Ken recalls in 2009 some of the history
of the
Channel Islands Hang Gliding Association:

I thought you would be interested to know that the club first held meetings at the Carrillo Rusty's sometime in early 1976. It has been quite a run - 33 years! Few traditions have lasted longer in the hang gliding world. (Your phone number 965 3733 is one! That went into service in April 1974!)

The first, organizational meeting of the proposed California Coast Hang Gliding Association was held at Sierra West, an outdoor equipment company at 6 East Yanonali Street in Feb 75. I had followed Dan Poynter's encouragement and with his guidance and help, announced, organized and conducted the first meeting. Dan also lent his skills in creating the announcement flyer. John Baird was elected the first Pres and I was elected the VP! The next meeting was held in March at Tapioka Enterprises on 27 Garden Street in Ventura. Tapioka was a leather goods company owned by pilot Ken Kesson who ran another company called Windsong for distributing hang gliding accessories and was the sponsor for the comp pilots the Arrambide brothers. By late spring we had settled on our new name, the Channel Islands Hang Gliding Association.

Our thinking was that pizza parlors would be ideal for club meetings. For the remainder of 1975 we tried the Pizza Factory, whose location I don't recall, and then had several meetings at the Rusty's at 3731 State. We probably would have stayed there but got kicked out in November 1975 for bringing in our own beer and food! That was also a period when meetings routinely entailed loud, VERY animated arguments and more than once threatened to break out into violence! So maybe the management just wanted the troublesome flying hippies gone! We next met at Deanos Pizza in Carp for one or two meetings. Sometime after February of 1976 we began our long tradition of meeting at the former Poor Richards, by then renamed as Rusty's Pizza parlor. We were still pretty raucous but the upstairs meeting room gave us the privacy we needed!

As the club founder, holder of Membership card Number 1, former President, Vice President, Treasurer, Publicity Director, and many other offices we had at various times, I attended nearly every meeting and have many fond memories of the hundreds, maybe thousands of pilots that contributed to the flying community over those many years. I miss those times and hope that there are a few of the original founding members who will attend the next meeting and tell some good stories of those early meetings. I suppose it is too much to hope for that some of the old timers would get into a drunken fist fight, eh? ;-)

Ken de Russy
USHGA Life/Charter Member #5114
Hang Gliding Museum Collector Guy
Anacortes, WA
360 293 8621
Skype "ken.de.russy"