Thousand Oaks Star from Thousand Oaks, California • 62

Conejo authors to be honored at preview Robert Edward Lee, author of "Victory at Guadalcanal" Oak museum may be open for Arbor Day By DEBBIE ZUCCO Three local landscape architects with more than 30 years combined experience saving trees in the oakconscious Conejo Valley are being tapped to design and develop an oak tree museum in the new Thousand Oaks Library. Calling their endeavor the Oak Collaborative, George Moore, James Dean and Steve Davis will be turning a foot corner of the new library on Janss Road into a showcase of oak tree information an everything-you-ever-needed-toknow-about-oak-trees resource center. Although not scheduled for completion until March or April (the architects are aiming for Arbor Day), the display will be previewed for the public during Saturday's grand opening celebration for the new library. Moore says he will be on hand that day for consultations on oak tree problems. He is also planning an audio-visual demonstration, he adds.

"Hopefully, it will be the center of information for the entire Southern California (area), complete with the natural history of oak trees and preservation techniques," Moore says with enthusiasm. Outside the window of the museum will be a "great view" of an old oak tree. "It will be a museum -quality exhibit," Moore explains, adding that the landscape architects will be utilizing the expertise of exhibit builders who have worked on the J. Paul Getty Museum in Santa Monica and the La Brea Tar Pits (Paige) Museum in Los Angeles. Moore says the Thousand Oaks City Council has been talking about the prospects of putting together an oak tree museum for five years.

The city library, he adds, provides the perfect location. The men are working with a preliminary budget of $30,000, out of which will come salaries and operating expenses, says Moore, who has been a consultant to the city of Thousand Oaks for oak tree preservation and landscape architecture. Moore says he will receive only a nominal design fee and that much of the workers' efforts will be gratis. The architects will be compiling acquisition lists, taking care of the design and placement of the exhibit, choosing colors and supervising the exhibit construction. Moore says that he and Dean have seemingly been on opposite sides of the oak tree controversy, with Dean representing developers while Moore has represented the city during major developments.

But Moore says they have actually worked toward the same end and that Dean has helped save 12,000 oak trees in The Conejo. Moore said he and his co-workers had planned to distribute acorns for planting during the grand opening festivities for the new library, but plans went awry. "You would think that with our years of experience, we would have known that the acorns weren't available this time of the Moore jokes. The landscape architect said the acorns will be ready for planting in a few months, perhaps when the museum is completed. By JOHN MITCHELL A and "gala featuring preview" Thousand celebrities, of refreshments, reception Oaks Conejo the new entertainment and Library, will authors, be sneak held tonight from 7 to 10 p.m.

in the new facility at 1401 E. Janss Road. The preview is a -raising event, according to Mary Jane Lazz, assistant city manager and coordinator for the gala reception planning committee. A tax-deductible donation of $12.50 per person will be used to purchase books for the new library. Lazz said the evening's informal program will include a short introduction of authors and celebrities by Mayor Lawrence E.

Horner and music from pianist Beau Randt as well as barbershop quartet songs from the Sweet Adelines. More than 2,000 invitations were put in the mail, but Lazz stressed the event is also open to the general public. "The preview will give people the chance to see the library before it is dedicated," she said, "and also give them an opportunity to contribute to the book collection." The library's gala reception planning committee is composed of City Councilwoman Madge Schaefer, Betty Horner, Barbara Gilmore, Pat Kern and Penny McDonald. Conejo authors who will exhibit their published works at the event include: Gayle Brown of Newbury Park, a 25-year resident of the Conejo Valley whose paperback book, "Nakoa's Woman" (originally "'The Second Kiss" when it was published in hardback), has sold over 600,000 Henry Still recalled hen view" published area of the works authors new at a gather Thousand special to this evening, one longtime Conejo leader will be absent. Henry Still, a 20-year resident of and the author of more than a dozen little over a year ago at the age of 60.

Identified on the pages of the News incurable optimist who saw good in man who perceived hope for the future, legacy is hallmarked by substantive behavior. Among his subjects were the human race, concern for the problems associated with male menopause. "Henry Still was probably one of the sionate people I've ever met, and it his writing," recalls Frank Heron, mark and a close friend of Still's. "He was a very honest man who had sense of humor," Heron said. "He groups and would appear for nothing people would do that.

