Geza Kadar

More than any other classmate, Dan Woodworth consistently inspired me to think harder, reach higher, and to do more.  I always felt I ran many steps behind Dan and he always seemed to be pondering a world way beyond my own.  Dan had a subscription to Time magazine and was quoting the Economist when I was still reading Mad magazine.  It was Dan who coaxed Sir Alec Douglas Hume, the British Foreign Minister, to the Napa High School campus to help dedicate an oak tree he planted in honor of Winston Churchill.  It was Dan who talked us into walking into a grange hall meeting in Napa to listen to George Wallace give a campaign speech, one of only two appearances George Wallace made in California as a lead-up to his presidential run.  That's when I learned that Napa still had an active chapter of the Klu Klux Klan back in 1967.  In our senior year, Dan won the speech contest that got him into the Model United Nations meeting in New York City, all expenses paid.  That year he also was selected to attend the Boys State conference in Sacramento.  He was Iago, the male star in Shakespeare's Othello, as well as Ionesco's Rhinoceros. I lost touch with Dan when he left for Berkeley.  I did met him there once during his freshman year and he seemed to be struggling.  A short while later, I heard he quit school and headed to New York City in search of his dream...a career on the stage.  Not sure exactly when he ran for sheriff of Napa County, against the incumbent Sheriff Randall, but he did that too.  Dan performed on stage a few times at the small theater in Yountville, where he also helped the struggling theater by doing a dozen other jobs to keep the place open and the lights on.  Dan also died way too early in life, but the life he did live would have worn out most of us.  I share these recollections now, knowing full well that I only saw a small part of what was going on inside this amazing individual.  

Dolores Rodriguez

Dan Woodworth was a very special person. He was extremely intelligent, entertaining and had a great sense of humor. We had many great intellectual talks and I remember him as a kind, warm person. He even visited me at my home after I had broken my leg on an ice skating rink at Squaw Valley. It saddens me that he has passed away so soon.

John "Mike" Reed

Although I attended Redwood and Napa High with Dan, I never knew him well.  He was too far ahead of me in his reading and thinking.  In our senior year, I saw more of Dan when, as school student body president, he invited me to be chief justice of the student court.  After a few weeks in office, I relized that my position was more honorific than substantive.  Nonetheless, I appreciated Dan's thoughtfulness.

I saw Dan one more time after graduation.  In 1970 he ran for Napa County Sheriff.  He filed the necessary papers and became a legitimate candidate for the office.  As a legitimate candidate, he was invited to attend a "meet the candidates" affair at one of the wineries.  I attended as an interested citizen.  I was interested in what Dan would do -- and also in maybe drinking some free wine.  My interest in the first matter was fully satisfied when Dan showed up in cowboy boots, jeans, cowboy belt, plaid flannel shirt, black and white faux leather vest, cowboy hat -- and toy six-guns.  I don't remember anything about his platform.  I do remember that my interest in the second matter -- drinking free wine -- went mostly unsatisfied.

Karl Johannsen

Even though Dan is gone, he will definitely be with us at this reunion!  Dan was just too different to have lasted on this planet for a normal "lifetime."  But when I comtemplate the things he did, the people he touched and inspired, the warmth he radiated, the intensity of thought and consciousness he was able at times to share with those who knew him well--you cannot mark a life by how long it is lived.  Time, in Dan's universe, was concentrated and refined.  He packed plenty of living into his limited years on this planet.  And thanks, Mike, for writing about the Yippie Parade and Dan's candidacy for Sherrif.  I was there, too, although I think I must have had some of that free wine, because I remember very little specifically about that day.  I did not recall the toy guns and the outfit, that was soooooo FUNNY!!!  Bigger than life was this Nepoleonic figure of  our youth, rest in peace old friend.

Steven Miller

I always looked up to Dan and Geza, Karl Johnson and Linda Falcone.  I wanted to be as smart as they were.  I knew some day they would run our country, politics, etc.  I am sorry that I missed telling Dan how much he added to our class, and how much I appreciated him.  Carol Miller

Lyric Rillera

Dan was a fellow student of many talents and abilities, but I believe his true passion was for the stage.  I knew him primarily through his participation in our school plays and other drama related activities.  He seemed to vibrate with a special energy born of a true commitment to every role he played.  I'm not surprised to learn that he went to New York to hone his craft and later was involved with local theater in the Napa Valley.  I think that the author Jack London could have been writing about how Dan lived his life when he wrote: "I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet."