Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, August 12, 2023

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Mountain View News Saturday, August 12, 2023 


WALKING SIERRA MADRE - The Social Side

by Deanne Davis

ALYCE ROHRER, A WWII PILOT AND 
SIERRA MADRE GEM

By Kellie Strubinski 

The Sierra Madre Rotary Club held their weekly 
meeting at the British Home in Sierra Madre on July 
25th. The speaker was Alyce Stevens Rohrer, a 101 
year old resident and WWII pilot.

Alyce shared her inspirational life story and her experience 
as a Woman Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) 
during WWII. She was born in 1922 and wanted to 
fly from the time she was a young girl. After high 
school instead of attending college, she followed her passion and got a job as a typist to pay for her 
flying lessons.

 

Due to a shortage of qualified pilots during WWII, the WASP program was created by the US 
Military. Women pilots were trained and used to assist in testing planes, ferrying planes and 
providing shuttle services to non-flying personnel. At 18 years of age, Alyce applied to the WASP 
program and was accepted. The program was stationed in a small town, Sweetwater, Texas. She 
learned to dive, roll and twirl planes as a test pilot. She became a highly valued and re-spected 
pilot asked to shuttle high level personnel to different destinations in the US.

All of the women in the program were considered civilians during their service. When they were 
recruited, they were told they would be militarized. After the war was over the woman were sent 
home. It was not until 1975 that the women were recognized as military personnel. In 2010 they 
were honored in Washington D.C. with the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Alyce said that all of the women that were in the program were hard working, dedicated and very 
proud of their accomplishments and skills. All of the female pilots went on to have very successful 
careers following WWII.

A bronze statue was made in their honor and stands eight feet tall in Sweetwater, Texas. The 
statue is of a woman pilot standing proud in her aviator suit and helmet with her eyes to the sky. 
The inscription reads "We live in the wind and the sand and our eyes are on the stars". 

If you would like to know more details about Alyce and her experience with the WASP program, 
please read her book "Girls of Avenger" which can be purchased on Amazon. In 2024, a docu-
mentary about the WASP program will be released by Red Door Films.

For more information about the British Home please visit https://britishhome-ca.us/.

For information about Sierra Madre Rotary's Club slate of fascinating speakers, please visit us at 
https://www.sierramadrerotary.org or join us as a guest at one of our weekly meetings.


“Without ice cream, there would be darkness 
and chaos.” Don Kardong

“Sometimes the bravest and most important 
thing you can do is show up.” Brene Brown

“A feeling of progress is an exhilarating high. 
The actual length of the stride forward isn’t 
the point. That it’s forward at all – that’s a gift 
wrapped in the shiny paper of hope.”

The best news I can pass along is that school 
is finally starting after a summer that seemed 
to be longer than the school year. Emily went back last Monday and Jessie starts tomorrow. 
Sierra Madre schools start in a few more days and several friends are so ready. One dear 
woman with a nine-year-old boy confided in me, “I’m trying to enjoy every day and remind 
myself that it is a blessing to be home with my boy…even though at times I want to lock him 
in his room.” 

I asked my son, who lives in Huntington Beach, when his boys start school and it’s not till 
Sep-tember 7th. Another whole month? “Yep,” was all he had to say.

Actually, back in the olden days when I went to school and probably a lot of you did, too, 
school got out in June and you went back after Labor Day. Now they’re out at the beginning 
of May and, for Emily, she will now have a four-day week! No more Friday school. Why, you 
might ask? Teacher shortage, friends and neighbors. Offering a four-day teaching week is 
bringing back enough teachers to fill the need. 

A few thoughts for the start of school:

 “Respect your parents…they passed school without Google.”

 “School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside.” Lon Watters

 “If you think your teachers are tough, wait ‘til you get a boss.” Bill Gates

“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.” 
Lily Tomlin

“A sense of curiosity is nature’s original school of education.” Smiley Blanton

“School is the easiest job you’ll ever have.” Marty Klazmer

Yes, there is already dancing in the streets and celebratory lunches featuring a margarita or 
two among moms whose children are now back in the classroom with a new backpack and 
about $500.00 worth of school supplies, which will be speedily lost. 

As I was mentally reminiscing about my own school days, this dear old song, written in 1907 
by Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards popped into my mind:

“School days, school days

Dear old Golden Rule days

'Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic

Taught to the tune of the hick'ry stick

You were my queen in calico

I was your bashful, barefoot beau

And you wrote on my slate, "I Love You, Joe"

When we were a couple o' kids.”

This part of “Back to School Again” from the 1978 movie, “Grease,” is a little more up to 
date:

“You gotta go back, back, back to school again

It's bye bye fun, get your homework done, and better be in by ten

I gotta go back, back back to school again

Whoa whoa, I gotta go... Back to School..... Again!

