Long-time Angwin resident Herbert Ford presented the case for decolonization of Pitcairn Island at a United Nations meeting in Noumea, New Caledonia, in May.

UN ambassadors, officials from 16 colonized territories throughout the world, and experts on the territories will discussed the possibilities for decolonizing the territories in the future.

Ford, one of the world's leading scholars on Pitcairn, a tiny, isolated dot of land in the South Pacific Ocean, was invited to talk about conditions on the island which could lead to its decolonization from the United Kingdom. Pitcairn is often considered to be the world's most isolated inhabited island.

(Colonized territories include such small islands as Guam, and American Samoa, under the control of the United States; New Caledonia, the isle of St. Helena, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Tokelau and others.)

Ford is the director of the Pitcairn Islands Study Center at Pacific Union College, which holds the world's largest collection of material relating to Pitcairn and the famed "Mutiny on the Bounty" sea adventure of which Pitcairn is a part.

A retired vice president of Pacific Union College and an emeritus professor of journalism, Ford gives full-time direction to the study center to which academics, authors, journalists, researchers and students from throughout the world come to study its rare books collection, thousands of pages of information, artifacts, artwork, models, philately and other material.

Pacific Union College has maintained a connection with Pitcairn Island since the late 1890s when a number of Pitcairn young people were enrolled as students at Healdsburg College, founded at Healdsburg, Calif., in 1882. Healdsburg College was the predecessor of Pacific Union College at Angwin.

About 150 California State highway patrolmen converged in the Angwin firehouse a few days ago to enjoy some breakfast snacks and plan for the day's work. The day's work was to direct traffic through intersections and protecting several dozen cyclists speeding through Angwin in the annual Tour de California.

Fire Chief Avery Browne, who is a CHP official, threw open the doors to the firehouse and with his wife, Debbie, and firemen volunteers, laid out a table of hot coffee and fresh muffins. For the next several hours, the officers would be standing out in the rain. Keeping them warm and dry before that was a good Angwin idea. ----

Thanks, Avery.

The race began in Nevada City and crossed the state to Santa Rosa. It is usually springtime sunny, but not this year. Angwinites stood under umbrellas along Howell Mountain Road to see the top-notch cyclists pass by.