by Robb Fulcher
Hermosa Beach lost a remarkable figure and a link to yesteryear when Bernice "Bunny" Seawright, the first woman to cross the Catalina Channel in a rugged race aboard a toboggan-like precursor to the water ski, passed away in her sleep on Sunday morning. She was 92.
Seawright died in the Strand home she was sharing with her daughter, Jill Curtin.
In addition to making her mark in the channel race, Seawright was active in the Hermosa Beach Historical Society and, with her husband, hosted the long-running Seawright Invitational Volleyball Tournament outside their seaside home.
"She was always a very delightful lady," said John Hales, a member of the historical society's board of directors. "She was a constant presence in the activities of Hermosa Beach."
In 1987, when the city celebrated its 80th birthday, Seawright was among the dignitaries serving as "candles" aboard a parade float fashioned into a giant birthday cake. Seawright turned 80 the same year as the city.
A decade later, on Seawright's and Hermosa's 90th birthday, she was guest of honor as barbershop-style singers from the historical society serenaded her with "My Bunny Lies Over the Ocean."
The year was 1935 when a then 28-year-old Seawright accepted a challenge by Noels Blair, editor of the Hermosa Beach Review, to "aquaplane" behind a speedboat driven by Loretta Turnball, a well known racer, in the channel event.
"Now in those days we got to ride an aquaplane, it's like a large washboard, for 10 minutes for two dollars over at Catalina," Seawright said in a 1987 interview with the ER. "So to imagine crossing from there to Manhattan Beach."
Seawright finished in seventh place with a time of one hour, 47 minutes in the previously all-male race. One other woman participated that year, but finished much lower in the pack.
The following year Seawright took to the channel again and, amid rougher seas this time, finished ninth.
"I was dead scared of Loretta Turnbull," Seawright said. "I mean here was a woman who was used to winning and I really wasn't sure what I was doing."
Perhaps she was being modest. While she was attending high school in Los Angeles,
Seawright tried out for the 100-yard dash in the 1932 Olympics.
"What did we know? All we knew about the Olympics is what we read in the paper so I thought I'd try out," Seawright said.
"I eventually came in fourth in the final tryouts at Paddock Field in Pasadena but only two girls were picked. The fun part was having the contact," she said.
Seawright had the opportunity to compete against runners from New Zealand and Australia, and kept in touch with one of the Australians for years afterward.
It was love of running that earned Seawright the nickname "Bunny" that shoved her first name onto the shelf for good.
"I remember being in a footrace when I was 11 years old in Hermosa Beach," she said. "I was down here with my parents and I took first prize, which was a fancy bathing cap...A girlfriend started calling me Bunny because I would run everywhere instead of walking."
When she was 21, she married Roy Seawright, a Hollywood special effects man who worked on the "Topper" movie series. He also served on the Hermosa Beach City Council for two terms in the 1940s, before he was drafted into military service.
When Bunny Seawright was 24, she competed in the U.S. trials for the Olympics, and had the first of her four children a year after the Games.
The Seawrights lived in Hermosa beginning in 1934 when they took a summer home here and never looked back.
"Once you stay past September you're here for good," she said.
Bunny and Roy moved to the Strand and began hosting the Seawright Invitational.
"When you live on the Strand and look out at the ocean you forget all the development that's going on back behind you," she said in 1987. "But yes, we feel we have a Hermosa heritage. It just creeps up on you and there it is."
She is survived by a daughter, Jill Curtin; three sons, Ron, Dennis and Jon Seawright; seven grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. ER