HISTORY OF THE ORACLE
Meet our newest ORPS Employee: Compliance/ Community Standards Officer: M IKE W ILSON By MaryAnn Priddy
The ORACLE started in 1991 by J EAN S MITH , an owner serving as head of Activities. She and S HERRY
You may see a handsome, bearded, young man (44 years old) checking out the conditions of lots and RVs. This would be our new Community Standards Coordinator, formerly called Compliance Officer. Mike is southern born, raised in a small community (population 38) in Alabama. He and his family farm cattle ranches in Alabama and South Carolina, family- owned since the 1800’s. After high school, Mike attended Bible College in Tennessee but decided not to follow in his father’s farmer/preacher footsteps. His first job was at a Radio Shack where he became, at age 19, the youngest manager in Alabama. Mike served as a US Marine from 1992 to 1996, and then returned to work at the cattle ranches for the following five years. He then re-enlisted, serving as a Marine until 2010 with eight deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, where he was wounded and then honorably discharged. Previous work experience includes jobs at Kmart, a casino surveillance supervisor, and at Home Depot, where he met his present wife. They have a two year old daughter and Mike has two sons, ages 22 and 10, from a previous marriage. In his few weeks working here, Mike says he is enjoying his job, particularly getting to meet everyone. Please say hello and welcome Mike as he works to help maintain ORPS as the prime resort we know it to be.
O UTLAW , also an owner, serving as Activities Coordinator, put together a paper called Recreation in Paradise , soon to become No Name News . It was then we had a contest to name the paper. At that time our Resort went by the title of Outdoor Resorts of America-Palm Springs , or ORA-PS for short. J OE AND D INNY F RASIER , lot 726, won the contest by tacking CLE onto ORA and there you have it ORACLE . H ELEN N AFACK was the next to take over as editor. Helping her were J OHN C HARLES B EAULIEU and S TEVE M ICHELS who had one of the first computers in the Resort. C ATHY C HAUNCEY began in 1993 and soon became assistant editor. Later in 1993 S HEILA K OENIG and N ANCY W RIGHT joined. M ARGIE S LEIGHT , Board Secretary at the time assisted the team . They used their own typewriters and word processors. For years they gathered in the Board Office and put the ORACLE together with a cut and paste session, then taking it to a local printer. Helen passed away in 1998 and Cathy became Editor and started using a computer. In February, 1999 we were given a Resort computer and a space in the Board Office. K AREN P ETERSON , E LLEN L YNCH , G LORIA M ICHELS , J UDY D E R ANICK and Y VONNE O GLE joined the team. We had to get out of the Board Office whenever the Board wanted a private meeting, usually the day before we had to go to print! Then we moved into a storage room next door where we lived for two weeks every month. The current office near the fireplace in La Palma has been a delightful place to work. It became available a few years ago when Security vacated it.
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