Educator Denis O’Leary will be speaking on the topic “History and Significance of Cinco de Mayo”

Did you know that 42.3 percent of the population in Ventura County is Hispanic or Latino?

Yet you don’t have to have Mexican roots to party on Cinco de Mayo. While it’s great fun to indulge in margaritas, mariachi music and Mexican fare, many revelers are mistaken when they believe the event they are celebrating is Mexican Independence Day.

Cinco de Mayo possesses a history and significance all its own, and the Museum invited Denis O’Leary to tell you all about it—in advance of the big day.

With a B.A. in Political Science and Spanish from CSU San Bernardino and a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential and BCLAD from Fresno Pacific, O’Leary has written about Latino culture and history, has served as an educator for nearly three decades, and represented the Oxnard School District as a Trustee for 16 years. A passionate advocate for educational issues, O’Leary has addressed immigrants’ and civil rights issues as a member of LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) and as Regional President for the California Association for Bilingual Education.
And as an interesting side note, in his role as a mediator, O’Leary once helped resolve a Geneva Convention violation between the Mexican government and Ventura County.

Author Robert L. Salas will be addressing the topic: “UFOs & Nukes”

While stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, Robert Salas personally encountered a UFO. He detailed the 1967 incident in two books: Faded Giant co-authored with James Klotz (2005) as well as Unidentified – The UFO Phenomenon (2015).

A 1964 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, for the next seven years, Salas served as a Weapons Controller, flew target drones, commanded inter-continental ballistic missiles as a launch officer, and worked as an Air Force missile propulsion engineer on the Titan III program.

Since 1971, Salas has been employed as an engineer by Martin-Marietta Aerospace and Rockwell International and by the Federal Aviation Administration.

On September 27, 2010 Salas and six other ex-military witnesses testified to the reality of the UFO incidents at U.S. nuclear weapons bases at the National Press Club in Washington DC. In May 2013, Salas participated in the Citizen’s Hearing on Disclosure at the National Press Club, Washington DC.

Since 1996, Salas has been publicly speaking about his incident at UFO conferences and on radio and television. His website is www.spiralgalaxy.org

Carriage and Western Art Museum’s Assistant Curator Dylan W. Peterson will be speaking on “Dwight Murphy and Santa Barbara’s Spanish & Western Culture”

Palomino horses, now a main feature in the Old Spanish Days Fiesta parade, were not native to Santa Barbara, but the result of tireless work by Fiesta’s first El Presidente, Dwight Murphy (on left). Golden Palomino horses, once known as ceremonial royal horses in Spain as far back as Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand (late 1400’s), were an almost extinct breed until Murphy bought property in the Santa Ynez Valley and started cross-breeding the horses. He also possessed an extensive collection of saddles, one of which our speaker will be bringing with him.

Dylan W. Peterson sits on the board of the Carriage and Western Art Museum as well as serving as assistant curator of the collection. In his other life, however, he is the Academic Coordinator for the upper division undergraduate laboratories in the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology department at University of California, Santa Barbara. He has also published multiple research papers on Alzheimer’s disease.

National Park Service’s Annie Little will be speaking on the topic “Island Foxes”

The island fox only lives on six of the eight Channel Islands off the coast of southern California – they cannot be found anywhere else on Earth.

In 1999, Channel Islands National Park began an island fox recovery program that included captive breeding and reintroduction of foxes, removal of resident golden eagles, re-establishment of bald eagles, and removal of non-native ungulates. This coordinated, organized and highly focused strategy was able to reverse the certain extinction of an endangered population.

For 23 years, Annie Little has worked as a Wildlife Biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She transferred to the National Park Service about a year ago.

Annie’s focus is the conservation of unique island ecosystems, including eradication and control of invasive species, biosecurity, habitat restoration, and re-establishment of native species.

She graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a B.S. in Biology: Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution.

Connie Korenstein & the Heritage Harmony Players “Celebrating Women’s Suffrage 1920-2020” at the Port Hueneme Historical Society Museum on March 14, 2019 at 11:00AM

After 72 years of fighting for the right to vote, it was finally won in 1920. In this program, you will meet 3 generations of dynamic women, suffragists who worked for women’s rights throughout the country. The story unfolds to reveal loyalties, alliances, opposition, political intrigue, arrests, torture and finally, a dramatic conclusion.

The presentation includes an entertaining narrative, with articles and speeches read by different voices, all in period costume; as well as audience participation and music. A slideshow of photos and memorabilia accompanies this interactive program.

Connie Korenstein is a retired educator who devotes her time to historic research, tours, living history presentations, historic fashion consulting and community events. She has a collection of historical characters that she has researched and portrays in costume, sometimes solo and sometimes with a cast of other characters. Connie is a docent at Heritage Square and the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Oxnard, as well as the Dudley House in Ventura.

Click for a PDF of the event flyer