Spartanburg, South Carolina

Spartanburg is a city in and the seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States, and the 12th-largest city by population in the state. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 37,013, and Spartanburg County has an urban population of 180,786 as of the 2010 census. For a time, the Office of Management and Budget grouped Spartanburg and Union Counties together as the "Spartanburg Metropolitan Statistical Area", but as of 2018 the OMB defines only Spartanburg County as the Spartanburg MSA.

Spartanburg is the second-largest city in the greater Greenville–Spartanburg–Anderson Combined Statistical Area, which has a population of 1,385,045 as of 2014. It is part of a 10-county region of northwestern South Carolina known as "The Upstate," and is located  northwest of Columbia,  west of Charlotte, North Carolina, and about  northeast of Atlanta, Georgia.

Spartanburg is the home of Wofford College, Converse College, USC Upstate, Spartanburg Methodist College, and Spartanburg Community College. It is also the site of headquarters for Denny's.

History
Spartanburg was formed in 1785 and was named after a local militia called the Spartan Regiment in the American Revolutionary War. The Spartan Regiment, commanded by Andrew Pickens, participated in the nearby Battle of Cowpens. In 1831, Spartanburg was incorporated, later becoming known as the "Hub City": railroad lines radiated from the city forming the shape of a wheel hub.

It became a center of textile manufacturing in the late 19th century, with around 40 textile mills being established through the early 1900s.

During World War I Camp Wadsworth was used to train 100,000 soldiers for the war. Camp Croft trained soldiers during World War II. The facility was transferred to the state and adapted as  Croft State Park.

By the 1950s, the production in these mills began to decline as wages increased. Most textile manufacturing jobs were moved offshore by the companies.

Geography and climate
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which  is land and , or 0.47%, is water.

The city of Spartanburg has a humid subtropical climate with long, hot and humid summers, and cool to semi mild winters. The average annual temperature is . In the summer season from June through September, average highs are in the 80s to low 90s ºF, while in the winter months average highs are in the mid 50s ºF. Annual rainfall is spread fairly evenly throughout the whole year. Spartanburg sees very little snowfall, with the annual average being only 1.4 inches. Average precipitation is  and the average growing season is 231 days.

Points of interest
Lawson's Fork Creek, a tributary of the Pacolet River, was once known for its plentiful wildlife and crystal clear waters.  Parks and woodlands line much of its banks (which lie entirely within Spartanburg County), and rocky shoals and natural waterfalls can be found throughout its course.  It stretches from the northern end of the county to the eastern end, where it empties into the Pacolet.
The Cottonwood Trail is a walking trail located in the Edwin M. Griffin Nature Preserve that runs along part of Lawson's Fork Creek. The trail includes picnic areas, a raised path over an extensive wetlands area and access to sporadic sandbars. Located just east of downtown, it is used frequently by cyclists, joggers and walkers. Since the Lawson's Fork floodplain is not suitable for development, wildlife populate the area. Larger animals that can be found here include white-tailed deer, raccoons, wild turkeys, pileated woodpeckers, mallard ducks, Canada geese and snapping turtles.
Hatcher Garden and Woodland Preserve, is a preserve located in the midst of an urban environment. Retired social activist Harold Hatcher and his wife Josephine transformed an eroding gully into a thick woods and flower garden which now provides a haven for birds and other wildlife.

Early European settlers to this area included French fur trappers, English woodsmen, and Scots-Irish farmers. Few remnants survive from these early pioneering days, but traces can be found in the more rural areas of the county.

Walnut Grove Plantation, an 18th-century farmhouse, has been preserved by The Spartanburg County Historical Association. The site of a locally famous skirmish during the American Revolutionary War, it was the home of the Moore family. The plantation lies south of Spartanburg near the town of Roebuck, and is open to the public for tours and during annual festivals.
The Seay House, another 18th-century home, is a more typical representative of a pioneer home. Its single stone fireplace and simple construction were common traits of farmsteads from this period.
The Price House, the third 18th-century home maintained by the Historical Association, is unique. Its sturdy Flemish-bond brick construction and three stories are less common in this area. By carefully examining the original inventory lists of the house, the Historical Association has been able to retrieve period pieces that approximate the original contents of the house.

First established in the 1780s as a courthouse village, Spartanburg may have been named for the Spartan regiment of the South Carolina militia. The city was incorporated in 1831, at the time of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Cowpens, a pivotal fight of the American Revolution that took place only a few miles away. The city's streets and architectural record reflect the changes of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Morgan Square, the city's primary downtown hub, is the original courthouse village. It was founded adjacent to a small spring (now underground) on the western slope of a ridge, which forms the border of the Tyger and Pacolet River watersheds. The square's name derives from Daniel Morgan, the general who commanded the American forces at Cowpens. A statue of Morgan was placed in the square in 1881. The oldest existing buildings on Morgan Square date to the 1880s.
The Magnolia Street Train Depot is one of the older buildings in Spartanburg and stands as a reminder of Spartanburg's old nickname "the Hub City," referring to the many transportation routes that connected Spartanburg with cities throughout the region. It is now the home of the Amtrak station, the Hub City Railroad Museum, and the Hub City Farmers' Market.
Hampton Heights Historic District is the city's oldest intact downtown neighborhood, located a couple of blocks south of Morgan Square. Architectural styles in this neighborhood range from large Queen Anne and Neoclassical homes to cozy early 20th-century bungalows.

Cotton mills have abounded in the Spartanburg area since 1816, earning Spartanburg the reputation as the "Lowell of the South." Although there were few mills in the area before the Civil War, technological advances, northern capital, and out-migration from the poor farms that made white labor available, created a wave of postbellum mill development here and in much of the Piedmont South. Additionally, the abundant streams and rivers in the area are just beginning their descent towards the lower-lying Midlands region. In many places, these waterways descend abruptly, providing a source for plentiful waterpower. Cotton mills were built along these rivers to harness this power, and so began the region's servitude to King Cotton. These mills, their owners and their laborers dominated the politics and economy of the region for nearly a century. Although nearly all abandoned, many mills remain along the riverbanks, the Piedmont equivalent of Gothic ruins.

Glendale Mill is located off Lawson's Fork Creek southeast of the city. Although gutted by fire in 2004, a few towers and smokestacks remain, providing a dramatic backdrop to the dam, shoals and waterfalls of the creek below. The former company store now serves as the home of the Wofford College Environmental Studies Center. The Glendale Shoals bridge will be getting a $600,000 makeover, and will ultimately connect to the state's Palmetto Trail.
Beaumont Mill,north of the downtown, has recently been purchased by Spartanburg Regional Healthcare who moved their billing, human resources, and medical records to the 180,000 square foot mill. The adjacent mill village has been designated as a local historic district.
Converse Mill is located east of the city along the Pacolet River. It has recently been purchased by a developer. The mill was reconstructed in 1903 after a huge flood washed away the original mill. The dam is still in use by Converse Energy Inc as a hydroelectric plant.

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, one of the sixteen divisional cantonments for the training of National Guard troops was Camp Wadsworth, which is located in the vicinity of Westgate Mall. Large numbers of New York National Guardsmen trained there in addition to many southern troops. During World War II, Camp Croft south of the city trained Army recruits. This is now a South Carolina state park with the same name. Some portions of the park contain the original quonset huts.

Government
The current mayor, Junie White, was elected in 2009. Spartanburg operates under a city manager form of government in which the mayor and six city council members have equal votes. Council members represent districts within the city and the mayor is elected at large. The council appoints a city manager, who is responsible for the daily administration of city governmental affairs. City Hall is located at 145 West Broad Street.

The Spartanburg County Administration Building (this is the old Sears building which was vacated in the mid-1970s when Sears moved to Westgate Mall and renovated in the late 1980s or early 1990s) is located at 366 North Church Street. It is across the street from the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium.

Economy

Within the past decade, developers and community leaders have spearheaded an effort to revitalize Spartanburg's downtown commercial district. This has resulted in a remodeling of Morgan Square, the restoration of a number of historic structures and the relocation of several businesses and company headquarters to the downtown vicinity. These new developments include a nine-floor, 240-room Marriott hotel. .

Spartanburg is home to many large companies including Denny's, KYMCO, Smith Drug Company, Advance America Cash Advance, Southern Conference, Spartanburg Herald-Journal, RJ Rockers Brewing Company, American Credit Acceptance, and Upward Sports.

The economy of Spartanburg benefits from the BMW manufacturing facility located in the city of Greer, South Carolina which is in Spartanburg county. As of February 2017, the plant employs around 8,800 people with an average daily output of about 1,400 vehicles.

Spartanburg is also home to the world headquarters and research facility for Milliken & Company, a textile and chemical manufacturer.

Top employers
According to Spartanburg's 2015 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the principal employers in the city are:

Education

Colleges
Spartanburg is a college town, with eight institutions of higher learning:
The University of South Carolina Upstate (formerly known as University of South Carolina Spartanburg, or USCS).
Converse College – Founded in 1889, Converse is a comprehensive masters institution with a co-ed graduate school and an undergraduate women's liberal arts college.
Sherman College of Chiropractic – South Carolina's only chiropractic college
Spartanburg Community College
Spartanburg Methodist College – The only 2-year, private, residential college in the state.
Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) – Carolinas Campus. First classes began in Fall 2011.
Wofford College – Founded in 1854, Wofford is a Phi Beta Kappa liberal arts college with an enrollment of approximately 1,500 students.

Public and private schools
Most of the City of Spartanburg's public schools are run by Spartanburg County School District 7, one of seven loosely affiliated districts located in Spartanburg County. However, the westernmost part of the city is served by Spartanburg County School District 6, which has two elementary schools within city limits. Spartanburg is home to the main campus of the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind. It has five Regional Outreach Centers throughout the state. The city is also home to Spartanburg Preparatory School, a K-8 public charter school that is the only "brick and mortar" charter school in the Upstate.

Spartanburg is also home to Spartanburg Christian Academy, a K-12 private school in North Spartanburg, the Spartanburg Day School, a K-12 private school offering the International Baccalaureate in grades K-4, and to Oakbrook Preparatory and Westgate Christian schools, both K-12 private schools. Located in Hampton Heights, the Montessori Academy of Spartanburg is a PreK-8 private school providing a Montessori educational approach. The Meeting Street Academy in downtown Spartanburg is a branch of a Charleston-based private school and currently offers PreK and Kindergarten.

