JIM MARTIN
James Edward Martin III was born October 16, 1959, in Boston, Massachusetts.
He attended Schools Germantown Friends, Fitler Elementary, Julia R. Masterman, Owen J. Roberts, The Hill School, University of Virginia (BA).
An early reader, Jim loved books as a child. He wanted to read them, write them, and make them. His first effort was called “Fast Cars, Planes and Boats,” a well-illustrated handmade chapbook, at six years of age.
Raised in Pennsylvania, Jim attended public schools in Philadelphia. His beloved grandfather, AP “Pop” Saunders, taught history for many years at the Hill School in Pottstown PA. Jim received a full scholarship at the boarding school, where he edited the newspaper and won an award for excellence in American History.
Jim studied writing at the University of Virginia with Pulitzer Prize winner James Alan McPherson. Mr. McPherson helped Jim find his voice as an author. Jim’s short story, “1968,” won the George Washington Prize at UVa.
Along the way, Jim worked a lot of jobs he later found out Americans were unwilling to do - bumper car wrangler at an amusement park, prep cook, warehouse packer. Jim settled in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1980, and got a dream job as a printer for Black Lightning Class Notes at UC Berkeley. Joining a local cooperative print shop called Red Star Black Rose in East Oakland, with like-minded community-oriented writers, Jim founded Flatland Books in 1984 to distribute the odd titles we printed.
Flatland evolved into a publishing venture, with a catalog of books, periodicals and pamphlets for distribution. The mail-order catalog functioned as a magazine, with articles of interest.
Jim discovered that the titles relating to conspiracy theories, the JFK Assassination, UFOs, paranormal science, etc, sold pretty well. Eventually, Hollywood came calling, and they made a movie about a guy with a conspiracy newsletter starring Mel Gibson, “Conspiracy Theory.”
Jim’s ancestors were Quakers. A dedicated ant-war activist, member of the Livermore Action Group, participated in several blockades of nuclear weapon installations.
Fishing buddy Ed Gehrman introduced Jim to Wilhelm Reich’s book Mass Psychology of Fascism. That triggered a deep investigation of Reich’s work, which Jim collected in his major book Wilhelm Reich and the Cold War (winner of the Lou Hochberg Prize).
Growing up in Philadelphia as a child in the 60s was tough, but during the muggy summers his family went down the Jersey shore for fresh air, and fishing. Jim came alive chasing blue crabs and weakies, starting a lifelong passion for collecting food from the ocean.
Eventually, as a Californian in the 1990s, the state shut down one fishery after the other. Jim got involved with numerous fisheries restoration efforts, and was honored to advocate for recreational fisherman at public hearings, including the Fish & Game Commission. He served many years on the Mendocino County Fish & Game Advisory Commission, and was Vice President of the Salmon Restoration Association, which hosted the “WORLD’S LARGEST SALMON BBQ” in Noyo Harbor, each Fourth of July. He served on the board of directors of the Alliance for Sustainable Fishing Communities and the Sonoma County Abalone Network (SCAN).
In 2004, Randy Fry was killed by a white shark. Jim was hired by the Recreational Fishing Alliance’s West Coast Regional Director, to keep the RFA’s fight for the right to fish alive. He was appointed to the Groundfish Advisory Panel of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and worked on rockfish issues.
MLPA - Mendocino County MLPA Outreach Coordinator
As conservation refugees, Jim and his wife Beth Benson relocated to Alaska in 2015. In Alaska they like fish, fishing and fishermen. Jim had worked off and on with the Alaska Charter Association for some years, and was hired as Executive Director. He retired in 2023.
Jim is survived by his beloved wife of 40 years Beth: Mother of our children; so many adventures. First born daughter & beloved Gracie:! A friend to flowers; Devoted mother to Aksel and Annika; growing her family with love and mama bear protection. So happy for her and her husband Davis Beekman, a good man and dad. Much-loved daughter May: Money! Sweet daughter with an uncrushable spirit. Strong. Competent. Fisherman! Aksel: Jim’s grandson and spirit animal. Good train man. Builder. Strong. Lovely loved granddaughter Annika: Sweet disposition, Jim’s Irish Lassie. Sister, Susan Saunders Martin and brother-in-law Chris Andrien.
LARRY BENSKY, RADIO NEWSMAN AND RABBLE-ROUSER FOR 50 YEARS AT KPFA IN BERKELEY, DIES AT 87
by Sam Whiting
As a newsman and commentator, Larry Bensky was drawn to stories of political upheaval, particularly the upheaval at his own station, listener-supported radio station KPFA-FM in Berkeley.
The Brooklynite Bensky had already been there for 30 years when he was taken off the air in 1999 for criticizing station ownership during his show, an act of professional suicide that was entirely within character.
