Pam Barrett & Jim Hill celebrated for service to the Norris Center

Longtime sweethearts to be feted at Valentine Ball

Pam Barrett and Jim Hall

Norris Theatre volunteers Pam Barrett and Jim Hall who often are called upon to run the spotlights at the Norris Center for the Performing Arts have been selected to receive this year’s Key to Our Heart Award at the Norris Valentine Ball. Photo by David Fairchild.

If Pam Barrett’s father hadn’t been an officer in the Coast Guard, she might never have met the man who’s been the love of her life for the past 22 years.

And if Jim Hill hadn’t been passing by the gym where she was organizing a South Bay Sailing Club in the ‘80s, he might have never had that opportunity.

But that’s how the couple met, Barrett explained during a recent joint interview that preceded what they see as the culmination of their long engagement and their long commitment to the Norris Center for the Performing Arts: They will be honored with the “Key to Our Heart” award on Sunday, Feb. 13, during the Center’s 21st annual gala at the Terranea Resort.

Together, they are active in Act II, Bravo, Chorusliners and Encore Circle, all Norris Center support groups, and in 2007 were named Volunteers of the Year for their dedicated work for the Center. And, Hill added, he is active in the relatively new Norris Legacy Group, headed by Bernie Rosenzweig, the stated goal of which is to create an endowment for the Center. (The Legacy Group consists of Norris members who plan to leave special bequests to the Center, he explained.) “Its purpose is to preserve the long-term viability of the Center.”

By way of describing their abiding commitment, both Barrett and Hill immediately answered, “Friendship.”

Hill said, “The Norris is the center of all our social activities, and we’ve become very good friends with the people there.”

Barrett added, “It’s the loyalty of this group. We had been ushering at the Armstrong [Theatre in Torrance], and a friend suggested we try the Norris. The work at the Norris is most satisfying. We’re rewarded. We get special recognition.” And, the upcoming Valentine Gala will culminate their years of service with that very special “recognition.”

Different paths

Barrett, who worked as a flight attendant for American Airlines, comes to volunteering by way of her daughter’s Girl Scout activities. “As a single mother, I wanted to be involved as much as I could be during my days off,” she explained. “I also worked as a school aide, teacher’s aide and participated in all of my daughter’s activities.” Neighbors and churches cared for her daughter while she was working, she added.

Although she held a Bachelor’s Degree in childhood education from the University of Maryland, her plans changed, she said, when she moved to California to be with her mother, who had moved here in the ’50s, and — interestingly enough — had become a Norris volunteer in the 1980s.

“My mother just happened to live between a (then) Western Airlines pilot and an American Airlines pilot,” Barrett said, “so she suggested I apply for a job with them. So I started with Western, but after six months, I switched to American because it flew to the East Coast which made it possible to visit family in Maryland.”

Barrett stayed with American for 38 years, retiring in 2003. When the airlines eliminated their matrimonial restrictions, she married, had daughter Jennifer Lynn and divorced after six years.

Hill, meanwhile, was leading a completely different life: Born in Detroit, he and his parents, who had relatives in California, moved here in the ‘50s. Los Angeles was their first destination, but later they moved to Torrance. While there, he attended El Camino College. Hill was named among its Distinguished Alumni by the Board of Trustees during the college’s 50th Anniversary Celebration in 1997. He went on to obtain an MBA from Cal State University Long Beach while working for TRW. He remained at the company for 31 years, retiring in 1998.

“I worked on many of the most significant scientific space exploration projects, including man’s landing on the moon, plus many major national security projects,” he said with justifiable pride. Of his life at the aerospace corporation, Hill added, “I had a great career. My only regret is that I did not work for a governmental agency that could answer the universal question of mankind: Are we alone in the universe?

“It was a terrific, fabulous job. I worked for the director where I could see the big picture, the entire project,” he said.

Hobby horses

It was during his years at TRW that Hill became interested in miniature horses. “My then-wife and I were looking at a photo of a baby horse on a bed in a photo in Life magazine. ‘Let’s get horses,’ she suggested. I agreed.”

That photo started the couple on a venture that ultimately led him and one of his prized little stallions to appear before the Rolling Hills Estates City Council —which he called “a unique distinction” — where he sought to convince the city to allow such creatures on land they had bought on the Peninsula. “They [the horses] are no bigger than a goat,” he pointed out. But the Council denied the request, so Hill bought another property where the horses were permitted. The collection grew and gained international interest. “We became prominent in the field. One of them went on to become a mascot for the Denver Cowboys cheerleaders,” he said with a smile.

But, he went on, their venture ended when the marriage ended, and she took the horses.

Romance and roses

As for the serendipitous meeting of Hill and Barrett, she described it this way: “Like others who had signed up, he had left his phone number, so I called him about a week later to see if he was still interested in the club.” And the rest is history. It wasn’t long before they fell in love and joined forces as volunteers for a variety of charitable and civic organizations.

One that holds a compelling attraction for the couple is the Torrance Rose Float Association. “Over the years, Pam and I have spent days decorating the different floats, and we’ve even had the privilege of riding on one on three separate occasions. One year we were Romeo and Juliet. That was also the year we stood in the rain for more than five hours,” Hill grimaced.

Barrett belongs to and has held positions in several other groups, including Las Candalistas, Las Vecinas, the Torrance Historical Society and the Torrance Women’s Club. The South Torrance Lion’s Club in 2005 named her Citizen of the Year, and in September 2010, she was named a finalist in the Volunteerism category of a Daily Breeze contest called “Women of Distinction.”

Aside from their passion for volunteering — and Hill’s passion for golf — and their joint passion for sailing, their leisure time is spent in gardening, day trips and baby-sitting toddler granddaughter Chloe, who lives with her parents in Torrance.

As Barrett and Hill were leaving the interview for their Torrance float decorating assignment prior to the 2011 Rose Parade, a reporter remarked, “You’ve always got lots of things to do, don’t you?”

Hill quickly corrected a word in the question: “We don’t think of them as things we’ve got to do, we think of them as things we get to do.”

And later, Barrett said, “We’re not remembered by the words we say, but our deeds will always be remembered.”

According to Norris officials, the Valentine Ball has raised nearly $2 million for the Center in the past 21 years.

Tickets for the event are $185 per person. A portion of the ticket price is tax deductible. For more information about the gala or to purchase tickets, contact this year’s chairperson, Myla Azer, at 310-483-9248. PEN

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