If Henry were involved in the new library, you wouldn't Still's career as an author began writing of pulp magazine stories and articles. His first book was a biography pioneer Glenn C. Martin. His prolific career included the book "Starfall," 1974, culminating a two-year collaboration Grissom; it detailed the story of her before and after the tragic death of astronaut Gus Grissom, in a 1967 flash Apollo Command Module. Among Still's civic endeavors were Thousand Oaks planning commissioner, past secretary of Conejo Future dent and Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Club, and scholarship chairman copies and is going into its 13th printing.

She is currently completing a pair of sequels. Robert Conot, who came to Thousand Oaks a dozen years ago and is the author of six published works, including "Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness," the story of the Watts riots. His latest is "A Streak of Luck," the life and legend of Thomas A. Edison. Robert Edward Lee, who will exhibit his Pulitzer Prize-nominated "Victory at Guadalcanal," an account of the longest military battle involving U.S.

forces. A resident of Thousand Oaks, Lee has completed a fiction novel and is well under way on his third manuscript. Jerry Sohl, whose literary labors stretch beyond books into the world of television and motion pictures. His "Castigan's Needle" was a Book of the Month Club selection back in 1953 and has since become a sciencefiction classic. During 20 years of writing for television he gathered credits for such programs as "Star Trek," "'The Twilight Zone," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," and "M- Squad." Two of his efforts were made into motion pictures "Die, Monster, Die" and "Twelve Hours to Kill." A resident of Thousand Oaks for two decades, his latest book is "Nightwind," published under the pseudonym of Roberta Jean Mountjoy.

Arthur Moore of Westlake Village, who arrived in the Conejo Valley in 1972. The author of 40 books, his latest is "'The Raging Heart," a historical romance recently published by Pinnacle Books. Earlier titles include "Tapestry" and "River of Torture," both historical novels. John Zodrow of Thousand Oaks, author of "Bright Green Hell," an action-adventure novel which will be made into a feature picture. Zodrow and his -producer wife, Gina, will begin shooting the $6 million film in March.

His next book is "'The Root of All Evil," the story of Pope Pius XII's involvement with a boatload of Jews trying to get to Palestine in 1947; the novel will be released by Delacourt Press next January. Tony Lamb, a well-known senior citizen activist who arrived in The Conejo from New Jersey in 1971. The hard-cover edition of his book, "The Retirement Threat," has sold more than 100,000 copies, and an equal number has been sold of the paperback edition, "Planning for Your Irene Lamb Brown, who came to the Conejo with her dad, will exhibit her work, "Tony Lamb's Senior Survival Basics Handbook," which was published in 1978. Other local writers who have been invited to participate in tonight's event are: From Thousand Oaks: Patricia Allen (author and city historian), Victor Auer, Walter Brough, Lorence and Barbara Collins, Jewell Coburn, Barbara Dudley, Peter Germano, Alfred Greenfield, R.M. Miller, Dr.

Raymond Olson, John Speirs, Jack Weiner, Beth Needham and Mack Radstone. From Newbury Park: Washington Davis, Hugh Nelson, Sharan Newman and Thomas Thompson. From Westlake Village: Ivan Benson, Mary Carey, Charles Coombs, Marianna Dengler, John Detlie (president, Conejo Future Foundation) and John Curtis Gowan. From Agoura: Michael Druxman, Alfred Harris and Ginger Scribner. as compassionate, optimistic exhibit their "sneak preOaks Library author and civic Thousand Oaks books, died a Chronicle as an everything and a Still's literary books on human survival of the environment, and most compascomes through in owner of Book- a marvelous spoke to many not too many here, he'd be so believe it." with spare-time science fiction of aviation publishing published in with Betty family, both her husband, fire aboard the service as a director and Foundation, presiThousand Oaks for Thousand Hears Still Oaks High School.

He was also active in St. Paschal Baylon Catholic Church. Still's books will be on the new Thousand Oaks Library shelves, assures City Librarian Mary Lou Wigley..