This led to a staff lockout that put Bensky on the street, which is where he always felt he belonged, anyway. An encampment was set up in front of the station that included a 50-watt pirate radio station powered by a van battery. There, standing on Martin Luther King Jr. Way and seemingly broadcasting for the entire 30-day lockout, was the martyr Bensky.
“Larry was brilliant. He had a giant brain and was an authority on many things, including KPFA itself,” recalled Sherry Gendelman, a criminal defense attorney who was involved in the lockout and now serves on the board of the station. “He delivered so much talent and facts and information from this giant brain.”
When the lockout of 1999 finally ended, Bensky got his show back and was on the air covering national and international events for the Pacifica Radio Network, which has five affiliates nationwide, including KPFA. He had a talk show called “Sunday Salon,” a classical music show called “Piano,” and a call-in show called “Ideas and Ideals” at various times in a career that spanned 50 years at a station so close to his Berkeley home that he could ride his bike to work.
As a newsman and commentator, Larry Bensky was drawn to stories of political upheaval, particularly the upheaval at his own station, listener-supported radio station KPFA-FM in Berkeley.
But that giant brain suddenly failed Bensky in March when he was diagnosed with senile degeneration, said his wife of 34 years, Susie Bluestone.
He no longer had his encyclopedic grasp of current events, the Spanish and French languages, classical music, the writings of Marcel Proust, the Supreme Court, the history of organized labor, and an international conspiracy behind the JFK assassination the late Warren Hinckle had labeled “the Bensky Theory.”
“Once he realized that he had lost his intellectual capacity, he was ready to go on his own terms,’’ Bluestone said.
Those terms included a last meal of chocolate ice cream, before he stopped eating. Stubborn to the end, it took him 10 days to go.
Bensky died May 19 at home in South Berkeley. He was 87.
As an on-air voice, Bensky was best known as the national news anchor for Pacifica Radio during hearings for nominees to the Supreme Court. He also covered the Senate’s Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, for which he was given the George Polk Award in Radio Reporting, to recognize intrepid bold and influential work in investigative reporting.
“Larry could be prickly as a porcupine, but I never saw anyone have such a command of history and news, the facts and the stats,” said Bonnie Simmons, a freeform music DJ who worked with Bensky at both KSAN and KPFA.
One thing Bensky was prickly about was never having been elected to the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame. When he was passed over in 2016, he vented to Chronicle “Radio Waves” columnist Ben Fong-Torres.
“How proud I am to now be left as the one and (I believe) only member of our radio generation NOT to have been tapped for the Hall of Fame! It takes a very special ingenuity to avoid me, after my 47 (!) years on the air, numerous awards local and national,” he said.
In addition to the Polk Award for his Iran-contra coverage, Bensky was a five-time recipient of the Gold Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and a career achievement award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
“Bensky absolutely deserved induction,” said Fong-Torres, a member of Broadcast Legends, who recalled voting for Bensky. “If there was anything he loved more than news and commentary, it was radio itself, especially live coverage of news and political events.”
According to his sister, Joyce Silverman, that love of radio began with broadcasts of the Brooklyn Dodgers, whose ballpark, Ebbets Field, was close enough to the family home in Flatbush that he could ride his bicycle to the ballpark, always carrying his scorebook in the basket.
It was a habit he never dropped. A few years ago, he was visiting Silverman at her home in Philadelphia and they attended a Phillies game. “There he was,” she said, “the only person in the stands keeping score.”
Listening to ballgames and keeping score developed into a love of journalism nurtured at the elite Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, where he worked on the school paper. After graduating, in 1954, he attended Yale where he rose to the position of managing editor for the Yale Daily News, oldest college paper in the country.
He graduated with a degree in American Studies in 1958, and a few years later landed his first job in print journalism as an editor at the Paris Review, a literary quarterly. Within four years he had mastered the language and returned to a similar job as an editor and book reviewer at the New York Times.
By then the Vietnam War was raging and he’d become active in the anti-war movement. This got him recruited by Hinckle, editor of Ramparts, a San Francisco-based radical glossy monthly that was at the vanguard of opposition to the war.
Bensky had already been at KPFA for 30 years when he was taken off the air in 1999 for criticizing station ownership during his show, an act of professional suicide that was entirely within character. After a 30-day staff lockout, he was returned to the air.
He arrived in 1968 just as KSAN was being launched as an underground FM station by Tom Donahue, and Bensky moved into radio reporting, soon crossing the Bay to KPFA, where he established his voice and the undying trust of his listeners.
“Larry could instantaneously pick up and cover anything because he had all of that history in his head,” said Simmons. “It was unbelievable to me to hear him cover election night or a hearing. His show was not prepared ahead of time. It couldn’t be. He had extraordinary command.”