St. Paul the Apostle Catholic School is located in downtown Spartanburg. It is affiliated with the Diocese of Charleston and is K-8.

Healthcare
Spartanburg County's healthcare is mainly provided by Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System. Spartanburg Regional is a public, not-for-profit, integrated health care delivery system with several facilities in Spartanburg, including:

 Spartanburg Medical Center (SMC), a research and teaching hospital with two locations: Spartanburg Medical Center campus on East Wood Street and Spartanburg Medical Center — Mary Black Campus on Skylyn Drive. Together, these campuses share a history that stretches back to the 1920s. Spartanburg Medical Center includes a total of 747 beds, and services that include emergency, surgical, maternity, cancer, a Heart Center and inpatient rehabilitation.
 Spartanburg Hospital for Restorative Care (SHRC), a 97-bed long-term, acute-care hospital with a 25-bed skilled nursing facility.
 Gibbs Cancer Center & Research Institute, providing an inpatient oncology unit and outpatient care, along with access to clinical trials and the latest cancer technology.
 Bearden-Josey Center for Breast Health, a state-of-the-art imaging center for digital mammography, ultrasound, stereotactic breast biopsy and bone densitometry.
 Medical Group of the Carolinas, a physician group with offices located throughout Spartanburg and Upstate S.C.

Attractions
The Hub City Farmers' Market, an outdoor market held Saturday mornings from 6:00am – 12:00pm during the summer and fall on the grounds of the historic Magnolia Street Train Station, showcasing local (often organic) produce and goods.
Retrofest, the Southeast's largest disco festival held at Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium on the first Saturday in February.
Spring Fling, a weekend festival typically held the first Saturday of May, has many live artists, rides, and other assorted attractions.
Red, White and Boom, a Fourth of July event held at Barnet Park featuring patriotic music and a fireworks display.
The Annual Sidewalk Arts Show, an open, juried art exhibition held concurrently with The International Festival on the first Saturday in October.
The International Festival, an event showcasing culture and cuisine from countries around the globe held at Barnet Park on the first Saturday in October.
Music on Main, a street concert event held every Thursday (April through August) downtown.
The Greek Festival, a major street festival that is held in September by the local Greek community at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. The festival offers Greek food and cultural activities, and is the sister festival to the Greek Festival held every spring in Greenville.
Dickens of a Christmas, a Victorian holiday event held annually in downtown Spartanburg on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
Festifall, an historical celebration held on the grounds of the 18th-century Walnut Grove Plantation in October, featuring demonstrations and reenactments.
Taste of the Backcountry, a historical celebration held on the grounds of the 18th-century Price House in April, featuring food samples and demonstrations.
The Hub City Hog Fest is an annual barbecue festival and competition that benefits Mobile Meals. It is held in the heart of downtown Spartanburg with food trucks, over 40 BBQ teams, and two days of live music.

Other attractions include:

The Spartanburg BMW Factory tours. Where the x3, x4, x5, x6, x7 are made.
The Spartanburg Museum of Art
The Spartanburg Regional Museum of History
The Spartanburg Science Center
Ballet Spartanburg which has hosted over 22 national and international ballet companies.
Hub City Railroad Museum
Spartanburg Music Trail which is a series of signs throughout downtown recognizing local musicians.
Several golf courses, including two private 18-hole courses at the Country Club of Spartanburg and the Carolina Country Club.
Cowpens National Battlefield
The Hotspot Skatepark
Ground Zero historic live music venue.
The Beacon Drive-In (Since 1946).

Sports

Spartanburg is host to the NFL's Carolina Panthers training camp each year on the campus of Wofford College.

Historic Duncan Park Stadium was once home to the Spartanburg Stingers in the Coastal Plain League and the Spartanburg Crickets in the Southern Collegiate Baseball League and is the oldest minor league baseball stadium in the country. It was also once home to the Spartanburg Phillies, a minor league team of the Philadelphia Phillies. It now is the home stadium for the baseball teams of Spartanburg High School.

The Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas is held each year at Wofford's Gibbs Stadium. It is a high school football all-star game played between the top players from South Carolina and the top players from North Carolina.

The USC Upstate Spartans, Spartanburg Methodist College Pioneers, and the Wofford College Terriers offer a variety of sports for both men and women. Converse College also offers NCAA Division II women's sports teams.

Spartanburg is located an hour away from the Clemson Tigers and about an hour and a half away from the University of South Carolina Gamecocks.

Upward Sports, a Christian-based sports organization for kids, is headquartered in Spartanburg.

Arts and culture

Spartanburg has, throughout its history, been a fruitful home to a creative community. Cultural events and institutions in the city and county include:
The Chapman Cultural Center, Spartanburg's cultural anchor for history, art, theatre, dance, music, and science, is located in a three-building complex on the northern edge of downtown. Opened in October 2007, the Center was designed by David M. Schwarz Architects of Washington, D.C. It houses the Spartanburg Art Museum, Spartanburg County Regional History Museum, Science Center, Little Theatre, Ballet, Music Foundation, and other groups that were formerly located in The Arts Center on South Spring Street. It is owned and operated by The Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting arts and cultural agencies in Spartanburg County.
The Showroom, the home of Hub-Bub, is a new center for progressive arts in the community. It houses a gallery, film screen, stage, and concert venue and is home to a nationally recognized artist residency program. Hub-Bub is the creative effort responsible for the founding of The Showroom and, as a project goal, seeks to attract and retain creative talent in the community. It was launched in March 2005 by the Hub City Writers Project with assistance from private donors and the city of Spartanburg. The Hub City Writers Project, located a block away, serves the community as a local publishing company and independent bookstore. The Showroom also housed the first TEDx Spartanburg event on September 10, 2011.
Converse College is a nationally known four-year liberal arts institution recognized for its strong music and visual art programs. It hosts events open to the community throughout the year. Twichell Auditorium is located on the campus of Converse College. Home of the Greater Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Twichell Auditorium has served as hosts to other groups such as the Spartanburg All-County High School Band and Boston Brass. Twichell Auditorium was built in 1899 and renovated for the school's centennial celebration in 1989. The 1500-seat auditorium is home to a 57-rank Casavant organ with 2,600+ pipes. Theatre Converse puts on several plays a year, and Converse puts on an opera annually, as well as opera scenes. The college has had major concerts in recent years with such artists as Caedmon's Call, Jason Mraz, Corey Smith, and Colbie Caillat.
Wofford College is a liberal arts college. Not traditionally known for its arts and cultural strength, Wofford has made notable strides to develop arts programs in recent years. Poet and environmental writer John E. Lane, theater artist Mark Ferguson, and visual artist Kris Neely are all graduates of Wofford. Each returned to their alma mater to develop curricular and co-curricular opportunities in the Arts, including a Creative Writing program, a Theatre Major, and a minor in Studio Art. John Lane was also a critical visionary in the creation of the Goodall Environmental Studies Center in Glendale, SC.
The Spartanburg County Public Library headquarters, housed in an innovative building on South Church Street, is home to a voluminous collection of fiction, nonfiction, children's literature, A/V materials and items relating to local history and genealogy. The library hosts many meetings, concerts and presentations.
The Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium is located on N. Church Street, across from the municipal building in the northwest end of the city of Spartanburg. The "SMA" has hosted acts such as Bob Dylan, Crosby Stills and Nash, B.B. King, Billy Joel, David Copperfield, Lewis Grizzard, Harry Connick, Jr., Gerald Levert, Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld, Phish, A Prairie Home Companion, and many others. Originally built in an Art Deco style and was renovated c. 2002 including a new facade and backstage with loading area.
Families Advocating for Campus Equality, an organization that fights accusations of sexual misconduct on college campuses is based in Spartanburg.http://www.facecampusequality.org/contact.html

Media
 Spartanburg's primary newspaper is the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, a member of the Halifax Media Group.
 The Spartanburg Journal is a weekly newspaper that is part of a Community Journal group that also has editions in Greenville and Anderson.
 The Spartan Weekly News is a weekly newspaper with offices located in downtown Spartanburg. The paper covers all of Spartanburg County with an emphasis on the city of Spartanburg, and its coverage focuses on items of community interest and well as news from around the upstate of South Carolina.
 The award-winning Hometown News Group has several newspapers throughout the county and upstate region: The Boiling Springs Sentry, The Blacksburg Times, The Inman Times, Spartanburg County News, The Chesnee Tribune, The Middle Tyger Times, The Whitmire News, The Woodruff News, and The Greer Citizen. Aside from local news and sports coverage, the newspapers offer free wedding and social announcements. All of these papers, save "The Greer Citizen" ceased publication at the end of 2012.
Upstate Link magazine is a young reader (20s–30s) newsweekly in the Upstate of South Carolina, which includes Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson. The weekly publication began in January 2004. Link continues to be a print publication, but its website ceased operation in 2008. Its new website is run by Chicago-based Metromix.

Spartanburg is part of the much greater Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson-Asheville DMA which is the nation's 35th largest and is served by the following major television affiliates:

WYFF 4 (NBC) – Broadcasting from Greenville, SC
WSPA 7 (CBS)- Broadcasting from Spartanburg
WLOS 13 (ABC) Broadcasting from Asheville, NC but also from Anderson, SC on WMYA DT-2 (a digital subchannel)
WGGS 16 independent/Christian Television Station
WHNS 21 (Fox) Broadcasting from Greenville, SC
WMYA 40 (My Network TV) Transmitting from Anderson, SC but also on WLOS DT-2 a digital subchannel of Channel 13 out of Asheville, NC
WYCW 62 (The CW Network)- Licensed to Asheville but broadcasting and transmitting from Spartanburg

Transportation

Major highways

  Interstate 85
  Business Loop 85
  Interstate 26
  Interstate 585
  U.S. Route 176
  U.S. Route 29
  U.S. Route 221
  South Carolina 9
  South Carolina 295
  South Carolina 56
  South Carolina 296
  South Carolina 215
  South Carolina 129

Public transit

Spartanburg is served by the Spartanburg Area Regional Transit Agency (SPARTA), covering the city of Spartanburg and the surrounding urbanized area with 8 routes leading to a wide variety of destinations. All SPARTA buses are equipped with bicycle racks. Two hybrid-electric buses were added to the fleet in 2012. The SPARTA Passenger Center is located at 100 North Liberty Street and also serves Greyhound buses.

Mass Transit is provided to all citizens of Spartanburg County through Spartanburg County Dial-A-Ride. It is a door to door service that operates six days a week.

