AGHS principals; Rogelio went on to become a Superior Court Judge in Santa Maria, renowned for his compassion for and work with violators who were drug addicts.
So the term "generosity of spirit," so well lived, without fuss, by both Jeff Kime and his wife, Linda, reminded me of a video I made awhile ago.
Some Americans are acting like animals, I asserted when I made it. Still are.
As soon as I thought that thought, I realized that this was the problem. Maybe we NEED to act like animals.
It seemed prescient when two raccoons came into our garage very early this morning and started chowing down on the cat food there. Our beautiful orange tabby, Winston, wandered in, decided that the two intruders were brother cats, and all three of them, down on their haunches, were at table together.
What we can learn from other species.
