“As the president of CSEA, I
have had the privilege of working with Mark representing the classified
staff of Ojai Unified — bus drivers, custodians, secretaries
— all the support staff,” Barbi Rice told OVN. “Mark
was our chief job steward, as well as our chief negotiator, and my
mentor in both positions as well as my friend. We have known each
other since junior high at Matilija.
“We bounced ideas and solutions off each other, and Mark, in
his “out of the box” style of thinking (if you knew him,
you know exactly what I mean) always came up with an innovative solution
— not always one that I agreed with, but it was always creative,”
Rice continued. “He had a way of looking at a problem from all
sides. He rarely chose a hard line.
“His big, happy, cheesy grin will always be in my thoughts.
He’s up there right now telling God some really bad jokes,”
Rice said. “I will always miss him.”
The community rallied behind Ditchfield during his battle with cancer.
Hendrick has been busy organizing a benefit golf tournament for the
Ditchfield family. It takes place March 30 at Soule Park and requests
donations to play. “What I liked most about Mark is that he
was a good friend,” said Hendrick. “It’s a tough
situation.” Hendrick added that more and more people are contacting
him to sign up for the tournament, so he is hopeful that money will
be raised to truly benefit the Ditchfield family.
“I’ve known Mark since his family came to Ojai and the
Ditchfield kids enrolled at San Antonio School,” said Jodie
Miller. “One of my earliest memories of Mark was the day the
neighborhood kids were hanging out and his mom was trying to get Mark
to put some bag balm on their cows’ udders. Mark was having
no part of that, so she tried to shame him into doing it by putting
me up to it, so he took the easy route and let me do it!
“Mark was a giant teddy bear of a guy,” Miller said. “One
of the nicest people I’ve ever known. He will be missed.”
Colleen McDougal concurred, saying, “He was a wonderful, warm
guy. His heart was as big as the man.”
Ojai Art Center director Peter Crane said, “It was my great
pleasure to have been friends with Mark. He would without question
take any situation and with a very clever remark make it funny. Mark
was in several of our shows. He played a wise guy, Big Julie, in “Guys
and Dolls” and an elocutionist, Zoltan Carpathy, in “My
Fair Lady.” Mark was a big man and he filled the stage with
a twinkle in his eye.
“I have video of Mark that I’m putting together for Martha
and Emily and it truly shows Mark in his element. He is sitting back
stage with Carl Gross and they are discussing the theater and, of
course, he tells a joke - which now, of course, is priceless.
“Mark stated that he enjoyed being onstage but, moreover, enjoyed
the camaraderie between the actors and the time they had as a family
backstage,” said Crane. “What I loved most about him was
his sense of humor. I truly loved Mark - anyone who knew him did.
He will be missed.”
Said Ojai Art Center vice-president Lenny Klaif, “What a fight
he put up. It’s like seven years and every time anybody had
seen him, he was remarkably good-natured, had a positive outlook and
nothing got him down. The pleasure of sharing the stage with him in
Guy and Dolls, I mean, he is Big Julie. He’ll always be Big
Julie. He even snarled in a good-natured way.”
Post
or read comments