There was enough of it captured on air to make for a two-hour radio documentary titled “A Larry Bensky Retrospective” which was hosted by former KPFA news co-director Aileen Alfandary, and is linked on the KPFA website.
“Larry was a giant in the world of progressive broadcasting,” said Alfandary.
As such, he had a low opinion of the profit motive in commercial news, which he conveyed during 30 years as an adjunct professor in both the Department of Communications and the Department of Political Science at Cal State University East Bay.
He lectured at Stanford and Berkeley City College, and was a volunteer writing coach in the Berkeley Unified School District.
“Larry was someone who would pour endless intellectual attention and nurturing into me and countless other young people,” said Julia Kim, a neighbor.
In 2023, Bensky and Bluestone boxed up 14 boxes of books on Proust to donate to ultra progressive Bard College in New York to form a collection he named “Radio Proust.” He also donated to separate institutions his collection of Jewish books and his media books.
“I thought bringing information to people would stir things up,” he told the Berkeley Planet at the time of his retirement in 2007. “Without that information, nothing would get stirred up.”
In 1990, Bensky met Bluestone, who ran the nonprofit Oakland Recycling Association. They immediately moved in together and were married in 1997 in a living room ceremony at their home in South Berkeley. Their daughter Lila was adopted at birth a few weeks after their marriage.
He was 70 when he retired from KPFA but he didn’t stay retired and he didn’t stop stirring it up. He was regularly brought in as an election expert and on-air host until “Ideas and Ideals” ended in 2019. After that he was involved mainly as a listener. He would email Simmons recommendations for her freeform music program “The Bonnie Simmons Show,” which airs at 8 p.m. Thursdays.
“It could be Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger but it also could be something surprisingly contemporary,” Simmons said. “He sent me a Paul Simon song I had never heard, ‘Senorita With a Necklace of Tears.’ I’m going to play it Thursday night in honor of him.”
AV UNIFIED NEWS
Dear Anderson Valley Community,
It was a very busy week, indeed. What a great way to start a Friday with the Walk to School Day at the elementary! Thank you to all of the staff and families that came out to support it.
At the high school, I’m going to start with the congratulations to the senior class for their senior project presentations. I judged three and they were very well done and were projects that were personally important to the student. The amount of time and energy to create all portions of this activity for all students is significant. Many collaborating mentoring agencies were involved, including the fire department, our wildlife partnership with Wild Things, and other professionals in businesses and organizations that share their time with students. The project is just one component and there are many other portions of the final grade including the research paper, personal statement, and the detailed planning guide. All of these items are designed to prepare students for life beyond high school as they tackle projects in their future jobs or college careers. A shout out to Stefani Ewing, Chris Howard, and Matt Bullington for their work in the senior seminar this year. Next year that course will be taught by Casey Farber.
Achievement blossomed at the elementary school during the open house. It was terrific to see all of the learning examples on display. It is so much fun to watch a kid all excited to show their family something that they feel proud about creating. They were also incredible art projects facilitated by the gifted instruction of Cathleen Micheaels.
The preschool graduation under the direction of Anita Mendoza, Guadalupe Espinoza, and Monica Alvarez was a stellar send-off to students that will be moving to the big school next year. The students marched out on the stage, received their diplomas, and then enjoyed some cupcakes and juice. It was wonderful, and I appreciate everyone helping gather up the chairs afterwards. Our mighty maintenance staff is maxed out at this time of year with so much going on. Your support for cleaning up the chairs makes a difference and more importantly, shows them you care and support them.
I want to update you also on the hiring process that is on-going for our site leaders. Today, we interviewed a strong candidate and we expect to have a positive announcement on Tuesday for the Junior Senior High School principal position. We have two interviews scheduled for next week for the elementary principal. One is fairly local and the other one is from out of state. We will continue to keep you posted on those outcomes.
A huge thank you to Alexys Bautista for planning the dance tonight with the Junior High Leadership team! The kids are so excited!
Please remember no school Monday. Upcoming dates:
Junior Senior High Exhibition May 29 at 3:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
FFA Awards Night Dinner May 30 5:00 p.m.
6th Grade Promotion June 4 at 6:00 p.m.
8th Grade Promotion June 5 at 6:00 p.m.
12th Grade Graduation June 6 at 7:00 p.m.
Student Exhibition Wednesday!
Bring the family and join us for the Junior Senior High Student Exhibition on Wednesday, May 29 from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Come admire students' work throughout the school and enjoy some light refreshments created by Miss Kira's class. See you then!
AV Preschool Graduation
Wow! Nothing touches your heart more than seeing a preschool graduation. Particularly poignant when some of our soon to be graduated high school seniors were in the audience. This valley knows how to celebrate achievement. Well done!
Take care,
Louise Simson, Superintendent
AV Unified School District
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