Ranch & Coast Magazine

Connect people A Life Exceptionally Lived Honoring one of our own bright stars, Darlene G. Davies, 1939-2022 L OOK!" EXCLAIMED DARLENE G. Davies with delight. "e trees think it's spring!" We were strolling through Balboa Park on a warm winter's day in 2017, where even in mid-February, trees were bursting with white blooms. e park was alive with activity, filled with school children on field trips, tourists snapping pictures, couples with toddlers in tow, lovers, joggers, and pets. Mothers cast a watchful eye as their children scrambled about on Nikigator, sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle's magical, fantastical creature in front of the Mingei Museum. I remember our stroll vividly, and it's a memory I cherish as I look back upon Davies' enthusiasm for life. "It's the people's park," I recall her saying with pride as we surveyed the scene. But the park was also uniquely hers, a place she lovingly and exhaustively researched and recorded in award-winning articles and series for Ranch & Coast, the Journal of San Diego History, and other publications. Her R&C piece about the San Diego Zoo Centennial won "Best of Show" for magazines at the 2016 San Diego Press Club awards. "I'm 77 years old, and I just won Best of Show," exclaimed a jubilant Davies in both wonder and delight as she shared her award with our team. I still get teary-eyed when I remember this moment. Davies earned many other accolades. Two of her stories, about the 1915 Panama-California Exposition and e Old Globe, were buried in a time capsule in the Craig Noel Garden during the park's 2015 Centennial. e capsule will be opened in 2115. e often-honored historian of e Old Globe was also one of six women named to the San Diego County Women's Hall of Fame in 2017 for working "tirelessly to improve the lives of other women and to bring change to their communities." For Davies, the seeds of that change — and her lifelong love of theater, culture, and community — were planted early in 1951, when as an 11-year-old, she and her father first walked across the Cabrillo Bridge into Balboa Park. "e Old Globe was like something out of a fairy tale," she recalled. "It was so enchanting." Davies was soon acting in productions for the Globe's Junior eatre Wing (now the San Diego Junior eatre), on e Old Globe stage, at San Diego State College, and at Mission Playhouse, in dozens of roles. Her last Globe performance was in Odyssey in 2011, staged at the Lowell Davies Festival eatre, named after her late husband with whom she shared a passion for the arts. For the past 35 years, retired television producer Paul Marshall was a constant presence in her life. Davies was a professor emerita at San Diego State University, and she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in speech- language pathology there. She was chair of the Speech Pathology Department at Children's Hospital, and the first director of the Speech and Hearing Clinic at Naval Medical Center in Balboa Park. Davies would go on to serve on numerous city, county, and cultural committees, and boards including the city's Parks and Recreation Department, the Commission for Arts & Culture, the Balboa Park Committee, the County Commission on the Status of Women, e Old Globe, and the San Diego Museum of Natural History. She co-produced and co-wrote videos for DARLENE: PHOTO BY VINCENT KNAKAL LOWELL: PHOTO COURTESY OF DARLENE DAVIES PHOTO COLLECTION Darlene G. Davies @ranchandcoast ranchandcoast.com 92 AUGUST 2022 RANCH & COAST MAGAZINE

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