Dear Wagner High and Wurtsmith Alumni:

 We were very fortunate to have had the benefit of a quality education when we lived at Clark AB in the Philippines. This is sadly not the case for most Filipino children today. Because of the severe shortage of educational materials in their country, the average student fails to achieve literacy and consequently never has the chance to escape poverty.

 We can make an enormous difference and give back to our Filipino hosts through their children. WHOA has been asked by Books for the Barrios, a non-profit, all volunteer organization founded in 1981, to sponsor a container of over 13,000 books and other educational materials. These books will be donated to various schools in the barrios near Clark AB and our hope is to get everything delivered to the schools and in the children's' hands before our alumni arrive at the end of October.

 Books for the Barrios is located in Walnut Creek, California (warehouse in Concord), and was founded by Dan and Nancy Harrington.  Dan was in the Navy and was once stationed at Subic.  Nancy Harrington taught at Wurtsmith in the early 70s, and later taught at Subic in the the early 80s.  They have devoted their lives to this organization they set up. Books for the Barrios gathers, transports and distributes children's books, especially textbooks and reference books to poor schools in the
Philippines.  In the last 9 years they have gathered, transported and distributed over 4 million books.  They have learned to get these books through the bureaucracy and corruption to the kids.  They believe in fighting poverty one book at a time.   (For more information about Books for the Barrios, see their web site at:  http://www.booksforthebarrios.com )

 How can I help?  WHOA’s goal is to sponsor a container at a cost of $6000, and our success depends on you!  We are asking you to contribute at least $25-50 but whatever you can do helps.  Checks should be written to “Books for the Barrios” and are tax deductible.  Please mail them soon to our WHOA organizer for this project:  Paula Leibovitz Goodwin ’71,  97 Coral Drive  Orinda, California  94563.

 Everyone who contributes $25 or more will be entered into a drawing for an original Annie Leibovitz signed print valued at more than $1000 to $5000.  The drawing will be held after we have reached our goal, hopefully at the San Diego 2000 Reunion.  A second print will also be contributed by Annie and auctioned for the benefit of WHOA and "Books for the Barrios."  Details to follow. 

As many of you know, Annie is Paula's ('71) sister and began her interest in photography during her Dad's assignment to Clark AB.  In fact, Annie got her first camera during an R&R trip to Japan.  See also the Annie Leibovitz bio below.

Please consider this challenging request for donations.  Contact Paula <pmgoodwin@home.com> or me directly if you have any questions or need more information.

Thanks for supporting this very worthy cause!

John Prunier '65
Webmaster:  http://www.whoa.org and http://www.clarkab.org
webmaster@whoa.org

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Leibovitz, Annie
(1949- ), photographer

Anna-Lou Leibovitz was born on October 2, 1949, in Westbury, Connecticut. She enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute in 1967, intending to become a painter. A night class introduced her to photography, which became a greater interest. She was given her first commercial assignment by Rolling Stone magazine in 1970, and she worked for that magazine for the next 13 years.

By 1973 Leibovitz was chief photographer at Rolling Stone, photographing the personalities of the rock music scene, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono and Bob Dylan. In 1975 she documented the Rolling Stones's six-month concert tour, during which she produced several famous photographs of lead singer Mick Jagger. In 1983 Leibovitz produced a 60-print show that toured Europe and the United States. The accompanying book, Annie Leibovitz: Photographs, was a best-seller. She then worked at the high-gloss magazine Vanity Fair, which enabled her to broaden her pool of subjects, and in 1986 she moved into advertising photography, working for such clients as Honda, American Express, and The Gap. The American
Express ad campaign using her photos won a Clio Award in 1987. In 1991 Leibovitz had her first museum exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., one of only two such exhibits that that institution had devoted to a living photographer. A companion book, Photographs: Annie Leibovitz 1970-1990, was published in October 1991.

Leibovitz's earliest photos were in black-and-white, but at Rolling Stone she developed her trademark vivid primary colors. This remained her standard until the 1990s, when she sometimes preferred to use black-and-white. Leibovitz typically spent two days observing her subjects' daily lives and viewed her photographic sessions as a collaboration. Among her best-known photographs are those of Bette Midler in a bed of roses, John Lennon wrapped fetus-like around Yoko Ono, and Ella Fitzgerald in a red suit standing in front of her 1959 Mercedes convertible. She also earned much praise for her portraits of American Olympians taken for an exhibit at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, which were later published in the book Olympic Portraits (1996).

Copyright © 1999 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

On Monday, 5 June 2000, I had the opportunity to visit the "Books for the Barrios" warehouse in Concord, CA.  My hosts included Nancy Harrington, President, Dan Harrington, Chair, and Paula Leibovitz Goodwin '71 (sister of Annie Leibovitz).

Tha following photos document my visit to this wonderful all-volunteer charity.  I hope you are as impressed as I was by their dedication to this true "...project of the heart."