Geometry and History it's just a pain

Biology and Chemistry destroys my brain

don't they know that I deserve a better fate

I'm really much too young to matriculate

I gotta go back, back, back to school again

You won't find me, till the clock strikes three

I'm gonna be there till then

I gotta go back, back, back to school again...

Whoa whoa, I gotta go.... Back to School.... Again!”

“The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves.” — Joseph 
Campbell

We hope and pray as we send our children off in their new shoes and, hopefully, the right 
up-to-the-second fashion statements that that is what will happen for them in 
school; that they will learn to love learning. That reading will become a necessity, 
like breathing. That the teachers will recog-nize their potential and all their classmates 
will be kind people. The picture today was taken in the office at school a 
couple of years ago and is the best advice ever for students.

“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating 
curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” 

Clay P. Bedford

My book page: Amazon.com: Deanne Davis

There are treasures there! Trust me!

Letter To The Editor:

A PLEA TO SIERRA MADRE 
RESIDENTS: PLEASE STOP 
FEEDING THE BEARS! 

My husband and I came home around 11:00pm Friday 
night. As we pulled into our driveway (two blocks below 
Sierra Madre Boulevard), we encountered a huge bear. The 
bear's ancestors were problem bears at Yosemite National 
Park that were unwisely banished to our mountains. They 
are not native to the area!

My husband and I frequently walk behind City Hall and 
Memorial Park. We are regularly seeing torn up bread, 
and today pieces of salmon, on the ground that is obviously 
placed to encourage wildlife. This picture was taken approximately 
a half hour ago, and you can see it is at the exit 
to the parking lot at the rear of City Hall and the Police Department. 
We reported the problem to the Police Depart-
ment and the City.

Someone is intentionally feeding the bears!!! 

Sierra Madre Resident Walking Residents

Besides the obvious, here is a very good reason why NOT to feed the 
bears: 

 Nearly everyone has heard the timeless warning, “Do not feed 
the bears!” You may be wondering, “What’s the big deal?” Well, it is a 
big deal, and we want to let you in on the three big reasons you should 
not feed bears.

 Bears hunt for and eat many kinds of wild berries, honey, nuts, 
and a variety of plants. Eighty-five percent of a bear’s diet is vegetation. 
The remaining fifteen percent of their food intake consists of fish, bees, 
insects, and other small animals. However, a bear enjoys the mouthwatering taste of our food as much as 
we do. Once a black bear gets a taste of human food, it wants more.

 They have a keen sense of smell and the aroma brings them running. Unlike people, they relish eating 
out of a garbage can, from an abandoned picnic table, or anywhere food is left in the open. 

 Yes, in Sierra Madre we have a challenge in dealing with bears who are coming deeper and deeper 
into town. A lot of positive steps have been taken to deal with the situation which are in the best interest of 
both communities, the humans and the bears. Let's not make matters worse by encouraging them to look 
for food in our neighborhoods. - MVNews


City of Sierra Madre

PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE

From: The City of Sierra Madre

Subject: HISTORIC LANDMARK DESIGNATION

Applicant: City of Sierra Madre

Project Location: 165 East Mira Monte Avenue, in the City of Sierra Madre, County of Los Angeles, State of California

The City of Sierra Madre gives notice, pursuant to State of California law, that the City Council will conduct a public hearing to 
consider a request to designate a City owned property known as Lizzies Trail Inn, located at 165 East Mira Monte Avenue, as a Historic 
Landmark in the City’s Register of Historic Resources. Lizzies Trail Inn is operated as a museum and is associated with early 
settlement, residential development, and early recreational trail expedition on the Mount Wilson Trail, and is significant for local 
designation under Criterion A – Historic. Pursuant to Sierra Madre Municipal Code Section 17.82.050, a property may be designated 
a historic landmark if it meets prescribed historic or architectural criteria.

At the meeting of August 3, 2023, the Planning Commission conducted a public hearing and recommended to the City Council approval 
of the landmark designation.

DATE AND TIME OF HEARING 

City Council Meeting, Tuesday, August 22, 2023 

(Hearing begins at 5:30 p.m.)

 232 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, CA 91024

All interested persons may attend this meeting and the City Council will hear them with respect thereto.

ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINATION: The request for designation qualifies for a Categorical Exemption, pursuant to Sections 
15301 and 15331 of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as it involves no expansion of an existing structure and 
pertains to preservation of a historic resource, and complies with the California Code of Regulations (CCR) Section 15064.5 (a)(2) 
(Included in local Register of Historic Resources). 

APPEAL: If in the future anyone wishes to challenge the decision of the City Council in court, one may be limited to raising the issues 
that were raised or presented in written correspondence delivered to the City Council at, or before, the scheduled public hearing. 
For further information on this subject, please contact the Planning and Community Preservation Department at (626) 355-7138.


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com