Cheree Edwards

An active member of the Board of Realtors, President of the Ojai Rotary Club, and the Music Festival Women’s Committee as well as the Ojai Valley Community Hospital Guild.

Austin Widger | awidger@ojaivalleynews.com

It’s quicker to list the Ojai Valley organizations that Cheree Edwards Edwards is active with the Ojai Valley Board of Realtors, and was honored has not volunteered for. Since moving to Ojai around 1988 – and even with Realtor of the Year a few years back. She is also involved in a great deal more so in the last 15 years – she has become an integral part of the of volunteer work in the community, including Ojai Rotary Club, Ojai Valley community. Edwards met her husband Don working in a local Community Hospital Guild, Ojai Music Festival Women’s Committee, restaurant in Ventura in the early 1980s. They fell in love and more. with Ojai coming up to hike and enjoy the warm weather. She said: “We got married up here on Sespe, actually in Rose Valley at Howard Creek. Then we took a 78-mile backpacking honeymoon from the headwaters of the Sespe all the way into Fillmore. So it was pretty spectacular. It definitely toughened me up early on.” “For me it was just natural for Some of Edwards’ most memorable work with the Rotary Club – which she is currently president of – came at the local schools. She helped form the new Interact Club at the school last year. “I was invited to the Rotary Club and I just fell in love with it immediately. It’s just a great group of people. Their motto is ‘service over self,’ and

After moving around a bit, the two decided to come back up to Ojai and plant their roots as their daughters grew up. While Don built a real estate business, Edwards us to get involved.” just a really incredible group of people that do a lot of good over and over. It was and is inspiring. So I joined Rotary about 10 years ago, and I became president last worked as a corporate trainer and area manager at a Fortune year. And there’s just so many avenues of service that you 500 company for about 25 years. This job had her travel can pursue in that club, whether it’s youth or international or quite a bit. She said: “As the kids got older and our daughter was just community-based grants, scholarships. During my presidency, finishing high school, I finally decided to just come back to Ojai in a sense. I was really proud to be part of the steering committee that built the Matilija

Then in my work time here I joined onto his real estate business. My father Pavilion.” was a broker too, so they had been tugging at me for a long time to join. I finally did, and I wish I had done it sooner, because I love it. I love working with my husband and we’ve continued on. It’s probably been the last 15 years that I’ve been in real estate with him. It’s just a really gratifying career with helping people find their homes. It’s usually the biggest transaction a person makes, and I’m really proud to work with him and facilitate that.” Her work with the OVCH Guild happened organically. One of her twin daughters had an unfortunate and difficult bout with leukemia when she was younger. She was in remission for many years, but succumbed to a brain tumor at 13. She said: “So for me it was just natural for us to get involved with the hospital guild, and just continue to support. Even though we had to go out of town, we went down to Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles for treatments. We still had quite a lifeline with our doctors and physicians here. So that was kind of my tug toward continuing to support the guild and getting involved.” Edwards is also president of the Ojai Music Festival Women’s Festival Committee, and is excited to bring back the event in person in September for its 75th year. She will also help bring back the Ojai Holiday Home Tour for its 25th anniversary this year. “We’re really looking forward to being able to do something in person again, as everybody in town is,” she said. She said: “I’ve gotten active with Rotary on a district level, so I’m helping with other clubs. I’m an assistant governor. Rotary is kind of like a family. They call it family of Rotary. It’s pretty hard not to imagine being in it forever. We’ve got some members that have been in the club 50 years. We’ve got a lot of awesome new younger members that have a great energy that they’re bringing. Several under 40, and doing good things in town. So I don’t anticipate any changes. Same with the music festival. I’m so involved with just leading as president, but I hope to have more time to work on the BRAVO committee, which brings the music into the schools.”

AN AWARD-WINNING ACTRESS AND DIRECTOR WHO HAS BROUGHT HER PASSION FOR THE ARTS TO OJAI SINCE 2004.

