Friday, December 9, 2005

The longtime president of Balboa Park’s Committee of 100, Patricia DeMarce (at left with Mayor-elect Jerry Sanders & the Old Globe’s Craig Noel and, at right, with Senator Christine Kehoe & Deputy Mayor Toni Atkins at last week’s dedication of the west arcade along the Prado) passed away Wednesday at her Fletcher Hills home.After succeeding Bea Evenson (the organization’s first president) DeMarce led the restoration efforts to preserve the Spanish Colonial architecture in the park over the last three decades, including the Casa de Balboa (1981), the Spreckels Organ Pavilion (1983), an arcade near the Lily Pond on the Prado (1992), the House of Charm (1996) and the House of Hospitality in (1998). “She was a leader who was so excited about what she was doing that it was very easy to follow her,” said Betty Jo Williams, vice president of the Commitee of 100, which was formed in 1967.