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1948 The First Year Chairman: Louis Caldwell Host: Ben McNeill Program: John Gurash Music: The Elks Quartet Cast: Leonard Backus, Eugene Breitenbach, Louis Caldwell, Frank Crosetti, John Gurash, Ben McNeill, William Morosi, Sherman Miller, Robert Stoever,Herb Wedemeyer,William Woodbridge Photo: Left to right: Art Holt, Al Taliaferro, John Gurash By Jill Benone: The original group, like the fabled pheonix, just arose form the ashes. Louis Caldwell, the current PTA President’s husband, was Fathers’ Night Chairman that year. His program chairman John Gurash had “a little idea”, a skit wherein the husbands of board members appeared as their wives in a most disrespectful manner. The skit depicted a PTA meeting. The men were costumed in thrift-shop dresses, with wigs constructed from mops, tastefully crowned by thrift-shop hats. They completed the evening with a barbershop quartet. A small seed was planted. It was, to coin a phrase, a dark and stormy night when Fathers’ Follies debuted. According to the PTA Historian’s Book, the presentation at Sparr Auditorium “was such a riot and so hilarious that the fathers promised to make it an annual event”. The seed had taken root, and Fathers’ Follies was about to explode onto the Verdugo Woodlands scene.