Airports
The Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP) lies mostly in suburban Greer, and it serves Greenville as well as Spartanburg. It has become one of the busiest airports in South Carolina.

The Spartanburg Downtown Memorial Airport (SPA) is a general aviation/small craft airport owned and operated by the City, which lies southwest of town.

Railroad station
Amtrak's Crescent train connects Spartanburg with the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Greensboro, Charlotte, Atlanta, Birmingham and New Orleans. The Amtrak station is situated at 290 Magnolia Street.

Demographics

As of the census of 2010, there were 37,013 people, 15,989 households, and 9,721 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,066.3 people per square mile (799.9/km²). There were 17,696 housing units at an average density of 923.9 per square mile (356.8/km²). The racial makeup was 49.55% African, 47.15% White, 0.18% Native American, 1.33% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 0.76% from other races, and 0.96% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.78% of the population.

There were 15,989 households out of which 28.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 34.0% were married couples living together, 23.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.2% were non-families. 34.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 3.00.

In the city, the population was spread out with 25.2% under the age of 18, 12.2% from 18 to 24, 26.6% from 25 to 44, 20.6% from 45 to 64, and 15.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 79.6 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $28,735, and the median income for a family was $36,108. Males had a median income of $30,587 versus $23,256 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,136. About 29.4% of families and 23.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 34.6% of those under age 18 and 15.4% of those age 65 or over.

Notable people

Ted Alexander (1912–1999), baseball pitcher in Negro Leagues
Pink Anderson (1900–1974), blues musician; inspiration for the "Pink" in Pink Floyd
Norman C. Armitage (1907, as Norman Cudworth Cohn–1972), Olympic medalist saber fencer who lived in Spartanburg, S. C., and in honor of whom the Milliken company plant in Spartanburg County was named.
David Ball (born 1953), country musician
Joe Bennett, lead singer and guitarist from the 1950s rock 'n roll band "Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones"
Ted Bogan (1909–1990), country blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.
Red Borom (1915-2011), Major League Baseball infielder for Detroit Tigers
Emma L. Bowen, healthcare and media activist
Mike Bullman, bandleader, lead singer and guitarist with Jesters III
James Francis Byrnes (1882–1972), lawyer, congressman, senator, Supreme Court Justice, advisor to FDR, Secretary of State to Truman, Governor of South Carolina
Wilson Casey (born 1954), syndicated newspaper columnist, speaking entertainer, and Guinness World Record holder
Mark Cerney (born 1967), founder Next of Kin Registry (NOKR)
Marshall Chapman (born 1949), singer-songwriter
Jeremy Clements (born 1985), racing driver
Landon Cohen (b 1986), football player, community-builder
Fieldin Culbreth (Born 1963), Major League Baseball umpire, Olympian
David Daniels (born 1966), counter-tenor
Stephen Davis (born 1974), football running back
Marion Kirkland Fort (1921–1964), mathematician
Art Fowler (1922–2007), pitcher and pitching coach in Major League Baseball
Grace Beacham Freeman (1916–2002), poet, columnist, short story writer; South Carolina Poet Laureate 1985–86
Hank Garland (1930–2004), legendary Nashville guitarist who accompanied Patsy Cline and Elvis, among others
George Gray (aka One Man Gang) (born 1960), Pro wrestler
Fred Griffith (born 1964), American actor and film producer
Mark Hammond (born 1963), South Carolina Secretary of State
Lee Haney (born 1951), eight-time Mr. Olympia record holder
Dennis Hayes (born 1950), inventor of the Hayes modem
Heath Hembree (born 1989), baseball player
Walter Hyatt (1950–1996), country musician and songwriter
Joseph T. Johnson (1858–1919), United States Representative from South Carolina
Marcus Lattimore, football player
Donald Lawrence (born 1961), Gospel artist
Fred L. Lowery (born 1943), Southern Baptist clergyman, televangelist, and Christian author; former pastor of First Baptist Church of North Spartanburg
The Marshall Tucker Band, Southern rock band featuring George McCorkle, Doug Gray, Jerry Eubanks, Toy Caldwell, Tommy Caldwell, and Paul Riddle
Marcus McBeth (born 1980), baseball player
Roger Milliken (1915–2010), billionaire owner of the largest privately held textile manufacturing firm in the world (Milliken & Company)
Bud Moore (1925-2017), NASCAR team owner/crew chief
D. J. Moore (born 1987), football player
Kris Neely (born 1978), artist and educator
Samuel J. Nicholls (1885–1937), United States Representative from South Carolina
Angela Nikodinov (born 1980), U.S. figure skater
Cotton Owens (1924–2012), NASCAR team owner/crew chief
David Pearson (1934-2018), NASCAR champion
Arthur Prysock (1929-1997), jazz singer
Betsy Rawls (born 1928), pro golfer, member of World Golf Hall of Fame, born in Spartanburg
Mike Reid (born 1970), NFL player
Gianna Rolandi (born 1952), operatic soprano
Al "Flip" Rosen (1924-2015), MLB 4-time All-Star third baseman and first baseman, MVP, 2-time home run champion, 2-time RBI leader
Donald S. Russell (1906–1998), former South Carolina governor, president of the University of South Carolina, US Senator, and member of the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals
Archibald Rutledge (1883–1973), South Carolina poet laureate, resided in Spartanburg for about 20 years
Jack Smith (1924–2001), NASCAR driver
Carey Wentworth Styles, founder of the Atlanta Constitution
Gina Tolleson - Miss South Carolina USA 1990, First runner-up Miss USA 1990, Miss World 1990
Wayne Tolleson (born 1955), baseball player
Sandra L. Townes (1944-2018), United States District Court judge
Buck Trent (born 1938), country music instrumentalist who accompanied Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, among others
Ira Tucker (1925–2008), lead singer of the influential gospel group the Dixie Hummingbirds
William "Singing Billy" Walker (1809–1875), compiler of shape note tunebooks, including The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion.
Celia Weston (born 1951), actress
Zion Williamson (born 2000), men's basketball player currently playing for New Orleans Pelicans, and formerly for Duke

Gallery


Chisato Nagaoka

is a Japanese bobsledder who has competed at the 2006 Winter Olympics  in Turin, Italy.
She, along with Manami Hino, was the first Japanese women's pair to participate in the bobsleigh events in the Winter Olympics.

Performance
She earned her best finish of 15th in the two-woman event at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
She finished 1st in the two-woman event at the All Japan Bobsleigh Championships in a pair with Manami Hino for two consecutive years between 2006–2008, held at the Nagano Bobsleigh-Luge Park, Japan.


Arcadia, California

Arcadia is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located about  northeast of downtown Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley and at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains.
It is the site of the Santa Anita Park racetrack and home to the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.  The city had a population of 56,364 at the 2010 census, up from 53,248 at the 2000 census. The city is named after Arcadia, Greece.

History

Native American
For over 8,000 years the site of Arcadia was part of the homeland of the Tongva people ("Gabrieliño" tribe), a Californian Native American tribe whose territory spanned the greater Los Angeles Basin, and the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys.  Their fluid borders stretched between: the Santa Susana Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains, and San Gabriel Mountains in the north; the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills in the west; the San Jacinto Mountains and Santa Ana Mountains in the east; and the coast and Catalina Island (Pimu) in the south.  A Tongva settlement site within present-day Arcadia was known as Alyeupkigna (or Aluupkenga).

Rancho period
The town's site became part of the Spanish Mission San Gabriel Arcángel lands in 1771. After Indian Reductions to become Mission Indians, the Tongva were known as the Gabrieliños after the Mission's name. and under whose control these people worked during the mission period in California. Currently there are 1,700 people self-identifying as members of the Tongva or Gabrieliño tribe.

The Mexican land grant for Rancho Santa Anita was issued to Perfecto Hugo Reid and his Tongva wife, Victoria Bartolomea Comicrabit, in 1845. It was named after a family relation, Anita Cota, on his wife's side. Reid documented the Gabrieliño Native Americans in a series of letters written in 1852, and served as a delegate to the 1849 California Constitutional Convention.  In 1847, Reid sold Rancho Santa Anita to his Rancho Azusa neighbor, Henry Dalton.

Lucky Baldwin
The rancho changed owners several times before being acquired by Gold Rush immigrant, businessman, and major regional land owner Elias Jackson "Lucky" Baldwin in 1875. Baldwin purchased  of Rancho Santa Anita for $200,000.  Upon seeing the area, he gasped "By Gads! This is paradise!" Upon buying the land, Baldwin chose to make the area his home and immediately started erecting buildings and cultivating the land for farming, orchards, and ranches.  Baldwin built the Queen Anne Cottage for his fourth wife and himself in 1885–1886, now preserved within the Arboretum. In 1885, the main line of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad, in which Baldwin was a stockholder, was opened through the ranch, making subdivision of part of the land into a town site practical. Later, this rail line became a Santa Fe Railroad line. In 1889, on a site just north of the corner of First Avenue and St. Joseph Street, adjacent to the Santa Fe tracks, Baldwin opened the 35 room Hotel Oakwood to be the centerpiece of his new town. In 1890 the extant Rancho Santa Anita Depot was built.

20th century until World War II
By the turn of the 20th century, Arcadia had a population nearing 500 and an economy that was becoming based on entertainment, sporting, hospitality, and gambling opportunities, the latter including an early version of the Santa Anita race track.  Baldwin oversaw the incorporation of Arcadia into a city in 1903, and was its first mayor.

Anoakia

In 1913 Anita Baldwin, Lucky's daughter, built a 50-room mansion on  of the Baldwin Ranch she inherited from him, and named it "Anoakia" (Anita and oak). The 17,000-square-foot residence was in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, with murals by Maynard Dixon. The estate had a significant Greek Revival style colonnaded "Parthenon" bathhouse/gymnasium beside a large pool, an apiary and aviaries, kennels and stables, tennis courts and pergolas, and preserved the native oak woodlands.

After her death in 1939 the estate became the Anoakia School for Girls, which became the coeducational Anoakia School in 1967, then moved to Duarte in 1990 as the Anita Oaks School. The school owner's efforts to develop the property into a village of homes with the old mansion as its centerpiece were rejected by the city. After an extended debate, with local citizens and regional preservationists efforts to preserve the historic main house, the city council voted to approve demolition for a real estate development by new owners in 1999. The "Anoakia" mansion, all other significant estate structures and outbuildings, garden features, and numerous California sycamore and Coast live oak trees were demolished for 31 luxury home sites in 2000. Some of the mansion's architectural elements were salvaged and removed. Only the gatehouse, on the estate's former southeast corner at Foothill and Baldwin, and the perimeter walls remain after the "Anoakia Estates" development was built.

