Sometime later, when I was serving on the Executive Committee, the San Fernando bunch decided they wanted the prestige of being a "section". It was then that I dreamed up the idea that we would use "Section" for activity-oriented divisions and "Group" for geographical based entities. It still stands, but for some unknown reason, newer organizations are listed as committees, such as Backroad Explorers, Camera Committee and Mountain Rescue. My first Desert Peak was Telescope on May 30, 1954, with Bea Smith and Tinsley (given name ?) Afterwards Bea and I were wed for some seven years. The next day we picked up Polly Connable at China Lake and climbed Argus (Bea sitting that one out). In later years when I was working on my two Desert Peaks Guides, Polly helped me explore many of the peaks east of Hwy 14. Other early climbs were on Rabbit, Kofa, New York Butte, Inyo, etc. Polly and I scouted many minor peaks, which are listed in the guides, but never received recognition from DPS. These included a number in the Inyos, around Owens Lake, as well as series of easy knobs in Nevada, around Beatty and Goldfleld. By this time, I had served my two terms as chair of the 100 Peaks, and was becoming more involved in desert peaks, while working on my two guides. So I ran for chair of the Desert Peak Section. I was reading The Desert Sage 211, and also reading a recent article by John Robinson of early organization procedures that I came up with the title of this article. John wrote of how Bill Henderson had run the 100 Pks, wrote the newsletter, and Marge had taken care of the mailing, and that was about the total administration. When I was chair of the DPS, I took care of the scheduling, rounding up leaders, and lead a number of trips myself. I also wrote the Newsletter, using the Glendale PD's Ozlid copier. It used a special type of carbon paper to typed onto a master and damped with alcohol transferred lavender text onto a coated stock (I used my own papers, but the PD's machine and alcohol). I believe that Dorothy was serving as secretary, as well as doing the Chapter's schedule and the Southern Sierran, also did the mailing. Later moved to San Diego and passed away. This DPS Newsletter usually was but two pages long. It was while mulling over our 48-page Desert Sage, and seeing the quality of production that Ron Jones is turning out, that I felt I that have lived through many a different era of the Club. Our Section consisted of the chair, a vice-chair, who remained in the background, and a secretary who handled the mail and the few dues that were collected. Now our masthead lists: Treasurer, Conservationist, Program, Archivist, Newsletter editor, Council representative, Outing chair, and Guide editor. But in those days, the Angeles chapter, which had just grown from the Southern California Committee, had some 2000 members. The entire Club had but 6000 members, and while the Angeles Chapter was the largest, the fountain head still remained in the Bay Area (mostly San Francisco and Berkely). Personally, I wandered about various other groups. The Mule Pack Section almost died of inactivity. Dorothy Cutler insisted something should be done to keep it alive. At that time I had a studio in Glendale, where I also ran the La Siesta Press. So I sent out invitations to some of the old gang, and we had an interesting evening, and I chaired the section (again a one-man deal). To backtrack a bit, two of our members were lost on a snow slide on Boundary Peak, and as a result a Mountain Rescue Committee was organized under Tom Condon (who recently passed away) and me. Tom was one of the best climbers I have ever known. I handled the paper work. The family of the victims sent a small donation for the work an ad hoc rescue group had done in locating the victims' bodies. I came up with the idea of producing a booklet listing the search-rescue ability of the various law enforcement agencies, chief Eggers of the Glendale PD was president of the California Peace Officers Association, so I took advantage of that and sent an All Point Bulletin to all sheriffs in the state asking for what info that they, could send. This publication was produced, after a bit of a squabble with Dave Brower, who was against local chapters issuing anything of a state-wide nature. Nevertheless, It was produced and reprinted twice. Our committee tried to hold classes to instruct climbers on technical climbing. With the help of an artist friend, Ruth Daly, I came up with an Ozlid leaflet. Not able to keep up with the demand, I decided to try publishing Ropes Knots and Slings for Climbers. Dorothy Cutler typed the entire manuscript on an IBM Executive typewriter which with much backspacing could produce Justified copy. I made an initial run of 500 copies in 1960. It has continued to grow and in last November we ground out a 10,000 copy run. It has sold some 200,000 copies.

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