As young children, Walt Disney and Charlie Ridgway had one thing in common. Both were born in Chicago, Illinois, 20 years apart and spent part of their formative years in Missouri towns just 100 miles from each other.

Walt lived on a small farm at Marceline, Missouri from 1905 to 1910. Charlie spent his teen years in Shelbina, Missouri. It would be 1955 before they would meet at the opening of Disneyland.

Charlie's dad was the nation's first farm editor for a major metropolitan newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. The ink flowed in the veins of the two Ridgways. As had his father, Charlie graduated from the University of Missouri's renowned School of Journalism with a degree in radio; and later, became the reporter, editor and feature writer at the Los Angeles Daily Mirror. Arriving three hours before the scheduled time, Charlie was the first reporter to cover the opening of Disneyland on July 17, 1955.

Two months prior to the Disneyland debut, Charlie enjoys telling the story of almost having a "scoop" on a preview look at the park. He begged and pleaded with his boss Hank Osborne at the LA Mirror-News to let him do a photo spread on the building of the new park. "Finally in late April, 1955, Hank got tired of my pleading and gave me the go ahead. My hook for the story was 'An Anaheim kid sneaks into Disneyland under the construction fence for a preview look.'" Charlie's future boss, Eddie Meck wasn't too thrilled with the idea because he could visualize every kid in town trying to repeat the maneuver. "But he let me try it." Charlie not having any children at the time borrowed a five-year old neighbor David Potthast as his model.

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The morning of the photo shoot, Mirror-News photographer Delmar Watson met Charlie and David at the construction gate. Delmar had been one of five children appearing in the Our Gang comedies. He always carried strange props with him for his photo shoots. "David was one of those kids we used to call Spunky ... always in some kind of devilment with a wicked little gleam in his eyes. He made a perfect model. We took his picture leaning out the window of a stagecoach (no horses), fishing in the Frontier-land river (no water) and of course crawling under the construction fence.

"As we went around I noticed several #6 flash bulbs lying around and got suspicious. I called the city desk to tell them I thought another newspaper was working on the story and suggested I come in and write it for the next day. Delmar was already on the way with the photos."

"We're too tight on space tomorrow. Wait and write it Monday and we'll get it in next week."

Charlie recalls almost tearfully that Monday morning the Los Angeles Examiner came out with a double-page spread of pictures detailing progress on the Disneyland construction site. "I'm still mad about getting beat on 'my story.'"

The capper, however, came Monday afternoon when David Potthast's mother gets a call from his kindergarten teacher to come in for a conference.

"David is a wonderful little boy," the teacher began. "And we really encourage imagination, but he came to school today with a completely unbelievable story. He may need psychiatric help. He claims he sneaked into Disneyland and went fishing, rode a stagecoach and posed in front of the castle and he refuses to admit he was making it up."

Fifty years ago, insiders called the premier "Black Sunday." Disneyland was prepared for 15,000 celebrities, newsmen and other invites. Due to a mix up in RSVPs and tickets twice that number showed up. The result was near disaster in the midst of an all-live telecast on ABC Television with guests stumbling over miles of TV cables. Lacking in facilities for the unplanned numbers on opening day were such critical areas as restrooms and drinking fountains. Immediately, more were added.

Newspapers reported the fiasco, but the result was more than a million guests rushed out during the next six weeks to make the new park an instant success.

Seven years later Eddie Meck, then publicity manager for Disneyland, hired Charlie as writer/publicist. The second week on the job, Charlie was in his tiny office in City Hall, by himself, standing on his desk reaching for some photo files on a top shelf when a group pushed open the door behind him. A voiced asked, "May we come in?" Charlie responded with "Hell yes, it's not my joint." Of course it was Walt and his top managers on an inspection tour. Charlie survived his embarrassment to work with Walt for the next four years (until Walt's death) directing photo shoots with Walt at many special events in the park. It would be another 40 years and a transfer to Florida as Publicity Director for all of Walt Disney World before Ridgway finally abandoned his Mickey Mouse Ears.

Charlie Ridgway has lots of great stories to tell about his four decades at the "home of the Mouse." In 1991, he was tapped by the Disney organization for a year in Paris, France to handle the publicity efforts in the opening of the company's first European park. Later on, he developed all the media guides for the entire group of parks.

After his final retirement in 2001, Charlie began traveling extensively as a freelance writer/photographer. His stories and photos grace some of the travel pages of major newspapers and magazines in the U.S. He lives in Longwood, Florida. Charlie can still muster a struggling game of golf and enjoys sharing his unique stories of the world's most famous theme park. As part of the media experience for the upcoming 50th Anniversary celebration at all 10 Disney parks, Charlie will be going to Anaheim to share his stories of the birth of a growing collection of parks generated by the phenomenal imagination of Walt Disney.

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Charlie Ridgway and I go back to 1969 when he was hiring his staff for the 1971 opening of Walt Disney World in Orlando. I was the director of public relations at Callaway Gardens, a resort in Southwest Georgia. My wife was from Orlando and we thought it would be great for me to get a job in the public relations department at the new theme park. Well, Charlie did offer me a job, but at a lesser salary than what I was making back in Georgia. Truth be known, he probably wasn't earning much more than that himself. Disney World's immediate success changed all that for the better but who knew?

Turning him down has always been a question in the back of my mind as to whether or not that was a good choice. Despite that initial failure to make a connection, we have remained good friends over all these years.

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