By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Benicia-Tula Sister Cities Association will recognize new honorary and emeritus members Tuesday at its meeting at Benicia City Hall.

In addition, the organization will present a report on a trip by the local delegation led by Mayor Elizabeth Patterson to Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, last September.

President Carla Gallagher-Schaefer will present honorary memberships to Buck Kamphausen and Warren O’Blennis, said Maria M. Bitagon, past president and community relations and fundraising director.

In 2008, Kamphausen was instrumental in obtaining a $5,000 matching grant awarded to the association from Valero Benicia Refinery, Bitagon said.

Prior to that, Kamphausen was “relentless” in his search for a medical van that would meet the needs of Tula de Allende residents, she said.

“This medical van addresses the optometric, dental and medical needs of the people in the rural areas of Tula,” she said.

“This made it possible for the poor and disadvantaged people in the rural areas to obtain medical, dental and optometric treatment, in most cases for the first time in their lives,” Bitagon said.

She said Kamphausen also was among those who convinced Rudy Manfredi and his company, Medic Ambulance, to donate equipment so the medical van could be used as an ambulance.

In 2002, Kamphausen donated a fire truck, which he also refurbished before the association sent the vehicle to Tula.

“Both the medical van and the fire truck proudly participate in Tula’s Independence Day Parade every year,” she said.

Kamphausen owns Skyview Memorial Lawn, RM Auctions and USA World Classic Car Museum.

Bitagon said she recommended Kamphausen for the honorary lifetime membership award “in grateful recognition of his meritorious philanthropic support, invaluable public service, partnership and excellent community relations.”

O’Blennis “was the main force to have a Sister City program,” Pepe Arteaga, a former member of the City Council, said of the second honorary membership recipient.

O’Blennis was Benicia’s mayor in 1979, when the city was looking for a sister city.

“I was a member of the Waterfront Planning Commission, and voluntarily requested to go to Mexico to look for a city with the same characteristics as Benicia,” Arteaga said.

When he returned, he told the mayor that Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, was his choice for Benicia’s sister city.

O’Blennis appointed Jesse King and Howard Jenkins as goodwill ambassadors to visit Tula, Arteaga said. “At their return, they also recommended Tula, Hidalgo, as Benicia’s sister city,” he said.

O’Blennis and Tula mayor Hector Buitron Maldonado signed a proclamation July 4, 1979, that linked Tula and Benicia as sister cities.

O’Blennis and more than 30 Benicia delegates went to Tula the next year for the first official visit.

“Warren initiated the first Benicia-Tula student exchange at that time,” Arteaga said. “After meeting with the mayor of Tula, Warren O’Blennis organized the trip for 25 students and their teachers to visit Benicia during July 2008,” he said.

For those acts, Arteaga recommended O’Blennis be given honorary membership in the Benicia-Tula Sister Cities Association.

The organization will present another award Tuesday night, Bitagon said. Leeann Cawley will be given the Emeritus Award.

Cawley was recommended for the honor by John Potter and Bitagon, who said Cawley was instrumental in the revival of the Benicia-Tula Sister Cities Association in 2002, after a hiatus of nearly six years.

The organization had lapsed because of a weak peso in Mexico, and because in Benicia, many of the sister city advocates had left elective office, Bitagon and Potter said.

Cawley and her family had adopted a boy in Tula in 1982, and had raised him in Benicia, forming another tie between the two cities, Potter and Bitagon said.

Involved from the beginning, Cawley had recruited Arteaga, who was from Tula, to become involved in the sister city project.

When the organization faltered, she assembled a team through word of mouth and advertising. Its goal was to establish the Benicia-Tula Sister Cities Association as a group that was independent of Benicia’s city government, and a nonprofit corporation that would not have political affiliations.

An agreement between the two cities was signed in 2002, and exchange visits resumed again in 2003, Potter and Bitagon said.

Benicia City Council established the Benicia-Tula Sister Cities Association as the city’s representative for all matters dealing with the two cities, they said.

“Leeann assured the new organization would stabilize and mature by serving as the president for the first several years,” they said.

Cawley and her husband, Bill, are the founders of Benicia Plumbing, which they started in 1975. The couple has been active in Benicia, having served separate terms as president of the Benicia Chamber of Commerce and each having been involved in other civic organizations.

The Benicia-Tula Sister Cities Association meeting is open to supporters.

Membership in the organization is $30 for individuals and $35 for families. Refreshments will be served. Those interested in attending are being asked to call or email Lia Kison (lia.kison@gmail.com, 707-980-3087), because seating is limited.

The meeting will start at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 12, in the Commission Room of Benicia City Hall, 250 East L St.