Inter-war decades

During World War I, Arcadia was home to the U.S. Army's Ross Field Balloon School, at the present-day Santa Anita Park site. Army observers were trained here in techniques to observe enemy activity from hot air balloons.

After World War I, Arcadia's population grew and local businesses included many chicken ranches and other agricultural activities.  During the 1920s and 1930s, Arcadia began its transition to the residential city that it is today, as small farms and chicken ranches gave way to homes and numerous civic improvements, including a city library and a city hall. Scenes of many of Arcadia's interesting older sites can be viewed in a series of historic watercolors painted by local artists Edna Lenz and Justine Wishek. The city was on historic U.S. Route 66 in California, present-day Colorado Boulevard, with businesses serving travelers on it.

Thoroughbred horse racing had flourished briefly under Lucky Baldwin, who founded a racetrack adjacent to the present site, until it was outlawed by the state of California in 1909. It returned to Arcadia when racing was legalized again, with the opening of Santa Anita Park in December 1934. Architect Gordon Kaufmann designed its various buildings in a combination of Colonial Revival and Streamline Moderne styles.

Santa Anita Assembly Center

The Santa Anita Assembly Center site is California Historical Landmark #934. In 1942 during World War II, the racetrack grounds were used as a processing and holding site for Japanese Americans who had been removed from their homes and communities for forced relocation and internment under President Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066. The Civilian Assembly Center at the racetrack became the largest and longest operating one of the eighteen, holding citizens until the Relocation Center camps were completed in interior areas of California and other states. More than 18,000 persons resided at the racetrack in primitive conditions.  Four hundred temporary tarpaper barracks were constructed on the racetrack grounds to house many of the detainees, where they lived three families per unit. 8,500 detainees lived in converted horse stalls. Bachelors were housed in the grandstand building. They had group showers, non-private bathrooms, and 24-hour armed surveillance. Each resident was given an "Army manufacture bed, one blanket and one straw tick." The Assembly Center held people from late March through the end of October 1942, when the internees were relocated inland to permanent internment camps at Manzanar and Tule Lake in California, and eight others in Western states and Arkansas.

At the time, Arcadia's civic leaders were very vocal in their support of the Japanese American relocation internment policies of the federal government.

In November 1942 the center was turned over to the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps for training purposes and was officially renamed Camp Santa Anita. Later in the war it served as a prisoner of war—POW camp, holding several thousand of Rommel's German Afrika Korps soldiers.

Postwar period
Arcadia largely grew up as the well-to-do suburb of neighboring Pasadena, with many early residents being the sons and daughters of long established Southern California families. A large tract of estate homes was developed by Harry Chandler, the scion of the Los Angeles Times, who lived in adjacent Sierra Madre, California. The city became the residence of choice for many corporate chief executives, including those in aerospace, the horse racing industry, and finance.

The postwar boom saw Arcadia grow rapidly into a suburban residential community, with many of the chicken ranches being subdivided into home lots.  Between 1940 and 1950, the population grew by more than two and a half times.  The housing boom continued through the 1950s and 1960s and along with that growth came the necessary infrastructure of schools, commercial buildings, and expanded city services.

During the postwar boom, a modern commercial district developed along Baldwin Avenue south of Huntington Drive in west Arcadia. In 1951 this strip, called the West Arcadia Hub, was anchored by a new, locally owned Hinshaw's department store. This was the first large department store to be built in Arcadia, and the largest in the western San Gabriel Valley outside the city of Pasadena. This development marked the beginning of Arcadia's gradual transformation into one of the leading shopping districts of the San Gabriel Valley.

In 1947,  that comprised the heart of the Baldwin Ranch were deeded to the State of California and the County of Los Angeles, and developed into Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.

Until a Supreme Court ruling in 1965, every property sale contract within the borders of Arcadia had to include a provision that the new owner could only sell the property to a white Protestant. However, these clauses had been ruled unenforceable by the Supreme Court's ruling in 1948's Shelley v. Kraemer, and many non-Protestant families did, in fact, own homes and live in Arcadia well before 1965.

In October 1975, the Santa Anita Fashion Park was opened to the public on the corner of Baldwin Avenue and Huntington Drive, on part of the former Santa Anita Assembly Center site. The center court featured a very large "Blue head" by artist Roy Lichtenstein, which was later removed.  The mall expanded in 2004, and renamed Westfield Santa Anita. It was affected by the late 2000s Great Recession, but continues to attract business.

James Dobson, a previous Arcadia resident, founded the nonprofit Christian ministry Focus on the Family in the city in 1977. Its original office still stands on the south side of Foothill Boulevard. Focus grew to larger quarters in the city, and in intervening years expanded to Monrovia for warehouse space before moving out of Arcadia completely in 1990. Focus on the Family is now based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but still has thousands of members in Arcadia.

In the late 1990s, Native American activists threatened to sue Arcadia High School over its use of the "Apache" mascot. The high school's use of Native American symbols, including an "Apache Joe" mascot, the Pow Wow school newspaper, the "Apache News" television program, the "Smoke Signals" news bulletin boards, the school's auxiliary team's marching "Apache Princesses" and opposing football team fans' "Scalp the Apaches" signs were viewed by these Native American activists and many Arcadia community members as offensive. Other residents, and some school alumni with Native American ancestry, did not object to their use.  The school consulted with some Native American groups and made some concessions, but did not change the mascot.  Arcadia High School has a yearly charity drive for the Apache community.

Geography
Located northeast of downtown Los Angeles, Arcadia is bordered by six other communities: Pasadena, Sierra Madre, El Monte, San Marino, Monrovia, and Temple City.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of .   of it is land and  of it (1.87%) is water.

Demographics

In 2016, Arcadia was ranked the 5th most expensive housing market in the United States by Business Insider, with an average list of $1,748,680 for a four-bedroom home.

In 2012, Arcadia was ranked 7th in the nation on CNN Money magazine's list of towns with highest median home costs.

Arcadia's Upper Rancho neighborhood was ranked the 23rd richest neighborhood in Southern California by Business Insider in 2014, with a mean household income of $310,779.

2010
The 2010 United States Census reported that Arcadia had a population of 56,364. The population density was 5,062.5 people per square mile (1,954.6/km²). The racial makeup of Arcadia was 33,353 (59.2%) Asian, 18,191 (32.3%) White, (25.7% Non-Hispanic White), 681 (1.2%) African American, 186 (0.3%) Native American, 16 (0.03%) Pacific Islander, 2,352 (4.2%) from other races, and 1,585 (2.8%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6,799 persons (12.1%).

The Census reported that 55,502 people (98.5% of the population) lived in households, 639 (1.1%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 223 (0.4%) were institutionalized. There were 19,592 households, out of which 7,336 (37.4%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 11,703 (59.7%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 2,437 (12.4%) had a female householder with no husband present, 865 (4.4%) had a male householder with no wife present.  There were 469 (2.4%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 92 (0.5%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 3,855 households (19.7%) were made up of individuals and 1,926 (9.8%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.83.  There were 15,005 families (76.6% of all households); the average family size was 3.26.

The population was spread out with 12,290 people (21.8%) under the age of 18, 4,102 people (7.3%) aged 18 to 24, 13,409 people (23.8%) aged 25 to 44, 17,349 people (30.8%) aged 45 to 64, and 9,214 people (16.3%) who were 65 years of age or older.  The median age was 43.1 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.2 males.  For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.7 males.

There were 20,686 housing units at an average density of 1,858.0 per square mile (717.4/km²), of which 12,371 (63.1%) were owner-occupied, and 7,221 (36.9%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1%; the rental vacancy rate was 6.7%.  37,000 people (65.6% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 18,502 people (32.8%) lived in rental housing
units.

Economy
Arcadia's economy is driven by wholesale trade, retail trade, manufacturing, health care and social assistance, arts, entertainment, and recreation. Revenue from the Santa Anita Racetrack has long supported capital improvements for the City of Arcadia, resulting in the city having very little bonded indebtedness.

The Westfield Santa Anita mall (formerly the Santa Anita Fashion Park) is a major shopping center in the city.  In 2005, the Westfield Santa Anita completed its first phase of expansion, featuring a new food court, Sport Chalet, Dave & Busters, numerous smaller retailers, various full-service eateries in an area known as Restaurant Square, and a 16-screen AMC Theatres. In 2008, expansion of the mall continued as the Promenade outdoor structure was completed, with new high-end retailers such as Coach and Talbots.

The proposal by Caruso Affiliated and Magna Entertainment to build a second large shopping mall adjacent to Westfield Santa Anita on the grounds of the Santa Anita Park racetrack is being debated. The controversial project, known as "The Shops at Santa Anita", had prompted heated debate among some residents in the community and enormous spending by corporate interests in favor and against the project.  If the second mall is built, the combined size of the two malls will make Arcadia the largest retail shopping district in Los Angeles County.  "The Shops at Santa Anita", which require City Council approval, would include signature retail, restaurants, and landscaping featuring a large decorative water display, all situated in what is the race track's southern parking area, severely curtailing race track parking property.

Top employers
According to the City's 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top private employers in the city are:

Tourism
The Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden is located in Arcadia across from the Santa Anita mall and racetrack.  The peafowl that roam free on the grounds and in the neighborhoods near the arboretum are a remainder of the former Baldwin ranch. When the peafowl were brought from India, they helped control snakes and snails on his farm. They are considered an attraction to some residents and a nuisance to others due to their loud cries and the droppings they leave on residents' properties.

Government
The city has a council-manager government with a five-member city council, Mayor Tom Beck, Mayor Pro Tem Peter Amundson, Roger Chandler, Sho Tay, and April Verlato.  Arcadia is a charter city governed by a five-member City Council (which also serves as the City's Redevelopment Agency), with each member serving a four-year term. The Council elects from its membership a Mayor to serve as its presiding officer for a one-year term.

Effective with the 2018 elections, Arcadia voters elect a City Council member by geographical district instead of at-large.

The Arcadia Police Department patrols the city providing 24/7 protection for the citizens of Arcadia.

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Monrovia Health Center in Monrovia, serving Arcadia.

State and federal representation
In the California State Legislature, Arcadia is in , and in .

In the United States House of Representatives, Arcadia is in California's 27th congressional district, which has a Cook PVI of D +11 and is represented by .

