Wood named Woman of the Year

Barbara Diamond

Carolyn Wood is a tiny woman who casts a large shadow. She has a soft

voice, but a hard head when it comes to the presentation of accurate

information to the public, bureaucratic shenanigans or violence to

the environment. The highest point in Laguna Beach has been named for

her, a measure of the regard in which she is held by the city and the

county.

The Laguna Beach Women’s Club has selected Wood as the “2003 Woman

of the Year.” The public is invited to attend a luncheon in her honor

June 6.

Carolyn Martins Wood has lived in Laguna Beach with her husband,

Andrew, since 1968.

They met in the 1950s in Whittier, where they attended college,

but they had their first date in Laguna, sharing a dinner of abalone,

and came back often during their courtship and the early years of

their marriage.

He had a job teaching school when they moved here. She was looking

for work.

An opening in the Leisure World closed-circuit TV station that

attracted her also attracted numerous other candidates, all men. Her

application was dismissed, although a notebook presentation earned

her $100.

Undaunted, Wood made an offer the TV station couldn’t refuse: a

year of work for free. She was hired and worked for the station for

the next 22 years on a year-to-year contract.

“That’s such a woman’s story,” said Women’s Club board member Anne

Johnson, an admirer of Wood’s.

Wood’s public service in Laguna began with participation in a

citizen’s committee on traffic and parking. Even today, she sits on

the Parking Traffic and Circulation Committee.

“Roads have always been my passion,” she said.

Other passions include research and documentation. Her files are

legendary.

Preserving Laguna Canyon from development has been another passion

and one of her successes. Wood is a founding member of the Laguna

Canyon Conservancy, of which she has been president since 1988. She

also serves as secretary of the Laguna Canyon Foundation, which she

helped found.

In pursuit of her goals, Wood helped convince the California

Coastal Commission to deny a Caltrans project that would have ground

down the ocean-side hill at Big Bend and worked diligently to block

the Irvine Co.’s 3,500-home project at Laguna Laurel.

Wood was active in support of Proposition 70, which brought $10

million to Laguna Beach to purchase open space, including the

471-acre Laguna Heights where the Carolyn Wood Knoll is located.

Wood worked with Laguna Greenbelt Inc. to gather signatures in

support of the city’s Open Space Ordinance, which guarantees that

land purchased as open space cannot be sold without a vote of the

people.

She has served on the city’s Open Space Committee, represented

Orange County’s 5th District on the Orange County Transportation

Authority’s Citizen Advisory Board and is a board member of Friends

of Harbors, Beaches and Parks. Closer to home, she sits on the board

of Top of the World Neighborhood Assn.

She has been honored by the Women for Orange County and the

American Assn. of University Women for her efforts on behalf of the

environment and her community.

As a Women’s Club Woman of the Year, Wood joins a roster of

remarkable women that includes the Sandies, Cheryl Post and former

Mayor Kathleen Blackburn.

The luncheon in her honor will begin at 11:30 a.m. at the clubhouse, 286 St. Ann’s Drive. Reservations paid by Monday are $20.

Checks should be made payable to the club and mailed to the clubhouse

in time to make the Monday deadline or dropped in the mail slot to

the right of the chimney. Reservations paid at the door will be $25,

space permitting. Either way, call 497-1200 to secure seating.