1975 Winkie Convention
Following the business closure of Cambria Pines Lodge in Cambria, California, in 1974, the Winkie Convention urgently needed a new venue. The group was extremely fortunate to find space available at the Wawona Hotel just inside the southern entrance of Yosemite National Park. When the group arrived in August 1975, it found a remarkably charming hotel complex. The Wawona Hotel was founded in 1876 and its main building, still used for reception and access to the main dining room, was opened in that year. Other buildings were added to the complex through 1916 and all are still in use today.
The Victorian-era buildings and the later ones, painted wooden structures, are graced by broad verandas and the veranda surrounding the meeting room used by the Winkies is shaded in the summer by cool, green hops vines that climb cords strung from ground to second story roof. The main dining room then and now offers a comfortable menu with many choices. On Saturday nights, for organized outings (as groups of our sort were identified by the Wawona staff), the banquet (steak barbecue) was served on the lawn under giant ponderosa and yellow pines, adjacent to the swimming pool. In the early years of the Winkie Conventions the pool remained unfenced, but later a tasteful white picket fence was erected to provide a bit more safety for nighttime strollers. Daytime temperatures at Wawona climb into the nineties, but the air is clear and extremely dry so the heat is not uncomfortable, but the pool was seductively inviting. Temperatures drop into the fifties at night, so sleeping is always comfortable.
Just a few miles south of the hotel (and still within the National Park) is the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. Many conventioneers made an annual pilgrimage to the Mariposa Grove. Trails and the nearby historic village offered pleasant diversions for those who wanted to get away from Winkie programming or the Winkie Auction for a time. Spilling through the Wawona village and wandering down from the nearby mountains is the beautiful Wawona branch of the Merced River, another inviting place to splash or swim. Across the road from Wawona is a thirty-five-par golf course and a few Winkies took advantage of that meadow-like setting over the years.
At our very first banquet the college-aged hotel staff, outfitted in costumes they had picked up at a Goodwill store in Fresno, regaled the Winkies in the dining room by singing selections from the MGM WIZARD OF OZ. The highlight of the evening was the primary hotel registrar, a counter-tenor, singing "Over the Rainbow." Teenager Kevin Harris, who had won the 1968 Winkie costume contest in a splendid Ojo of Oz costume, returned the honor in 1975 by chairing the Winkie Convention. Programming on the weekend of August 15-17 included an enactment of Ruth Plumly Thompson's playlet, "A Day in Oz," a slide presentation on the MGM movie put together by Peter Hanff and Rod Wentler. Aljean Harmetz gave a stimulating report on the development of her forthcoming book, THE MAKING OF THE WIZARD OF OZ, and Warren Hollister led a lively Winkie Auction.
From Winkie Newsletter Vol 2 #5, Written by Peter Hanff