(LRY was a high school youth group within the existed on a local, regional and national level within the Unitarian churches. The Starr King Federation covered Northern California. This is not for the casual post-hippie pre-disco crowd.

Anyone who went to conferences regularly knows they were parties that would last for days. Often wild, but you also had time to be mellow and form strong bonds with people. Few baby boomers got to have such intense life-altering experiences ever, let alone before they were old enough to drive a car!

Remember being on the road, sitting elbow to elbow, pulling up to the church parking lot, and being so excited to see who was there? And remember when it was time to leave we'd gather outside on the lawn to say goodbye…Oh, don't get me started.

BABACHOO MEANS "I LOVE YOU!"

This homepage is run by Paul Stewart. It was created with help and inspiration from other LRYers. When we began in the spring of 2002 Carlos Espinosa was our advisor, he promised that if we misbehaved he'd e-mail our parents at their retirement homes. Sadly Carlos died in March of 2004, his memorial service was standing room only, over 200 people, many of them LRYers.

Read obit and artical on Carlos

Because of the lingering power of LRY, we're happy to say virtually all our goals were met within five months of starting the webpage! There's more people to find and such, but we built an impressive list of LRYers in our directory, had a successful reunion, and some great photos were dug up and posted as were some great new ones.

But most importantly old friends hooked up and got that old LRY feeling back, however corny it seems. When we started this webpage, we knew some folks would be too busy and stressed to be "trapped in the past." We wanted this site to be a quick escape, just like conferences were an escape from thinking about parents, school and zits.

Keeping it simple:

Our plan has always been to keep this site simple and low maintenance which is why it is narrowed down to such a short era.

We can add more links and hope someone creates a "Starr King" webpage for all eras. (Some of us went to almost every conference from '72 to '78 and had siblings active in other LRY dynasties.)

Photos and "where are they now?":

Many of us have dug up LRY photos and drawings, newsletters that were passed around at the reunion. If you have any more good stuff, scan it and send it to me. The "PHOTOS" link is at the top of this page.

(While some of us are trapped in the '70s, others of us are curious about what we look like now. If you'd like you may also include one or two current photos of you and your families. For your security, we won't put names on any photos if requested, old or new.)

WHY?

Hey, man, we said "keep it simple!"

While that is the only reason some people went, some of us never had sex or ever did drugs in LRY. Both of us think there should be no more references to them here.

In all honesty, we want this to be a site you can show your friends and kids. Ever tell new friends in adulthood how at age 14 you could be gone out-of-town for days going to thought-provoking workshops? About not only political/environmental issues, but massage, meditation, reincarnation and body painting?

LRY HAS TO BE AN URBAN LEGEND!

Do you ever have friends that don't believe you? And say "Quit making up stories. How could you say you were part of a group where a big church let a bunch of scruffy teenagers have free-run of the place for up to five days?"

Or "Daddy, what was it really like in LRY?"

"Son, it was a time when 'going to rap' meant talking. A hair-cut was a punishment, not a reward...etc.

- Sacramento (sometime before Easter)

- San Mateo (Easter Break, five days of love)

- Aptos (June) We went to the beach.

- Weren't there a couple this summer?

- Marin (summer, three masked streakers)

- San Francisco (September, weekend Nixon was pardoned.)

- Sacramento (also in the fall sometime)

- San Mateo (New Years)

- Walnut Creek (February)

- Marin (March, green mashed potatoes for St. Patty's day.)

- Palo Alto (Easter Break, five days baby)

- Berkeley (June, many people got sunburned)

- Mendocino Woodlands for a week. (July)

- Sacramento (August)

- Marin (October?)

- Walnut Creek, right after thanksgiving

- Canceled conference after Christmas in Palo Alto

- Things got slow here for months. Or was there a small conference?.

- Sacramento (Easter, we turned back the clocks)

- San Mateo (May)

- Mendocino Woodlands week (July)

- Continental Conference in Washington State. (August)

- Sacramento Again, (August)

- San Francisco (September)

- Swimming party for Mona Dayton's in Sacramento, September

- Walnut Creek (October)

- Marin (November?)

- New Year's party in Palo Alto, at Glen, Katie's, Eli's, Angie's.

So many, (if not most) of us serious LRYers kept going to conferences a year or two after high school. (Some even longer.) Often trying to hold on to something that was no longer there. While a new group of kids started forming their own cliques etc.

Remember being busy with jobs, college and new friends, but still knowing that warm, safe, community feeling of being at a conference was slipping away?

Until eventually it was all over.

And then there was August 17, 2002.

NOTE:

L.R.Y. stands for Liberal Religious Youth. Not Little Red Yo-Yos or Lesbian Refugees from Yugoslavia!

This is the place we do not want to add any more names to, but this information is important to former LRYers. If you have any information or notice any errors, please let us know.