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Sonoma County, a diverse county of over one million acres, is famed for its agriculture industry and recreation, boasting a booming economy and a unique lifestyle for its citizens described by the theme Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the earth. Sonoma County is the place

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to live, work and play as we move into the 21st century. Led by the forward looking philosophy of its governing bodies. Sonoma County's 340,000 residents are a harmonious, successful blend of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in

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the nineties with your host Rich McGlinchey, How you doing everybody Welcome to a to say the least unusual version or edition of Sonoma County in the nineties. Um, I really think that's about all I have to say about it. I'd like to introduce Vivian got hers,

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who is our producer and a very dear friend and uh, it seems to me the only thing I can say right here you take over, I'll be delighted, rich, I'm glad to be here on the occasion of the anniversary of your 25th show with Sonoma County

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in the 70s, 80s and 90s, delightful to be here is delightful to work with you. And we'd like to start by finding out more about you. And how about are you a native of Sonoma county? Now we have 30 minutes. No, I was born in Cincinnati

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Ohio moved to Oakland California, lived there three years, moved to Bennett Valley in 1935. I think I was about 12.5 years old and and no one was in Bennett Valley at that point, Bennett Valley was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen at that

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time. I'm not sure the exact population had been at Valley, but the population of santa rosa was 9600. And understand it's now more than 100 and 40,000. So it was, it was a lovely small place. Uh and I really enjoyed living out here. I I went

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to school here. I went to junior high school, I went to high school in santa rosa. Uh then I went to the service after I came back, I went to santa rosa Junior College and then to Sonoma to Sonoma State. I keep thinking about local college,

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san Jose State University and graduated from there. And what were you studying? What, what were you studying? Well, actually, when I was a junior college I was a journalism major, I was the editor of the Oak leaf school newspaper. But I got out to san Jose

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and uh I got kicked out of journalism because they said I was too cocky. So I finished in political science and english and radio speech and a few other things down there. And then the service. Well the service came along, I was in service for three

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years got broken foot and actually broke two broken feet and became partially disabled and I came back to santa rosa. That's when I went to junior College and went there for five semesters. I was always slow at everything. 24 semester course and I went to san

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Jose state for about five semesters for another two years of education and graduated there and worked in san Francisco shortly came back to santa rosa. Uh I met my wife, my wife to be Ellie Eleanor Frances Jacqueline and ardently pursued her for quite some time and

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finally convinced her to throw in her lot with me. And it worked out pretty good. We we passed our 43rd wedding anniversary in October. Congratulations, that's wonderful. And how about what you think? She deserves a congratulations, congratulations Ellie. And and how about what you're doing now?

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I understand you're doing some writing. Let's see what did I do? I worked in santa rosa. I worked as a social worker. Then I got back involved in journalism because I always wanted to see if I can make a living at it. And I worked for

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a couple of weekly papers. He tardy Rohnert Park weekly, this basketball times. And then the Petaluma daily paper uh did sports, did feature covered the county government. Then I applied for and and one the job of public information officer for the county of Sonoma. And started

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in the 19 seventies I was the county's one and only public information officer because when I retired a couple years ago they abolished the position. Yeah. Uh But uh I spent 25 years almost as a public information officer. And that the president serving with a lot

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of great people worked with 28 different supervisors, uh, didn't agree with all of them, but liked every one of them and I had the pleasure of having every one of them on this program back then. Um, unfortunately in the early days when we take the program,

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we ran it once or twice and then we erased the tape and started all over again. We didn't, we didn't have a stockpile of. Nowadays. We took our programs to the library since 85 and so they have our programs on file down there. How did you

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get the show started? How did that come about? Well, I was having lunch with John Cardinals who was the program manager for, for the cable company. That was first here in Santa Rosa. Cable Common General. And we kind of, it's kind of funny because I started

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to say something, He started to say something. What we were both saying was he wanted to know what I like to do a public service program for television and I wanted to know if they needed one there because I was public information officer. My job was

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to dispense all the information I possibly could about county government so that people would understand what it was all about what constituted, who could take advantage of it, how it could serve people. I felt that county government was the last dark continent of government at the

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time I started and my job was to try to inform people about what the county government amounted to, how it worked, how many departments, what services were there. In other words, let them know that we were there to serve them because they were the taxpayer, they

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were paying for it. And when I followed that pattern pretty much up to today and been very successful at that. I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. Uh let's see the show. How did the show evolved? Well, as I said, john and I decided to do

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that. And the very first program I did was with the then county administrator David Nichols, who was a good friend of both Ellie and my wife and I Oh yeah, that was great. You know, I started out, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a new program, Sonoma

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County in the 70s. Now I'd like you to meet my first guest, our county administrator David Knickers. And uh you know, it was just funny and he cracked up and I cracked up and we looked at each other and said, I wonder which one would follow

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us up first and went on from there. But after that I got a little bit better. Uh it evolved until until you get involved in this half hour program actually, you see the cable companies went from cable. Com general was the company at the time. It

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all started, they sold the franchise to capital cities and then fortunately post newsweek who has been by far the best couple operator, I think in the area took it over. And I've been with these folks ever since and I can't say enough about the people with

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post newsweek. They have uh, everything I've ever asked in the way of program helped they provided and much, much more. And uh, maybe this is a good opportunity to say thank you to all the people. When we go back to Russ Bowden who was my, my

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producer and director for oh 10, 12, 13 years. David Elliott who's still here with the station director of the program for two or three years. Uh brian Leetch was our development director for several years now, Alex and Phil Sweden both uh, and rick were all involved

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in the direction of the show at present. And uh, once again, gentlemen, you have done a magnificent job and had it not been for all of you and cameramen like john and all the other folks that work here without any of you folks. This would, would

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have flopped a long time ago, fortunately it's a program that seems to have a pretty good uh, following. Now, that's enough. It's an amazing job you've done. Yes. And the program serving the agencies that you're the various programs, you know, one of the things about that

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I felt when I took the job of doing this program that the public did not know much about county government. So anything I could tell them about it, showed them about it uh introduced them to the function of it, how it served them, how they can

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take advantage of those services, what they could get if you will out of their own county government. And many, many hundreds really of people have complimented us on that over the years. And I said I think that I take that would say that was real pride

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because people, people have approached you, you said yourself. Yeah. I talked about how much they do get out of the program. So we found out like programs that we we have talked at that time there were about 42 county departments. Uh and then with a within

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each department or maybe two or three divisions, all doing something important and special to the public if they knew about it. So and I did my best over the years to interview all those people more than once and be sure that the public did know what

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that department did, how you found that department where it was located, how you could call them, what service they provided, how you could take advantage of it because it was there for you, the taxpayer and then you branched out and started to help other services. Not

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supposed to talk about the other services please. The last five years we've taken a look at a lot of other agencies in the county. I can think of a few I can think of P. E. O. I can think of hospice. I can think of the

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volunteer bureau downtown. Um What are some of the others the ones you did you did special shows with teens and talking to them. Yeah that was a few years ago. We haven't done that in the last year or two. We must do that again. We would

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interview four or five or 16 maybe two at a time in the in the program we get them from or ask invite them I should say from santa rosa high school would come to high school. Ursuline High School, Cardinal Newman Pioneer School. We get a student

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or two from from each of those places and we would talk to them, we'd find out what they were getting out of their education, what their goals were, how they dealt with life and and success, how they dealt with sex for young people. Very very big

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problem sometimes for young folks, how they handle that, what they expected to do when they got out of college. If they expected to go on what their ultimate goal was. Now a group that I interviewed about four or five years ago and just graduating this year

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and from uh from from college all of them. And I'm gonna try to have that group back again next spring and and have them all tell us tell us well what happened since you all these great ideas? How how did did you fulfill them? How are

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they doing? And incidentally they've all done extremely well. That's that's a pleasant thought. But we've also had kids from the four H. F. F. A. We'll talk about that a little bit later. I want to talk about the county fair a little later. But what about

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some of the museums? There's another group. We've had the county museums. Uh, both the local museum and the airport museum. These are things that are real. And we talked a lot about medical things. People programs from community hospital. Hospice is not part of the hospital, but

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the important thing. Wellness programs, emergency services, family practice. Uh We talked to dr It's about asthma because it's a prominent thing in Sonoma County have two doctors that visit with this regularly and and spend the whole program trying to persuade people. And incidentally, we know of

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54 people that have quit smoking. We did that first to about seven or eight years ago. And we've been told that 54 people who quit smoking as a result of the program. So once again, there's something to be proud of. And what about some of the

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issues you've dealt with and some of the people you've interviewed governor, governors. There are always issues for local government. Uh One of the things that early on. It was a big contested in many, many ways was Warm Springs Dam the conservative part of the county definitely

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were at opposed to it. They did not want to see it built. They felt it posed a lot of threats and hazarded the other side of the telling were people who felt that we needed that water storage and that even a recreational facility we'll eventually as

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they would have it. The pros went out, so to speak. The dam was built. It has been called by the engineers, one of the safest dams ever built because of the intense convention of all the rocks in the ground and everything they put up there. They

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said it would take a 10.9 or nine point earthquake to do anything to that damn. In addition to that, they That whole recreational area plus a 62 acre lake for boating. So all this came about that way. Now many of the conservative folks that I've talked

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to since then said, well, I adamantly opposed it. I didn't like it. I thought it was a real tragedy when it was passed. But most of those folks have said, but it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise in that it has helped us

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kept us watered if you will doing these drought periods that have occurred since then 13 came along to that was yes. And we have a two minute warning believe it or not. And all the things we wanted to say. All right, okay. But how about a

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story about Governor Reagan? Well, I was just gonna say, yeah, people I've interviewed in the days when we didn't keep the tapes, unfortunately were Governor Ronald Reagan at that time. And he came over to College Avenue studio and I came in, I got a hold of

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him said governor, would you spend a few minutes with me? I do a little program and Oh yeah, sure. But first we gotta go outside. So we went out to the big Lincoln, that was the governor's car in those days. They opened up the trunk and

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here's a three level makeup kit. Governor, just exactly from his Hollywood days. Just exactly what to put on. He came in, he was always a handsome man. Anyone. He came in looking 10 years younger made me look. Anyway, he talked to this and later we had

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the pleasure of talking to interviewing jerry brown. Governor jerry brown. Governor George Deukmejian, Ronnie Howard who was here to make bitter harvest and he was, we helped him do a lot of things to the courthouse in return. He came over and visited with me on the

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program once again. It's so sad that we don't have any of those things on film. Well, I know we have to go to a break now, but uh, let's do talk about the Sonoma County fair shows, which is so dear to all of us when we

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get back. That's one of the things I'm fond of. Well, who's going to give the break? Okay, let's take a break. Oh, okay. Time to take a break. And then Vivian will come back and elucidate more answers from me about this last 25 years. First this

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message, Northern Sonoma County, it's a beautiful place to be come and visit from its quaint small towns to the grandeur of its vineyards. Northern Sonoma County offers the sites that send your spirit soaring. Take any opportunity you have to come, stay, relax and enjoy. The communities

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of Northern Sonoma County are waiting for you visit Northern Sonoma County. You'll be glad you did. Mhm. Welcome back to this rather unusual version of Sonoma County in the 90s. Uh, I won't say, I'm embarrassed because I'm really pleased about the things that happened, but I

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would rather be on the questioning and then the answering and I want to reintroduce my producer, Vivian gardeners who has been quizzing me on the 25 years of Sonoma County in the seventies, eighties and nineties back to you. Well, as I mentioned before the break, we

