Letter to Classmates (2013)

As a student At Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, I received a notice to get a physical for the military, as my major was not draft-deferred. Into the USMC I go, but eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Professional Art to become an Art Director at a number of advertising agencies in Los Angeles, and while based in LA, I did stints in San Francisco, Denver and Chicago.

I relaxed by snow skiing and racing a two-person catamaran sailboat. I got into powerboats and used those boats as fire boats in the San Diego Thunderboat Regatta for seven or eight years.

Upon retiring from the ad business, I went to some watercolor workshops and started a series of Art Prints of Life on Highway Route 66 in the 20s, 30s and 40s, so I have traveled the Main Street of America. These limited edition art prints are sold through Owen Prints. Those art pieces plus others have also become labels for hot sauces, barbecue sauce and mustards I sell through Collector Series Sauces.

I took ballroom dance lessons and actually won a dance contest plus realized that dancing is a benefit aboard cruise ships!

As a member of the Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum Steam Team, I helped rebuild Southern Pacific 2353 locomotive which was seen in the film "Pearl Harbor". The Steam Team is currently rebuilding the locomotive "Coos Bay" from those hills in Oregon.

Larry Owen