USS Ronald Reagan to visit Santa Barbara

ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Thousands of Navy officers, chiefs and bluejackets will pour into the Santa Barbara area when the largest and newest aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy’s fleet, the USS Ronald Reagan, drops anchor offshore for several days in mid-January.
More than 4,000 crew and family members will disembark in Santa Barbara from January 11 to 14, local Navy League officials confirmed yesterday, marking the largest naval crew visit to Santa Barbara since the Great White Fleet’s arrival 100 years ago.

“It’s daunting, but it’s just great fun because the whole community has jumped into it,” Doug Crawford, a national director of the Navy League of United States and public affairs officer for the Navy League’s Santa Barbara Council.
Crawford and his wife, Karen, the president of the Santa Barbara Council, have joined 160 volunteers and 20 board members to work on the massive task of lodging, feeding and entertaining the sailors.
“It has been basically three months of planning and it has turned out to be the biggest welcome ever,” Crawford said. “Santa Barbara has just turned out in the biggest way.”
Special tours of local museums, sporting events, concerts, wine tours and visits to President Reagan’s Ranch and Library are among the three days of scheduled events.
Highlights include a Western Steak Dinner BBQ and Dance at the Carriage Museum; friendly softball, basketball and soccer games between the carrier’s crew and local firefighters and police officers; a concert at the Arlington Theatre; and the USS Ronald Reagan Welcome Golf Tournament at San Marcos Golf Course.
Details on specific events are still a bit hush-hush, Crawford said, but promised a national traveling band and a high-profile local emcee for the Arlington Theatre concert.
“After the last visit, when they visited in August 2005, they said the two things that were the only distractions were the cost of lodging … and the difficulty for young people to have things to do that are not alcohol-related,” he said.
As a result, the Navy League has worked with local hotels to provide 150 rooms at $100 or less per night. The group is also holding an Adopt-a-Sailor program, urging local residents to open their homes for several nights to host a crewmember, or to take a sailor out for a meal.
Crawford said about 500 to 600 sailors will need a place to stay. Although public tours of the USS Ronald Reagan will not be held, he said sailors will be able to take friends and family aboard.
“This is the best education people in the Santa Barbara area will ever have to learn what it means to support the troops,” he said. “Here they can really do that by opening their doors or buying a meal.”
Those interested in hosting a sailor or sponsoring an event can visit www.sbnl.org or call 879-1776. Crawford pointed out the digits of that phone number represent not only the birth of the United States, but the hull number of the USS Ronald Reagan — CVN 76.
The nuclear-powered, Nimitz-class USS Ronald Reagan is 1,092 feet long, soars 20 stories above the waterline, holds more than 80 combat aircraft and can hit speeds faster than 30 knots, according to its website. A single bronze propeller from the carrier weighs 66,200 pounds.
The Santa Barbara Navy League adopted the carrier upon its christening in 2000 and now serves as the crew’s official sponsor, raising funds for improvements, decorating crew galleys and supporting families while the carrier is deployed.
Although the Navy is not releasing the exact spot the massive vessel will drop anchor, Crawford said it will be visible from Carpinteria to Goleta. Its crew, on leave for the holidays, will start preparing for departure from its port at the Navy base on Coronado Island in the San Diego Bay on January 2.
Santa Barbara and Goleta will serve as the host cities for the visit, Crawford said, explaining that former Goleta Mayor Jean Blois was instrumental in making hotel rooms available for sailors in Goleta.
After stopping off in Santa Barbara, the carrier will continue on to the Middle East.
“It is our goal to show these dedicated men and women our support and appreciation before they head off on their third deployment,” Karen Crawford said in a prepared statement.
Although the USS Ronald Reagan previously visited Santa Barbara about two years ago, the number of crewmembers this time around will top that and every other visit since President Theodore Roosevelt sent 16 new battleships, known as the Great White Fleet, on a tour of the world.
President Roosevelt’s show of naval strength, manned by 14,000 sailors, arrived in Santa Barbara for five days in April 1908.