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were going to talk about one of our favorite things that we've all done here together as the Sonoma County Fair and uh, we have a few things to see. How did, how did you start doing the fair? That was certainly a fair. Like so many other

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things. First of all the fair, the community hospital and the airport our so called enterprise funds. Each of these are departments in the county government, but each of them are responsible for paying their own way. They're not even taxpayer dollars. They must break even or make

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money to stay in business, so to speak. And I'm very proud of the fact that they've, they've always done that. The fair has been unique. It has never one time it took a couple $100,000 loan from the county because of some real bad breaks. I think

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the lawsuit maybe one And paid it back the next year. So the fair has never accepted a dollar of taxpayer's money. It has operated on its own since its inception. I'm proud of that and pleased with that. And I commend them for the great job they've

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done. But the fair itself, I felt when I began the public information job in 1970 really was not as well known as it could be and that we could perhaps help in telling people more about the fair. What was there, Who was there? The things, they

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could see, the fact that it was so inexpensive plus the fact that if they chose to, they could see top notch horse racing at the racing area. Um, it was a real thrill also to deal with the kids. I dealt with four HRS and F F.

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A kids. So all the animals, uh, dealt with all the people that did the exhibits, uh, met many of them and saw their exhibits, showed them to the public, talked with the folks in Mexican village. One time. Japanese village was over on the other side. Uh,

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the many of the food concessionaires, uh, talk to all the people out there that make the fair is such a wonderful thing and it really is. It's probably one, I still say it's probably one of the best entertainment values in the county. And I think it's

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$5 for a mission and my gosh, you can do a multitude of things. Certainly put a lot of enthusiasm into those shows and, and won two silver Sadie's. Yeah, I think we got trump told we got a couple of silver 80 awards for fair shows in

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the last several years. Well, congratulations. Yeah, that was a real, real nice, Real nice. And do we have something to look at now? Yeah. Oh, as a matter of fact, yeah, we do have our, our general manager of programming here, Phil Sweden has been kind enough

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to put together some of the activities from the 1995 Sonoma County Fair. I think if you look at this, you'll see not only what, why I'm enthusiastic and why I like it, but for instance, I also got to chat with a fellow who I think is

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one of the real champions of the day in sports and his name is russell bays, but there are other things too about the fear. And let's take a look at some of those contests are going on all day long on the stage is wonderful food here

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activity along the midway. The racing racing is fantastic This year. There's a new handicapping seminar. You want to learn how to play the horses. You go on up to section L and they'll show you how to do that. Hi, we're standing in RT gallegos, spaghetti palace.

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This is a famous place on the fairgrounds and we're going to talk to art just a second here and see what it does to make this fabulous pastor that everybody comes to the fair love so much. We're standing in the middle of the carnival grounds. The

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Ray comic shows, we're talking with three handsome young people here. We're gonna find out what think about what do you think about it mike so far? I think it's pretty great. I love the rides pretty good. I think it's really fun because there's a lot of

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people here and makes it really exciting. Well, we just went on a ride called the zipper and that was really fun. It was scary. You know, it was great. I like it. We're standing here with the designer of the 1991 Sonoma County Fair flower show, Jackie

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and Jackie The show this year has an oriental flavor. It's called secrets of the silk road. What is meant by secrets of the silk road. There's lots of secrets. Um, you have to come and see. But many of them are. The architectural features. The surprise is

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that the nurseries have brought in and even the raising of silkworms. You'll see that in the show, the koi ponds, birds, we've got all kinds of things going on. So you had a little bit of a secret. You said you want to tell us about first.

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What was it? Well, one of the secrets is we're just bulging at the Barnes back there. We've never had such a fantastic year like this year. Rich, in fact, we have so many livestock exhibitors. We even had to turn a few of them away. So, you

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know, we've never done that and it's just great because it means we not only have lots of market, we have lots of breeding classes and lots of open classes and that really makes us feel good. We're on the right track here with russell bays, the champion

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jockey, The United States for the past three years in a row, Russ has had over 400 winners a year for three years and you're kind of on schedule to have another 400 this year. We might make it about 2.5 years. Probably another thing that's very interesting.