Tracey Wi iams Su on Tracey Wi iams Su on

TRACEY WILLIAMS SUTTON Tracey is an award-winning actress and director who has brought her passion for the arts to Ojai since 2004. Among her list of credits including touring productions, The Sound of Music Maria, West Side Story Maria, as well as Phantom Christine. Her favorite roles include Peter in Peter Pan (directed by fl ying master Peter Foy), Gypsy Rose Lee in Gypsy (with Carol Lawrence), Annie in Annie Get Your Gun, Eliza in My Fair Lady, Marion in The Music Man, and Irene Malloy in Hello, Dolly (she has appeared with Carol Channing). Productions she has directed for The Ojai Art Center Theater include: Kiss Me Kate, The Music Man, A Funny Thing

Happened on the Way to the Forum, Cabaret, Hello, Dolly!, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, Carousel, Annie Get Your Gun, Anything

Goes and Private Lives. Ms. Sutton fi rst appeared on the Art Center stage as Amanda in Private Lives; since then she has appeared as Suzy in Wait Until Dark with her husband, actor Cecil Sutton, Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, Beatrice in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds, Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Rose in Dancing at Lughnasa, Mame in Mame, Morticia in The Addams Family, Gwen/Ghost of Sarah Bernhardt in Women Playing Hamlet, Mrs. Rittenhouse in Animal Crackers, and Dr. Katherine Brandt in 33 Variations. Ms. Sutton has won numerous Four Star awards as an actress, director, producer, music director and costumer. Ms. Sutton has served the community as the President/Chair of the Ojai Art Center Theater for many years. She holds a master’s degree in Theater, and has taught theater at university and high school levels. The Ojai community is enhanced by her visionary talents as a teacher, actress, performer and director.

Cheryl Deckert

was born in Long Beach, California in 1956. A great year she would say, “...because that’s the year the 1956 Ford Thunderbird was available with the porthole window.” Cheryl’s childhood was not an easy one, but she persevered and was popular in school, performing in musicals, plays and in the choir. Cheryl’s fi rst employment included working at K-Mart and May Company Department stores, but she eventually moved into the world of real estate in 1980. She initially began working as an agent, but was quickly promoted to an assistant manager’s position within a year. By the following year she was assigned to a full management position. Cheryl’s ability to communicate with people and remain calm in diffi cult situations became her greatest strength. Over the next 20 years she became known as a “fi xer” - the type of manager who could come in and quickly turn around an offi ce that was declining in performance and sales. She eventually became one of the vice-presidents of her company, a position she held for several years. In 1998 Cheryl moved to Tampa, Florida. Friends, co-workers and family would ask, “Why on earth would you want to move from southern California?” “For love,” she would say. She would then follow her response with, “...but I plan to get him to move to California.” Cheryl and her husband, Ray, moved to Ojai in 2005 to be near Cheryl’s side of the family, who’ve been Ojai residents since 1990. Once in Ojai, Cheryl picked up where she left off in California real estate, fi rst by bringing Ray into the business, then by forming a real estate team. In and around Ojai, Cheryl has been viewed as smart, funny, driven and most importantly, helpful to anyone who would ask for advice. With her perpetual upbeat attitude, Cheryl truly loved every aspect of the real estate industry. Work was not Cheryl’s only passion, however. She was an incredible gardener and an excellent chef. Over the past two years her green thumb became profi cient at producing not only her fantastic heirloom tomatoes, but also cucumbers, peas, squash, pole beans, watermelons (though rabbits or squirrels got to almost all of them), kale, and corn. In addition, she tended to her peach, plum, apricot, fi g, orange, tangerine, and apple trees. She canned enough of this bounty to make it through Covid without having to grocery shop for a year. On the culinary side of things, she was always looking for new and exciting recipes - she absolutely loved to cook. Some of her best creations were her apple/cinnamon brie, homemade spaghetti, green tomato soup, homemade pickles, canned applesauce, Asian chicken salad, grilled rosemary lemon chicken, homemade vanilla ice cream, and “Cheryl’s Awesome Salad” – a moniker given to it by Ray because of her ability to throw a mélange of ingredients into a salad that was delectable. But perhaps the most satisfying part of Cheryl’s life was her relationship with her husband. They loved each other beyond words and had an unshakable passion for each other, a passion that never waned. They spent 22 years together, virtually 24 hours a day, then would complain, “I wish we could get away on vacation so we could spend some time alone.” Together with their Standard Poodles, Leo & Logan, Cheryl and Ray would say they lived a storybook life. Cheryl truly loved living in Ojai; it was her forever home. And although she never owned a ‘56 Thunderbird, she did eventually get the next best thing…

Cheryl Deckert passed away in September, 2020.