Education
For primary and secondary education the city is served by the Arcadia Unified School District. Reading scores for the AUSD are 76.6% higher than the state average and math scores are 67.9% higher than the state average. It is estimated that 88% of Arcadia students are at public schools and 12% in private and/or parochial institutions.

Arcadia Unified School District has one highly ranked and prestigious high school, Arcadia High School.  It is among the few public high schools in California to receive a distinguished GreatSchools Rating of 10 out of 10. There are three middle schools, and six elementary schools, two which are winners in the United States Department of Education's Blue Ribbon Schools program.  Approximately five percent of California schools are awarded this honor each year following a rigorous selection process. Eligibility is based on federal and state criteria including the No Child Left Behind program, Academic Performance Index (API), and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). The requirements are many and strict, and are based on such areas as a strong curriculum, solid library media services, professional teachers, and counseling programs at all grade levels. In 2010, BusinessWeek ranked Arcadia as the best place to raise children in the state of California for the second year in a row, citing the city's excellent school system as one of the factors in addition to the low crime rate.

Elementary schools
Baldwin Stocker Elementary	422 West Lemon Ave.,	grades K–5,	  709 students
Camino Grove Elementary	700 Camino Grove Ave.,	K–5,	  628 students
Highland Oaks Elementary	10 Virginia Dr.,   K–5,  680 students
Holly Avenue Elementary	360 West Duarte Rd.,       K–5,	  705 students
Longley Way Elementary	2601 Longley Way,        K–5,	 494 students
Reid (Hugo) Elementary	1000 Hugo Reid Dr.,	K–5,	562 students

Middle schools
Dana (Richard Henry) Middle,	1401 South First Ave., grades 6–8, 743 students
First Avenue Middle, 301 South First Ave., grades 6–8, 754 students
Foothills Middle,	171 East Sycamore Ave., grades 6–8, 770 students

High school
Arcadia High School

The Academic Performance Index measures the academic performance and growth of schools on a variety of points. Arcadia High School scored 890, making it the highest performing large high school in California. In 2010, Arcadia High had 29 National Merit Award finalists. Arcadia is also home to the two-time National Championship boys cross-country team (2010 and 2012).

Infrastructure

Transportation
Arcadia has several main roads, including Foothill Boulevard and Huntington Drive.  It is also served by the Foothill Freeway (I-210).

Metro Gold Line
In 2016, Metro opened a new at-grade light rail station in Arcadia. Arcadia Station is located northwest of the intersection of 1st Avenue and Santa Clara Street, and is served by the Metro Gold Line.

Healthcare
Located at 300 W. Huntington Drive, Methodist Hospital sits on  of land. The 460-bed hospital opened in Arcadia in 1957, after moving from downtown Los Angeles.  Methodist was the state's first community hospital to have a psychiatric unit. Its nursery school was one of the first corporate daycare facilities in the U.S. It was an Official Hospital of the 1984 Olympic Games.

To keep up with the changing needs of the community, several upgrades have been made to the original facility. In 1998, the Berger Tower was completed, adding 169 beds. Methodist underwent a major renovation and expansion in 2006, and in the fall of 2011, a new five-story patient tower and new emergency department were opened.

The Methodist Hospital School of Nursing
A School of Nursing opened at the hospital in 1915, with a class of 30 students. Ten years later, a residence was built to accommodate 150 graduate and student nurses. This four-story brick building, known as Philomena Hall, was connected to the hospital by an underground corridor and provided accommodations, classrooms and a gymnasium for the nurses. Beginning in 1944 (after a nine-year school closure), additional housing for nurses was provided in a refurbished residential house adjacent to Philomena Hall. After more than 40 years of operation and the graduation of hundreds of talented young nurses, the School of Nursing closed. Times had changed, and the practice of nursing education had moved into the domain of the formal education system. The school was phased out in 1958 with the graduation of the last nursing class.

In popular culture

U.S. Route 66, immortalized in song and literature, passes through Arcadia, on Huntington Drive in Downtown Arcadia, before turning off onto Colorado Place and then Colorado Street. After intersecting the 210 freeway, Route 66 runs parallel to and south of the freeway, cutting across the middle section of Arcadia.

The city is mentioned by Jack Kerouac in his novel On the Road: Sal, the protagonist, is put off by "preppy" teens when he stops for food at a local drive-in restaurant with a young Mexican woman. The vignette demonstrates the culture clash between the "Beatnik" way of life and that of 1950s conservative America.

In a motel located in Arcadia across the street north-east from Santa Anita Racetrack, author Hunter S. Thompson wrote much of his novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in the 1970s. In Michael Cunningham's novel The Hours, Laura Brown mentions that she heard of a man who died in nearby Arcadia.

The McDonald brothers, who later began the McDonald's hamburger restaurant chain, opened their first restaurant, The Airdrome, near Monrovia Airport, on the Arcadia/Monrovia border in 1937. The restaurant was located on historic Route 66, now Huntington Drive, but later moved to San Bernardino, California in 1940.

The 2016 animated series Trollhunters is set in a fictionalized version of Arcadia, California, as is the 2018 animated series 3Below.

Filming locations

Many films on location (including Tarzan and the Bing Crosby On the Road movies), television series, most notably Fantasy Island were filmed in Arcadia. A popular visiting site is the house with the bell tower, where Tattoo rang the bell, is the Queen Anne Cottage, located in the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia.  The plane, "arriving" with the guests, was filmed in the lagoon behind the Queen Anne Cottage. Occasionally, outdoor scenes and commercials are filmed at the Arboretum have been filmed on the grounds of the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.

The Santa Anita Park Racetrack is another popular filming locations. The true story film Seabiscuit (2003) was filmed and takes place at the Santa Anita race track. A commercial for Claritin allergy medicine, a Lexus commercial, and three episodes of Grey's Anatomy have used it as a location ("Walk on Water", "Drowning on Dry Land" and "Some Kind of Miracle").

This city was one of the filming locations for Columbia Pictures' comedy film North (1994).

The fantasy-comedy film Matilda was shot here in 1996.

A scene from Step Brothers (2008) was shot at the nearby Derby restaurant.

Scenes from Mission: Impossible III (2006) were shot at Methodist Hospital.

In the movie Cloverfield, the scene in which the survivors walk inside Bloomingdale's was actually filmed inside a Robinsons-May store under reconstruction inside the Westfield Santa Anita in Arcadia. The film Eagle Eye (2008) was also filmed in this location.

Scenes from Kicking & Screaming (2005) were shot at Foothill Middle School and in Arcadia homes.

The movie The Lone Ranger (2013) filmed their train scenes here within the Santa Anita Race Track parking lot by building an elevated 'roller coaster' like track.

The comedy film Deal of a Lifetime (1999) was completely filmed at Arcadia High School.

Notable people

 Michael Anthony, bassist of the band Van Halen, graduated from Arcadia High School in 1972
 Marty Barrett, baseball player
 Jason Chen, singer
 Jimmy Conrad, soccer defender
 Tracy Caldwell Dyson, astronaut
 Sven Davidson, tennis player who won the French Open and Wimbledon
John Grabow, major league baseball pitcher
 Phil Hendrie, radio personality, grew up in Arcadia and graduated from Arcadia High School in 1970
 Colleen Kay Hutchins, Miss America 1952, was raised in Arcadia
 Maren Jensen, actress, was born in Arcadia
 Brittany Klein, soccer player
 Rudy Kurniawan, wine swindler
 Ted Leonard of band Enchant was born in Arcadia
 Jet Li, international film star and martial artist, resided in Arcadia with his wife, a former Miss China
 Johnny Lindell, Major League Baseball player
 Bruce McNall, owned NHL's Los Angeles Kings, was born in Arcadia
 Mirai Nagasu, Olympic figure skater, 6-time medalist in U.S. championships
 Lindsay Price, actress and wife of Curtis Stone
 John Speraw, Head Coach US Men's Olympic Volleyball Team
 Mark Tuan, member of South Korean boy-band GOT7
 Rena Wang, badminton player
 Steve Westly, politician and venture capitalist
 Wil Wheaton, actor, Star Trek: The Next Generation
 George Woolf, horse jockey, owner of The Derby restaurant in Arcadia and rider of Seabiscuit
 Tim Worrell, professional baseball pitcher
 Todd Worrell, professional baseball relief pitcher
 Erica Wu, table tennis Olympian

Sister cities
Arcadia has one sister city (Newcastle, Australia ), as designated by Sister Cities International.  Consequently, on Colorado Boulevard is Newcastle Park.  There is also an Arcadia Park in Newcastle.


White Pongo

White Pongo, also known as Adventure Unlimited in the United Kingdom, is a 1945 American film directed by Sam Newfield.

Plot summary
In the jungles of the Belgian Congo, a group of natives are dancing around a great fire with a human sacrifice named Gunderson, They are attacked by an albino gorilla called the White Pongo.  During the attack an elderly scientist who lives with the tribe frees Gunderson and gives him his deceased colleague's diary that contains his findings on the white gorilla.

Gunderson makes it through the jungle and arrives in a nearby settlement in a feverish state. The diary has seemed to prove that the white gorilla of myth exists that local anthropologists believe is the evolutionary missing link.  A safari is formed with a group of individuals, several of whom have their own nefarious reasons for going, but one is an undercover Rhodesian Secret Serviceman. The group battle the jungle and one another. In the climax, the White Pongo, who has been stalking the group, kidnaps one of the safari members and duels with a normal-colored gorilla. The rest of the safari hear the battle and rescue their comrade. The White Pongo comes out victorious over his rival, but is wounded by the safari and taken with them to the boat back to London.

Cast
Richard Fraser as Geoffrey Bishop
Maris Wrixon as Pamela Bragdon
Lionel Royce as Peter Van Dorn
Al Eben as Hans Kroegert
Gordon Richards as Sir Harry Bragdon
Michael Dyne as Clive Carswell
George Lloyd as Baxter
Larry Steers as Doctor Kent
Milton Kibbee as Gunderson
Egon Brecher as Dr. Gerig
Joel Fluellen as Mumbo Jumbo

Uncredited:  Ray "Crash" Corrigan as the White Pongo.

Production
Ray Corrigan, a Western actor, was an experienced "gorilla man," and played a similar role earlier that year in The White Gorilla, where he starred both as a jungle explorer and as the gorilla. The White Pongo costume was years later brought out of storage to be used as the monster suit in Jerry Warren's 1956 Abominable Snowman movie, Man Beast (film).