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Russ bays is rapidly approaching 5000 winners. Now, he has about 10 winners to go when he came to santa rosa this year, expects to get those 10 here because in the past, he's about how many 2022 races here. So actually he made over 5000. And that's

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very interesting because there's only 14 other jockeys in the history of United States racing who have had over 5000 winners. You've been running quite a few years, but I started riding Yakima Washington. Actually rode my first horse was appaloosa Road to Walla Walla Washington. And then

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you went over where? Seattle what you wrote a pair of several years summers at long acres for about five years. Then you came to California? Yeah, I've been down here a couple of trips, short trips and come down to stay in 1979. I know you were

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the leading jockey in the bay Area for a number of years. I don't know, 78 years. And then you went south with all the heaviest competition, I think in the world you were down there for. How long? We stayed down there three years, three years. Then

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he came back up to northern California and immediately reasserted himself as a champion jockey. You're married? Yes, tammy trinity is 15. Brandy's 13, cassie is 10 and gable is five. How does it feel to be approaching that? 5000? It's nice. You know, it would be nice

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when I get behind me. They're all making a big deal about this. But you know, it's and it's going to be a nice feather in my cap. But after it's over, I'll just have to go out there and try to win the next race to the

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next race. And then the next thing will be six. Ladies and gentlemen, we're talking to russell bays. And I said before, he's the champion jockey for the United States for the past three years in a row. He's here at santa rosa. You know, Leo Durocher once

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said, nice guys, finish last. But let me tell you one thing. This is one really nice guy and he doesn't finish last finished first. Thanks very much. Welcome back to the, I hope the final segment of this unique program. And without further ado, I'll save the

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view back to you. Okay, Rich, thank you. And back to you. Oh no. And the, and the program over the 25 years. How about a little anecdote or something that you'd like to just remember about the work we've all done. There's several of them, You know,

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One woman I was escaping from, from the hospital sector was sitting there relaxed as heck. And I asked a question and she completely hyperventilated and almost almost collapsed on us. And I had to cut the film. You know, one thing surprisingly were really, very seldom had

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to start and stop the program. Uh, we've been very fortunate in being able to go through one other thing. I thought it was funny we were keeping in some beautiful location. I believe it might have been the coast and I was given the signal to go

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ahead like that. And I was standing there and that went on for 30 seconds and then somebody said, stop, stop, stop, he doesn't have a microphone off and I couldn't shout loud enough. So, but one of the other things I think about is the people that

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have been involved in this. Uh, and I won't try to, you'll forgive me whoever's out there that I missed. But I do think of Russ, Bowden, I think Dave Elliott, brian leetch, I think of rick, Miguel Phil and john are all here today and Vivian daughters

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has been invaluable in producing Theresa McManus is a gem of a person and marco cuevas and Dave cox and, And Alex all, all these folks have been, have, as I said earlier on, but these people have have been magnificent and they are the reasons Sonoma County

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in the 70s, 80s and 90s existed and was fairly decent. Congratulations. Have some other friends here that Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness, my goodness and Brian, how you doing now? This is really something this makes the whole 25 years worthwhile. Hi you, my buddy, Markel

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Alex, get in here. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I was saying a moment ago, thanks Alex, thanks buddy and marty, my south american dictator. Uh these folks, ladies and gentlemen are the reasons in L. A County in the uh, certainly in the nineties in the eighties and

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nineties existed and if you've enjoyed it and I sincerely hope you have um, you can look at each one of these individuals and thank them because without them there would have been no show and it certainly would have never been a quality. That was one of

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my main problems when you were directing, you always blotted out the lights. So, anyway, oh, my goodness, who's running there? Who's running the show? Right?