Visitors from Okazaki, Japan, and Antibes, France,...

Visitors from Okazaki, Japan, and Antibes, France, are hanging out

this week in Newport Beach as part of the cities’ sister cities

program. The Japanese visitors arrived Friday and are leaving Monday,

while the French high school students arrived last week and will

depart next week.

Corona del Mar resident Sidney Stokes serves as the president of

the Newport Beach Sister Cities Assn. and has visited or will visit

with both groups this weekend. Stokes, a retired chief financial

officer with several school districts, is married to Newport-Mesa

Unified School District Trustee Serene Stokes.

On Friday, City Editor James Meier visited Sid Stokes at his home

of 14 years to discuss the association and this week’s visitors.

How did the Newport Beach Sister Cities Assn. come about?

About 21 years ago, a group from our local Rotary Club established

a relationship with the Rotary Club in Okazaki, Japan. They first

started off having us do an exchange. It was a typical Rotary kind of

activity.

Two years later -- that is, 19 years ago -- a sister cities

association was established here, and the Okazaki International Assn.

was established there. And since then, it’s been a constant flow.

It’s almost a classical relationship.

You know, [President] Eisenhower wanted this to be a

people-to-people concept, and so, just this year, for example, we

have had six Okazaki city councilmen visit, two of the Okazaki

princesses, their students visiting us, our students visiting them.

In April, we had six members of our organization visiting in Okazaki

and we had seven firemen visiting in Okazaki.

It is a really fine-tuned relationship, and the reason we’re

waiting for these visitors today is Mr. [Masao] Kato, who was one of

the founders on the Japanese end of the Rotary Club, is coming for

our dedication of the park benches in honor of Edward “Wendell” Fish

and [Robert] “Moe” Hamill, who are our patriarchs, or our founders,

here.

When there was a funeral for Fish, Kato got on a plane and came

here. So we have a close, interpersonal relationship over an extended

period. We have enough kids who have been there and then kids who

have come here and lived in the homes of our people.

It’s the classic arrangement. There’s no handouts. Nobody wants

anything from us. It’s a relationship of people.

That’s one of the dangers we’ve run into in this whole thing with

new sister cities. A lot of people would like to have us as a sister

city, but it’s basically the tourist people who are out trying this

or people who want something like fire engines and police cars. But

Okazaki is the classic.

The group has a busy weekend in store for it. Tell me about some

of those happenings.

Today [Friday], Mr. Kato has requested that he get a tour of one

of the businesses of one of our members, so that’s where we’re going

to meet. He’s in the packaging business. He’s vice president of

Tupperware Japan, and one of the gals here runs a packaging and

distribution business.

At 5:30 p.m., we’re going to have a little cocktail party with

hors d’oeuvres up in the Marriott, where they’re staying.

Tomorrow [Saturday], they reserved some time to do some shopping

and sightseeing.

In the evening, we have dinner in one of our members’ homes.

Sunday [today], we have a boat ride scheduled for 9 a.m. We have

the park bench dedication at 1 p.m., and they’ll have dinner at the

Charthouse after that.

In the meantime, the kids from [Antibes], France are here [for two

weeks] and they have a full gamut of activities with their hosts. The

two things I’m going to be involved in with them is Sunday night, I’m

leaving the Okazaki group and joining a pot luck for the French high

school students and the host high school students.

On Tuesday, we’re presenting the visitors to the school board and

then they’ll be in class with our kids for the rest of the week.

Tell me a little about the French students.

Antibes is next to Cannes on the French Riviera. There are six

girls and their chaperone is their English teacher.

How did you get involved with the sister cities association?

When I retired, Serene and I both dedicated our retirement to

making a positive difference in people’s lives. As I looked around

for activities to get involved in, sister cities looked pretty

attractive to me.

Have you visited both France and Japan?

I personally have just been to Japan, but three years ago, we had

a group go to Antibes. Possibly, depending on the world situation, we

probably are going to be doing something this summer or next summer.

Tell me more about the bench dedication on Sunday.

The dedication is jointly sponsored by the Rotary Club South and

the Newport Beach Sister Cities Assn. It will be presided over by

Roger McGonegal, the president of the Rotary Club. We’ll have a few

speakers, including me. Georgiana McCloud will speak. She’s been

involved with Rotary for 20 years. And the mayor [Steve Bromberg]

will speak.

After the dedication of the two park benches, in that little

corner in Irvine Terrace Park that has lamps and Japanese pines,

we’re going to put in the benches there. One will be in honor on

Wendell Fish, the other in honor of Moe Hamill. Both of these men

were very active Rotarians and in our organization.

After that, there will be a reception at the Bahia Corinthian

Yacht Club.

Any final thoughts?

Just that we are here in the community, are part of this

community, we represent Newport Beach in various places in the world.

We are all volunteers. We do this out a feeling for people

relationships. We are looking at other opportunities to bring forth

our philosophy.

I believe that when you establish a relationship with a new sister

city, you have to get to know the major institutions of that city and

the people that run them and that you go forward slowly. We currently

have an exploratory committee looking at Ensenada, Mexico. We have

allowed ourselves two years to look at that before we formalize any

kind of relationship because we want to make sure it’s a relationship

based on mutual advantage, mutual interests.

We had, for example, a historic meeting where the superintendent

of schools in Ensenada and his staff of 13 came up here and we met

with Dr. [Robert] Barbot [Newport-Mesa Unified School District

superintendent] and his staff to explore “What can I do for you and

what can you do for me.” And it was a great meeting.

I think that will be something. Whether we establish a

relationship as a sister city or not, that relationship will go

forward because we have, for example, technology, and they have

Hispanic culture to bring back and forth between us.