Soundtrack
Leo Erdody was the musical director.


Vadim Epanchintsev

Vadim Sergeevich Epanchintsev (; born 16 March 1976) is a Russian former professional ice hockey player and coach. He was most recently the head coach for HC Spartak Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).


Minus Cube

The Minus Cube () is a 3D mechanical variant of the n-puzzle, which was manufactured in the Soviet Union. It consists of a bonded transparent plastic box containing seven small cubes, each glued together from two U-shape parts: one white and one coloured.  The length of one side of the interior of the box is slightly more than twice the length of the side of a small cube.  There is an empty space for one small cube inside the box, and the small cubes are moveable inside the box by tilting the box, causing a cube to fall into the space.  The goal of the puzzle is to shuffle the cubes in such a way that on each side of the box, all of the faces of the small cubes have the same color.

There were two types of Minus Cubes manufactured: the so-called "Moscow Minus Cube" (red–white) and "Sverdlovsk Minus Cube" (blue–white), each named after the cities in which they were produced.  They differed only in the orientation of one of the small cubes.  Because of this difference, there are 12 times as many "solved" arrangements for the Moscow Minus Cube, and thus the Sverdlovsk Minus Cube is 12 times as difficult to solve. However, if one does not confine oneself to these two types of the Minus Cube, there are 48 Minus Cube variants that can be solved.


Tinghir

Tinghir or Tinerhir (, Tamazight: ⵜⵉⵏⵖⵉⵔ) is a city in the region of Drâa-Tafilalet, south of the High Atlas and north of the Little Atlas in southeastern Morocco. It is the capital of Tinghir Province.
Its name originally referred to the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, but its area has expanded to encompass surrounding villages and refers to the entire oasis.

The city of Tinghir (Baladia tinghir) has a population of 42 044 and the province has 322 412 inhabitants, according to the 2014 census. The predominant ethnic group is Amazighs, and the city is at the center of one of the most attractive oases in southern Morocco.
Lush palm trees cover about  on -wide tracts along the Wadi Todgha. After the Todra Gorge, Wadi Todgha has a difficult passage along the southern slopes of the Atlas Mountains (Tizgui); it then flows across the plain, meandering slightly over  to Ferkla.
The palm oasis, dense and widespread, is irrigated by a network of pipes and irrigation canals. Occasional heavy rains are absorbed in a few days.

Economy
The economy of Tinghir is based on agriculture, trade and tourism. In addition, many families live on money sent home by relatives working in Europe.
Social and cultural activities are increasing; education projects for young children are increasing in many villages, as well as literacy projects aimed at adults (particularly women). These projects are supported by local and nongovernmental organisations.

Geography

Tinghir is an oasis about  long and about  wide. The climate is arid subtropical: hot, dry winters in relation to altitude (). There are a few rainy days per year, with the greatest precipitation in fall and winter.

The Tinghir region is wedged between two mountain ranges, stretching over  southwest to northeast Morocco: the High Atlas in the north, with a high peak over , and the Little Atlas in the south. The road from Ouarzazate to Imtghren parallels the mountains.
During the Mesozoic the region was invaded by the sea, where thick deposits of sediments rich in marine fossils (particularly of the ammonitida class). The uplift of the Atlas Mountains (primarily during the Neogene) caused the withdrawal of the sea and the deformation of rocks into folds and faults.
Wind and river erosion eventually shaped the desert landscape of limestone and clay. The Todgha River has widened these layers of rock, giving rise to canyons  high but in some places only  wide.
The river widens, developing an oasis edged with the red ochre of the desert.

Government

King Mohammed VI gave his approval on 21 January 2009 to make Tinghir an administrative center, an initiative which met the needs of its inhabitants; it provides a legal and institutional framework for reform of territorial administration based on good governance and local self-administration.

External links

Tinghir


MACC Fund

The MACC Fund - Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer, Inc.- was founded on December 10, 1976, during the retirement of Jon McGlocklin from the Milwaukee Bucks. Jon's friend, Longtime Milwaukee Bucks Broadcaster Eddie Doucette, and his wife, Karen, had a son, Brett, who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 2. Brett's diagnosis coincided with the timing of Jon's retirement. It was decided to use Jon's departure from professional basketball to announce the start of the MACC Fund. During a half-time on the floor of the Milwaukee Arena, the MACC Fund came into being.

Members
Jon McGlocklin was named the organization's President, an office he holds today, and Eddie was named Vice- President. Living in California since 1978, Eddie is the now the MACC Fund's Honorary Vice-President.

Brett Doucette, the MACC Fund's first success story, is married and living in Arizona. His dad Eddie is working as a consultant with the NBA and Jon does color commentary for Bucks televised games with Honorary MACC Fund Athletic Board member, Jim Paschke.

Local athletes, celebrities and community-minded business people comprised the Fund's original Board of Directors. All three groups are still involved. In addition, tens of thousands of people from throughout Wisconsin and the Midwest have embraced the MACC Fund and its mission to offer a special gift of "Hope Through Research to Children with Cancer and Related Blood Disorders."

Fund-raising and donations
Fund-raising is based on the concept of "a good time for a good cause." Special events led the way in the beginning and still comprise about 75% of the Fund's annual income. Brewers home runs and doubles, Packers sacks and interceptions and Bucks 3-point baskets and opening tips raised funds from generous sponsors and cooperative sports teams. Cause-related marketing programs with donations for each purchase followed suit along with a telethon called MACC*ATHON. Women for MACC took up the fight in 1982 with its own impressive fund-raising events.

A yearly telethon/auction of signed and game-used sports memorabilia to benefit the fund on WTMJ-TV has been a staple of the holiday season since the late 1980s, along with the "MACC Star", a yearly Christmas ornament available for sale designed by a child currently undergoing cancer treatment. The MACC Fund's largest annual event is the Trek 100 Ride for Hope, which has raised over $8 million since 1990. Since 2009, the Trek 100 has been held in early June and begins and ends at the home of Trek Bicycle Corporation in Waterloo, Wisconsin. Riders raise at least $2 for each mile they ride, following routes that range from 19 to 100 miles.  Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers also raised $50k for the fund after winning Celebrity Jeopardy.

Traditional donations, memorials, corporate and foundation support and estate planning gifts fill in the other 25% of the Fund's annual income. Total income in 2007 was $3.8 million. The MACC Fund has a full-time staff of 5 that coordinates year-round activities. The 10-year average administrative and indirect fund-raising expense is about 25%.

The MACC Fund has contributed $33 million for pediatric cancer research thanks to the generosity and commitment of people who have taken the time to care for a child with cancer. This research impacts children throughout the country since the successful protocols become the standard for patient care everywhere. Long term commitments take the total to $39 million.

The primary beneficiary of MACC Fund support is the MACC Fund Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, a collaborative effort of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. Research is conducted in the 6-story MACC Fund Research Center of the Medical College of Wisconsin. The MACC Fund also supports research at the University of Wisconsin's Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center where research will be conducted in the MACC Fund Pediatric Cancer Research Wing upon its completion in the fall of 2009. Translational research is supported at the MACC Fund Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. The MACC Fund committed nearly 1.5 million for the Midwest Children's Cancer Center's annual budget in fiscal 2008. This is about 30% of the Center's annual budget. In addition, support to the UW Cancer Center totaled $600,000 in 2008.

The MACC Fund Scientific Review Board was formed in 1980 to review the work of the Midwest Children's Cancer Center and to review grants submitted from outside this Center. It is made up of leading pediatric oncology practitioners from around the country. The Board does a biennial site review of the Cancer Center. The current Review Board is headed by Dr. Kevin Shannon of the University of California, San Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center. Past MACC Fund Scientific Review Board Chairs have come from prestigious medical schools such as Yale, Harvard, UCLA and The University of Southern California.

The research that the MACC Fund supports has had a significant impact. The overall cure rate for all types of childhood cancer has risen from 20% to 80% in the past 30 years. Wilms tumor of the kidney is now 90% curable. Acute lymphocytic leukemia is about 85% curable. And the Midwest Children's Cancer Center has performed more successful non-related bone marrow transplants than any other Center in the country.


Joe Abreu

Joseph Lawrence Abreu (May 24, 1913 – March 17, 1993) was an American Major League Baseball infielder. He played nine seasons in professional baseball, one at the major league level. He served in the United States Navy during World War II.

Early life
Abreu was the sixth of nine children in his family, and his parents immigrated from Portugal in 1906.

He was born on May 24, 1913 in Oakland, California. Abreu had three brothers who were professional boxers. Abreu graduated from McClymonds High School in 1934, and after graduation, Abreu coached a local American Legion Baseball team. He spent the summer of 1935 working as a handyman at wholesale liquor firm in San Francisco, California. That summer, he played semi-professional baseball with the Central Banks of the Berkeley City League where he attracted attention from many professional scouts.

Professional career

New York Yankees
In , Abreu began his professional career with the Yakima Pippins where he batted .396, helping them win the Northwest League pennant. The next season, Abreu split time between the Class-B Spokane Hawks, and the Class-AA Oakland Oaks. With the Hawks, he hit .324 with 23 doubles, 12 triples, and 4 home runs in 91 games. He led the team in triples, was second in batting average, and was third in doubles.

With the Oaks that season, Abreu batted .148 with 1 double, and 1 triple in 19 games. In , Abreu spent the entire season with the Oaks. He batted .299 with 28 doubles, 4 triples, and 11 home runs in 167 games. He led the Oaks in home runs, and was second in doubles that season.

The next season, , he again spent the entire season with the Oaks batting .288 with 14 doubles, 9 triples, and 4 home runs in 140 games. Abreu played for the Class-A-1 Fort Worth Cats of the Texas League in . He batted .250 with 27 doubles, 6 triples, and 10 home runs in 158 games. Abreu began the  season with the Fort Worth Cats and batted .235 with 3 triples in 13 games. He spent the second half of the 1941 season with the Milwaukee Brewers in the Chicago Cubs organization. He batted .284 with 12 doubles, 2 triples, and 11 home runs in 100 games.

Cincinnati Reds
Abreu was participating in spring training with the Brewers in  when he learned by telegram that he had been sold to the Los Angeles Angels, and a week later was sold to the Birmingham Barons, who sent him to their parent club, the Cincinnati Reds. He made his major league debut on April 23, 1942 against the Pittsburgh Pirates. His next game, he hit his first home run off of Lefty Wilkie. In 9 games with the Reds, Abreu batted .214 with 1 double, 1 home run, and 3 RBIs.

