(The Cover)
(The premiere was a charity benefit for the Orange County Chapters of the National Assistance League and the second page was a listing of the participating chapters and services which they supported.)
(The Cast)
(Scenes from the movie)
The next set of images are from the summer 1971 "The Knotty Post". The cover is a picture of John Wayne from his movie "The Sons of Katie Elder".
Page two describes the events of the night. Pat Buttram served as Master of Cermonies and Virginia (Knott) Reafsnyder spoke on behave of the Knott family and the National Assistance League, Virginia was always hosting some kind of charity event throughout the years.
Page three tells of Governor Ronald Reagan and John Wayne introducing Mr. & Mrs. Knott in celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary. There's a story of Mr. & Mrs. Knott's wedding day and a quote from Mr. Knott from their 50th anniversary party; he said "We're starting our second fifty years and we'll have another party on our 100th." Their 100th would be June 3 of this year. So, let's hope we can fulfill Mr. Knott's promise in one way or another.
The next two pages are the about the opening of Gypsy Camp. A couple of notes here; the caption under the bottom picture on the first page talks about the gas torches throughout Gypsy Camp. During my first year of working at the park one of the things I got to do was light these torches. The bottom picture on the second page is of the "Magic Cave" and the employee in the picture is Paul Butler, who went on to illustrate one of the park maps.
The center spread are pictures from the premiere of "Big Jake".
The next page has a article titled "Why We Named it the John Wayne Theatre". To summarize it says "John Wayne is a true berry farm kind of man and his struggle for success has in many ways paralleled the struggle of the Knott family." Also, on this page is a article about the "The John Wayne Room" with the collection of momentos from John Wayne's many movies.
The next page has picture of Barbara Mott of Mott's Miniatures who won the prize for naming the new food location in Gypsy Camp "Foods of Fortune".
The following page describes the new "modernized" Foods of Fortune shop. And the next page tells of the "Gypsy Clan" and their palm reading skills. There is also an article about the new show in the theatre.
And lastly the back cover was a reprint of the letter from President Nixon congratulating Mr. and Mrs. Knott on their 60 years of marriage.
