The first-ever Local Legends Legacy Awards, created by the newly formed Ocean Alliance Network, were recently given with a goal of celebrating “community, collaboration, culture, and conservation.”
“I want to recognize leaders, legends, people who are impacting,” said Ana Rothwell, who created the initiative and brought the event at El Caminante Bar & Bungalows in Dana Point to life. “We don’t want to lose the heart of where we came from.”
Rothwell said she wanted a way ocean-focused businesses could help each other, make a difference and come together for solutions out in the water from addressing pollution to whale strikes.
“This is my community, I’ve been here a long time,” Rothwell said. “I love this ocean. I love the whales, the dolphins, surf … everyone has such a special purpose, we all need to highlight each other.”
Donna Kalez and Mike Hansen, who run Dana Wharf Sportsfishing and Whale Watching, were the first to be honored for their work educating the public about the ocean wildlife found offshore. Each year, their charter company takes out thousands of school children to teach lessons about the sea.
Kalez talked about her father, Don Hansen, who started the business off of the San Clemente Pier in the 1960s, at the time only taking school children out on charters.
When the Dana Point Harbor opened in 1971, he relocated.
“That’s when we were able to bring the masses to the whales,” she said. “We love Dana Point so much, it’s our legacy to continue to take children out and introduce them to the gray whales.”
Announcer for the night, Peter “PT” Townend talked about how the next three awardees – Dick Metz, Richard Yelland and musician Danny Brawner – were connected.
Metz was a pioneer adventurer, he said, one of the first people to sail around the world to surf and the inspiration behind the “Endless Summer” film. Metz later founded the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center, which is gearing up for a move from San Clemente to his hometown of Laguna Beach.
“It has, without question, the greatest collection of surfboards in the world,” Townend said.
Metz, 96, couldn’t make it to the awards, so Jeff Alter, executive director of SHACC, accepted the award on his behalf.
The next awardee, Yelland, created a movie about Metz’s life in the film “Birth of Endless Summer,” which was nominated for an Emmy.
“Please watch it, it’s really one of the most amazing stories in surfing history and it tells the story behind one of the most amazing surfing films of all time, if not the greatest travel stories of all time, the ‘Endless Summer,’” Yelland urged the crowd.
Telling stories helps bring more love for the ocean, Yelland said, and helps get people to wonder, “How can we preserve the ocean and take care of it for the future?”
“When I think about telling untold stories,” he said, “I’m thinking about, ‘How do we sustain our history? How do we inspire others with our history, and in turn, help save the ocean at the same time?’”
Brawner talked about creating the iconic “Endless Summer” song in a garage at his home near the San Clemente Pier with his band, The Sandals. “It was not the ‘Endless Summer’ song, it was just a song.”
But he was friends with filmmaker Bruce Brown, who heard the entire catalog and immediately knew the song would help complete his film.
Brawner is also a surfboard shaper and Alter talked about his impact on the Alter family business, Brawner helping his father, Hobie Alter, when he first opened up shop in Dana Point.
Rothwell said she hopes to bring more businesses together with the Ocean Alliance Network, which is an initiative under Sustain SoCal that encourages businesses and brands to think about sustainability and the environment. The nonprofit wants to hold a 2026 Ocean Summit and launch a Voice 4 Oceans video challenge next year.