Return to the Yankees
On July 16, 1942, the Reds traded Abreu along with Jim Turner to the New York Yankees with Frankie Kelleher. He was assigned to the Class-AA Newark Bears and that season Abreu batted .236 with 4 doubles, and 1 triple in 30 games.

World War II
Abreu began his service with the United States Navy in 1943. During his service in World War II, Abreu was stationed at Livermore Naval Air Station in California. In service, Abreu continued to play baseball in the Army and Navy League where he was selected as an All-Star. He also played with the Golden Glows of the Alameda Summer and Winter leagues. Abreu was coached under then-Reds' catcher Ray Lamanno on the Livermore Naval Air Station baseball team, and he played with major leaguers Bill Rigney, Cookie Lavagetto, and Ray Scarborough.

Later career
Abreu returned to professional baseball after the war. He was assigned to the Class-D Wellsville Yankees where he began his career as a player-manager in . He batted .352 with 24 doubles, 1 triple, and 21 home runs in 106 games. Abreu was tied for first in the Pennsylvania–Ontario–New York League in home runs that season. After the season, Abreu was given an unconditional release. The next season, , Abreu split the season between the Class-D Newnan Brownies of the Georgia–Alabama League, and the Class-D Dayton Indians of the Ohio State League. With the Brownies, Abreu both managed them and batted and played for them. He batted .290 with 28 doubles, 2 triples, and 8 home runs in 104 games with Newnan. During his tenure with Dayton, Abreu batted .228 with 3 doubles, 1 triple, and 1 home run in 25 games. In his final professional season in which he played, Abreu played and managed the Class-C Tampa Smokers of the Florida International League. With Tampa, he batted .265 with 7 doubles, and 1 home run in 25 games.

Later life
After his professional playing career was over, Abreu managed one other team in professional baseball before exiting the pro-level. He was one of four managers of the Class-D Santa Rosa Cats in . Abreu asked to be released from Tampa to tend to issues back home in Oakland, California. He then returned to his native California to play for the semi-professional Guy's Drugs of Oakland who won the Bush Rod Winter League (the first league to use the designated hitter rule) pennant. During the mid-1950s, Abreu played softball with the Naval Supply Center team, and was involved in local baseball clinics in the area.

Personal
Abreu married Berenice Marshall on January 4, 1939. Abreu was an enthusiast of magic, and was an amateur magician. His interest was sparked after former Detroit Tigers and Oakland Oaks' pitcher and professional magician Carl Zamloch put on a magic show at his high school. During his tenure with the Reds, Abreu claimed to know 400 card tricks and was a member of the National Society of Magicians. Abreu died on March 17, 1993 in Hayward, California at the age of 79 years, and was buried at Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery in Seattle, Washington.


Wendy Cork

Wendy Cork (born 25 July) is an Australian costume designer for film, theatre and television. She is best known for her work on Ladies in Black, Banished, Predestination and Beneath Hill 60.

Life and career
Wendy Cork was born in Goulburn, Australia and graduated from the University of New South Wales with a bachelor of arts in theatre and film. She started her career working in theatre and opera. She made her debut as a costume designer with the film In the Winter Dark, directed by James Bogle in 1998. She also designed the computer-generated clothes for the Rockstar Play-station game, L.A. Noire.

In 2014, she won Hero Frock Hire Award for costume design at the Australian Production Design Guild Awards on a feature film Predestination, directed by The Spierig Brothers starring Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook. Later she worked with Jimmy McGovern's  period drama Banished, which was screened on BBC Two. She won Best Costume Design at the AACTA Awards for Ladies in Black, directed by Bruce Beresford.

Filmography
 In the Winter Dark (1998)
 A Wreck A Tangle (2000)
 The Djarn Djarns (2005)
 The Illustrated Family Doctor (2005)
 The Eternity Man (2008)
 Into My Arms (2009)
 My Mind's Own Melody (2012)
 The Turning (2013)
 Predestination (2014)
 Deep Water: The Real Story (2018)
 Grace (2018)
 Winchester (2018)
 Ladies in Black (2018)

Television
 The Farm (2001)
 Counterstrike (2002)
 Fat Cow Motel (2003)
 Go Big (2004)
 Small Claims (2004)
 Hell Has Harbour Views (2005)
 Small Claims: White Wedding (2005)
 Small Claims: The Reunion (2006)
 BlackJack (Second trilogy) (2006-2007)
 Dangerous (2007)
 East West 101 (2007-2008)
 Valentine's Day (2008)
 Sea Patrol (2009-2010)
 Panic at Rock Island (2011)
 Crownies (2011)
 The Great Mint Swindle (2012)
 The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (2012)
 Twentysomething" (2013)
 INXS: Never Tear Us Apart (2014)
 Banished (2015)
 Indian Summers (2016)
 Olivia Newton-John: Hopelessly Devoted to You (2018)
 Secret City'' (2018)

Awards and nominations


Laura Rodríguez

Laura Fiora Rodríguez Riccomini (1957–1992) was a Chilean political activist from the Humanist Party. In 1989 she became the world's first Humanist to win a seat in parliament, after claiming victory as part of the Concertación coalition.

Rodríguez was born in Santiago, Chile. She married Darío Ergas in 1978. She was active in and eventually became president of the Community for Human Development. She graduated as engineer from the University of Chile in 1983.

Rodríguez was co-founder of the Humanist Party in 1984 and was president of the party in 1990. She was elected to the Chilean parliament in 1989 for the La Reina-Peñalolén electoral district.

Rodríguez died of cancer in 1992.

External links
Laura Rodríguez Foundation (in Spanish)


Iseo-myeon

Iseo-myeon can refer to three different myeon in South Korea:

Iseo-myeon, Cheongdo County, in Cheongdo County, Gyeongsangbuk-do
Iseo-myeon, Wanju County, in Wanju County, Jeollabuk-do
Iseo-myeon, Hwasun County, in Hwasun County, Jeollanam-do


Archduchess Karoline Marie of Austria

Archduchess Karoline Marie of Austria () (5 September 1869, Altmünster, Upper Austria, Austria–Hungary – 12 May 1945, Budapest, Hungary) was a member of the House of Habsburg-Tuscany and Archduchess of Austria, Princess of Tuscany by birth. Through her marriage to Prince August Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Karoline was also a member of the Koháry branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Karoline was the fourth child and second eldest daughter of Archduke Karl Salvator of Austria and his wife Princess Maria Immaculata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. She was Princess-Abbess of the Theresian Royal and Imperial Ladies Chapter of the Castle of Prague (1893-1894).

Marriage and issue
Karoline married Prince August Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, second eldest son of Prince Ludwig August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and his wife Princess Leopoldina of Brazil, on 30 May 1894 in Vienna. Karoline and August had eight children together:

 August Clemens (b. Pola, 27 October 1895 - d. Gerasdorf, 22 September 1908).
 Klementine (b. Pola, 23 March 1897 - d. Lausanne, 7 January 1975), married on 17 November 1925 to Eduard von Heller.
 Maria Karoline (b. Pola, 10 January 1899 - d. Hartheim bei Linz, 6 June 1941).  She had been living in an institution for the mentally disabled in Schladming, but was taken away and executed by gassing along with her fellow patients as a result of the Nazi eugenics policy, Action T4, in the concentration camp at Schloss Hartheim.
 Rainer (b. Pola, 4 May 1900 - d. after 7 January 1945 {believed to have been killed in action at Budapest}).
 Philipp (b. Walterskirchen, 18 August 1901 - 18 October 1985), married morganatically on 23 April 1944 to Sarah Aurelia Hálasz; their only son and their four grandchildren were barred from the succession of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary.
 Theresia (b. Walterskirchen, 23 August 1902 - d. Villach, 24 January 1990), married on 6 October 1930 to Lamoral, Freiherr von Taxis di Bordogna e Valnigra (Their descendants bore the surname Tasso de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança).
 Leopoldine (b. Schloß Gerasdorf, 13 May 1905 - d. Hungary, 24 December 1978).
 Ernst (b. Gerasdorf, 25 February 1907 - d. Gröbming, Styria, 9 June 1978), married morganatically on 4 September 1939 to Irmgard Röll. This marriage was childless.

Titles and styles
5 September 1869 – 12 May 1945: Her Imperial and Royal Highness Archduchess Karoline Marie of Austria, Princess of Tuscany

Ancestry


Greta Martinelli

Greta Martinelli (born 3 December 2000) is an Italian rower.

She won a medal at the 2019 World Rowing Championships.


Frédéric Etherlinck

Frédéric Idesbald Van Goitsenhoven-Maeterlinck (born 11 August 1968 in Brussels) is a Belgian former singer and actor, best known for his participation in the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest.

Early life
Etherlinck was born in Brussels but soon after his birth his family emigrated to Los Angeles, where they lived until 1977. They then lived in Nice, France, for three years before returning to Brussels. Etherlinck later became a singer and drummer, performing in bars and cabarets in the Brussels area.

Eurovision Song Contest
In 1995, Etherlinck took part in the Belgian Eurovision Song Contest selection with the song "La voix est libre" ("The Voice is Free"). In the most evenly balanced selection in Belgium's Eurovision history, with only 13 points separating the top six songs, he emerged the narrow victor and went on to represent Belgium in the 40th Eurovision Song Contest, held on 13 May in Dublin. "La voix est libre" did not prove successful in the contest, ending the evening in 20th place out of 23 entries.

Later career
"La voix est libre" reached No. 21 on the Wallonian singles chart, but further success proved elusive. Etherlinck released an album entitled Les années lumières (Light Years) which failed to sell.  Today he is an actor and lives in Montreal.


Forever Odd

Forever Odd is a 2005 novel by Dean Koontz, and the sequel to Odd Thomas. The plot takes place six months after the events of Odd Thomas.

Plot summary

After Odd Thomas discovers that his childhood friend Danny has been kidnapped and his step-father brutally murdered, he assumes that Danny's birth father, who was recently released from prison, has kidnapped him.  Because of this belief, Odd starts to investigate, and is led through a water tunnel and into an abandoned hotel by his "psychic magnetism," an ability of Odd's to track down who, or what he is visualizing.

Inside, Odd finds his friend tied up and strapped to a bomb. Danny informs Odd that his dad did not kidnap him. Instead, Danny recounts that, because of his loneliness from a debilitating bone disease, he called a phone sex line and spoke with a woman named Datura. Danny, having been seduced by this woman, had eventually given up the information of Odd's "gift." Once this registered in her mind, she kidnapped Danny in order to have Odd reveal himself to her.

