Carlsbad Names Citizens Of The Year

The City of Carlsbad handed out its Citizens of the Year Award at a special ceremony this evening and Mayor Claude A. “Bud” Lewis, his wife, Bev Lewis, and longtime community volunteer Doris Lee Ritchie were all recognized.

The Citizen of the Year program is more than 40 years old and honors community members who have given their time and energy toward the civic improvement, beautification and betterment of the City of Carlsbad. This year’s honorees were selected by a four-person committee of Carlsbad residents and recognized during a ceremony at Carlsbad City Hall, just prior to the regularly scheduled City Council meeting.

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Carlsbad “Citizens of the Year” honored

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Mayor Claude A. “Bud” Lewis, his wife, Bev Lewis, and longtime community volunteer Doris Lee Ritchie were honored Oct. 5 as Carlsbad’s Citizens of the Year. The annual event recognizes Carlsbad community members who have provided outstanding service to their community.

The Citizen of the Year program is more than 40 years old and honors community members who have given their time and energy toward the civic improvement, beautification and betterment of the City of Carlsbad. This year’s honorees were selected by a four-person committee of Carlsbad residents and recognized during a ceremony at Carlsbad City Hall, just prior to the regularly scheduled City Council meeting.

Claude A. “Bud” Lewis
Claude A. “Bud” Lewis has been on the City Council since 1970 and was elected mayor in 1986. He plans to retire in December at the end of his current term, after 40 years in public office.

Mayor Lewis entered politics as an experiment. In 1970 he was teaching and coaching at Carlsbad High School when his government-class students, frustrated by the Vietnam War, complained about the country’s condition and the quality of its leaders. Mr. Lewis, who had served as a weapons instructor in the Marines during the Korean War, defended the system, saying that a government was only as good as the people elected to office, and the key was electing the right people.

Taking that as a dare, Mr. Lewis’ students put his name on the ballot for City Council and ran his campaign. Their teacher regarded the move as an interesting civics experiment, and little more.

It turned out to be a rare political miscalculation for the coach and high-school teacher, who has been re-elected ever since.

Mayor Lewis served on the Council during the period of the city’s greatest growth, and one of his greatest challenges was to manage that growth. Then-Council Member Lewis helped draft a ballot measure that would control growth by requiring developers to pay for the roads, parks and services their projects made necessary, and to limit growth until public infrastructure was in place. That measure, the Growth Management Plan, was passed by voters in 1986 and controls development to this day.

In 1992, after San Diego County had gone through a drought that nearly forced water rationing, Mayor Lewis made water independence a top priority. In 2010, he completed a term as chair of the San Diego County Water Authority, and he has served on the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. His efforts to make the city less reliant on outside sources led to the approval of the West Coast’s first large-scale ocean-water desalination plant, in Carlsbad.

Another major accomplishment during the mayor’s tenure was the establishment of Carlsbad as a successful tourist destination, bolstered by the city’s reputation for clean beaches, beautiful flower fields and world class golf resorts. The City Council’s efforts to attract the country’s first LEGOLAND family park in the late 90s further established Carlsbad as a prime visitor destination.

Mayor Lewis has put his imprint on Carlsbad, helping to establish its reputation as a city with high standards, sound financial management and an involved citizenry.

Bev Lewis
Bev Lewis has been by the mayor’s side since they married in 1955. The mayor calls Mrs. Lewis his chief support without whom he could never have succeeded as a high-school teacher, coach and mayor.

Before the couple met, Bev Lewis worked as a proofreader for the Los Angeles Examiner, and later, after they were married, for The San Diego Union. The mayor credits his wife’s facility with the English language as helping him in his studies at San Diego State University.

Paula Tremayne, their daughter, recalls that in her dad’s early days as a teacher, the job didn’t pay well so her father took side jobs—painter, referee and milkman.

Sometimes when he drove the milk truck, she recalled, “My mom would get us (her brother, Gary, and her) up early in the morning so we could go with him.”

After Coach Lewis was elected councilman, “my mom went down and got a job at a doughnut shop, because he lost so much income from losing the side jobs,” Tremayne recalled.

The mayor said that “after three years she gave it up because, she said, ‘Bud, they’re telling the same lousy jokes,’” every single day.

Tremayne describes her mother as “the rock behind my dad,” “the fort holder.” She said her mom was the prototypical coach’s wife. She showed up at all the games, and when the football team was in the midst of a 0-9 season, collected the newspaper after a loss to spare her husband having to read the account. “She felt everything that he did.”

She said one year Carlsbad beat Oceanside and after the victory she ran down to the field and gave him a big hug. That was the picture that ran in the next day’s paper.

The mayor said Mrs. Lewis would sit in the stands and endure comments from fans who didn’t like how Coach Lewis was doing his job.

“When I became mayor the same thing would happen,” he said, but added, “I never talked politics with her.” He said the couple has always been close.

“They were a team,” says their daughter. “They were each other’s fans.”

“She was never the president of any club, she was simply a stay-at-home mom that took care of the family,” he said.

Mrs. Lewis is ill, suffering from dementia. “She’s in a nice place,” the mayor said.

Doris Lee Ritchie, Ph.D.
Doris Lee “Dorrie” Ritchie has been active in city causes since she became a permanent Carlsbad resident in 1983.

Ms. Ritchie has a doctorate in adult education and specializes in voluntarism. She is one of the original 100 founders of California State University San Marcos, which just celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Ms. Ritchie said one of her achievements at CSUSM was to assist with setting up a volunteer program at the university’s prestigious Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Adolescents.

“That was a learning experience,” she said, which is what she says about all her volunteer efforts, as if she gets more out of volunteering than she gives.

She served 10 years on the Housing Commission, which entails close attention to land use and housing law.

“I learned a lot those 10 years on the Housing Commission,” Ms. Ritchie said. “It was a lot of information.”

She also served on the architectural design committee of the Senior Commission, which helped design the popular Carlsbad Senior Center on Pine Avenue, and recalls her service on the Senior Commission as challenging and rewarding.

“We met every two weeks with a five-member committee,” Ritchie said. The committee played a role in every aspect of the building’s design: layout, furnishings, décor and ambience. She said the group had major decisions to make every meeting.

“It was fun and I learned so much,” she recalls.

Ms. Ritchie is involved in many civic causes, including 22 years as a member of Hi-Noon Rotary. She’s also a charter member of the Carlsbad Foundation and Carrillo Ranch Foundation, and is on the board of directors of the Hospice of the North Coast.

Additionally, she has received awards for community service from the Carlsbad-Oceanside-Vista chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the North County Soroptomists, among many others.

Ms. Ritchie served as a volunteer in the Carlsbad office of former U.S. Rep. Ron Packard, specializing in senior issues. Later, she spent a week as a senior intern in his congressional office in Washington, D.C. She is listed in Who’s Who in American Women.

Ms. Ritchie said it’s an honor to be recognized as one of the city’s Citizens of the Year, but she volunteered because she wanted to help.

“I never did anything for a reward,” she said.