Odd leaves Danny and finds Datura in her room with two thugs, Cheval Robert and Cheval Andre. She orders Odd to show her ghosts. Reluctantly, Odd takes her to the casino in the hotel where he previously saw many ghosts and one poltergeist. Datura insults a ghost, and the enraged poltergeist flings objects at them. At this point, Odd escapes from Datura, returns to Danny, and disarms the bomb. Odd returns to Datura's room and finds a shotgun, which he uses to kill Cheval Robert. Datura finds him by "reverse psychic magnetism"; as they are talking, a mountain lion attacks her from behind. An angry Cheval Andre chases Odd through the hotel, before Odd kills Cheval Andre in a sewer.

Odd dies in the sewer, and his spirit visits three of his friends. He comes back to life, however, in front of the Blue Moon Café with no idea how he got there. At first he is dismayed at his survival, as his dearest hope is to be reunited with his soul-mate, Bronwen "Stormy" Llewellyn, in the afterlife. Odd accompanies the Chief Porter to the hotel, where they go back to retrieve Danny from that terrible place. Two months later, Odd makes plans to work in a monastery high in the mountains in an attempt to find peace.

Characters

Odd Thomas

Odd Thomas, the protagonist, has the ability to see the  lingering dead. He must save his friend, Danny Jessup, from an insane, masochistic occultist calling herself Datura.

Danny Jessup

Danny is Odd's childhood friend, Datura kidnaps him after he reveals to her about Odd's supernatural ability to see the lingering dead, on a phone sex line. His bone disease, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, makes him susceptible to bone fractures.

Datura

A phone sex operator obsessed with the occult. She, and her crew, kidnap Danny to draw Odd to her and gain control over his supernatural ability.  Although not specifically pointed out in the novel, Datura is the name of a genus of poisonous shrubs that includes jimsonweed.  These are related to the genus brugmansia (which are trees), and a brugmansia tree is described in the book.

Cheval Andre

Cheval Andre is the larger of Datura's servants and the one who shows the least emotion. He is described by Odd as a "freight train" or a "locomotive." Andre pursues Odd into the flood control system after Odd lets a mountain lion kill Datura. The two fight each other until Odd  manages to slash into Andre's stomach with a fishing knife. As Andre dies, he wrestles the knife from Odd's hands and is able to slash him across the chest. Andre then dies, his clothing caught on the floodgate. Robert and Andre may be zombies, animated by Datura's ti bon ange. They appear to have a hunger for flesh. Also, they never speak and they disappear after being "killed".

Cheval Robert

Cheval Robert is the smaller of Datura's servants, but is still quite strong. He shows far more emotion than Andre (which still isn't much). When Odd meets Datura for the first time, Andre stands next to her at the window and observes the storm. Robert instead chooses to watch the candles with a childlike intrigue. When Andre and Robert are given the job of guarding the lanterns for Odd and Datura in the casino, Andre stands firm and silent, while Robert appears to be a bit nervous. Odd encounters Robert in a hotel suite while hiding from Datura. Robert is immediately aware of Odd, but chooses to ignore him, choosing to watch the storm at the window first. Robert then turns to Odd and walks toward him, never bothering to raise his revolver. At this moment, Robert makes the only noise heard from either he or Andre. It is a low pitched groan that sounds exasperated. Robert then begins to raise his revolver hand. Odd shoots Robert four times with a shotgun, causing him to fall off the hotel balcony. His body disappears. Robert and Andre are perhaps zombies, animated by Datura's stolen ti bon ange (Good Little Angel). They appear to have a hunger for flesh and they never speak.

Quotes
  "If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends. How else would one learn to avoid saying those things that would elicit laughter from strangers? The mockery of friends is affectionate and inocculates from foolishness."

Odd Series
Forever Odd is the second of seven novels about Odd Thomas; the first being Odd Thomas, the third Brother Odd,the fourth Odd Hours, the fifth Odd Apocalypse, the sixth Deeply Odd, and the seventh Saint Odd.

Notes

External links

Del Rey to Publish Graphic Novel Starring Dean Koonz's "Odd Thomas"


Sensemaking (information science)

While sensemaking has been studied by other disciplines under other names for centuries, in information science and computer science the term "sensemaking" has primarily marked two distinct but related topics. Sensemaking was introduced as a methodology by Brenda Dervin in the 1980s and to human–computer interaction by PARC researchers Daniel Russell, Mark Stefik, Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card in 1993.

In information science, the term is often written as "sense-making". In both cases, the concept has been used to bring together insights drawn from philosophy, sociology, and cognitive science (especially social psychology). Sensemaking research is therefore often presented as an interdisciplinary research programme.

As a process

Sensemaking can be described as a process of developing sophisticated representation and organizing information to serve a task, for example, decision-making and problem-solving (Russell et al., 1993). Gary A. Klein and colleagues (Klein et al. 2006b) conceptualize sensemaking as a set of processes that is initiated when an individual or organization recognizes the inadequacy of their current understanding of events.

Sensemaking is an active two-way process of fitting data into a frame (mental model) and fitting a frame around the data. Neither data nor frame comes first; data evoke frames and frames select and connect data. When there is no adequate fit, the data may be reconsidered or an existing frame may be revised. This description resembles the recognition-metacognition model (Cohen et al., 1996), which describes the metacognitive processes that are used by individuals to build, verify, and modify working models (or "stories") in situational awareness to account for an unrecognised situation. Such notions also echo the processes of assimilation and accommodation in Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development (e.g., Piaget, 1972, 1977).

As methodology

Brenda Dervin (Dervin, 1983, 1992, 1996) has investigated individual sensemaking, developing theories about the "cognitive gap" that individuals experience when attempting to make sense of observed data. Because much of this applied psychological research is grounded within the context of systems engineering and human factors, it aims to answer the need for concepts and performance to be measurable and for theories to be testable. Accordingly, sensemaking and situational awareness are viewed as working concepts that enable researchers to investigate and improve the interaction between people and information technology. This perspective emphasizes that humans play a significant role in adapting and responding to unexpected or unknown situations, as well as recognized situations. Dervin's work has largely focused on developing philosophical guidance for method, including methods of substantive theorizing and conducting research (Naumer, C. et al., 2008).

In human–computer interaction

After a seminal paper on sensemaking in the human–computer interaction (HCI) field was published in 1993 (Russell et al., 1993), there was a great deal of activity around the understanding of how to design interactive systems for sensemaking, and workshops on sensemaking were held at prominent HCI conferences (e.g., Russell et al., 2009).


Billerica Public Library

__NOTOC__
The Billerica Public Library' is a public library in Billerica, Massachusetts. Since 2000 it has been located on Concord Road.

History

In the late 19th century, "Billerica's free library, known as the Bennett Public Library, was founded by Mrs. Joshua Bennett, who erected, at a cost of $9,000, a suitable building for the purpose, and deeded it to the Bennett Library Association in 1880. ... The town contributes nothing for the support of the library."  The architects of the Bennett building were Boston architects Rotch & Tilden.

Initially, subscribers were charged an annual fee for use of the library. By 1899, "the membership fee to the associates, to whom a few special privileges are allowed, is one dollar, but all citizens are given the free use of the library."

In fiscal year 2008, the town of Billerica spent 1.09% of its budget on the library -- some $29 per person. The library's total budget was $1,209,203.


Three Studies of Muriel Belcher

Three Studies of Muriel Belcher is an oil on canvas triptych painting by the Irish born English artist Francis Bacon, completed in 1966. It portrays Muriel Belcher, described by musician George Melly as a "benevolent witch",<ref name="nyt">Wheatcroft, Geoffrey. "Den Mother to the Louche and Famous. The New York Times, 5 June 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2018</ref> and the charismatic founder and proprietress of The Colony Room Club, a private drinking house at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London, where Bacon was a regular throughout the late 1940s to late 1960s. The two became friends soon after she opened the club in 1948, and Bacon helped her cultivate its reputation as a seedy but convivial meeting place for artists, writers, musicians, homosexuals and bohemians. At its height, regular patrons included Lucian Freud, Jeffrey Bernard, John Deakin and Henrietta Moraes.

Both Belcher and Bacon shared a sharp, dry and often and caustic wit, which bordered on sarcastic and aloof disdain. They cultivated an at times intimidating atmosphere, and she became the subject of several of his paintings, including Seated Woman (Portrait of Muriel Belcher), which in sold 2007 for €13.7 million. Bacon did not paint from life sittings, and it is likely that he painted this triptych from photographs taken by Deakin.

Each of the panels are set against flat, dark and nondescript backgrounds. The portraits captures Belcher's personality, expressed through her flowing hair, arched eyebrows and prominent nose. From left to right, the panels show her in half profile looking to the viewer's right, in full profile, and in half profile looking to our left, in a sequence that evokes a sense of movement akin to the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge or police mug shots. Her facial features are heavily distorted in each, an effect achieved by long and wider brush strokes. Bacon uses contrasting colour pallets to change the tone and the mood of the panels; the fiery and aggressive reds of the center portrait contrast with the calmer blue-grey tones of the right hand image. The triptych follows in a pattern of panels painted of close friends in a similar distorted style during the late 1960s and very early 1970s.

Muriel Belcher died in 1979, in her early 70s. Having been exhibited at Tate, London, and Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, the painting is currently in a private collection.


Halsted station (CTA Green Line)

Halsted is an 'L' station on the CTA Green Line's Englewood branch, located in the Englewood neighborhood. It is situated at 6321 S. Halsted Street. It opened on December 24, 1906.

Bus connections
CTA
8 Halsted
63 63rd (Owl Service)

Notes and references

Notes


Prays ruficeps

Prays ruficeps is a moth of the family Plutellidae. It is found in Northern and Central Europe.

The wingspan is 14–17 mm.

The larvae feed on Fraxinus excelsior.


Linesøya

Linesøya is an island in the municipality of Åfjord in Trøndelag county, Norway. It lies about  off the coast of the mainland of Åfjord, and  southwest of the island of Stokkøya.  The  island also lies about  north of the smaller island of Lauvøya.  The highest point on Linesøya is the  tall mountain Linesfjellet.

After the completion in 2011 of the Linesøy Bridge between Linesøya and Stokkøya and the Stokkøy Bridge from Stokkøya to the mainland, there has been a ferry-free road to the mainland from Linesøya.