George Sanders’ member number is five because he answered an ad in the newspaper placed by Gus Susserman in 1982 looking for photography enthusiasts.  Sanders joined immediately, impressed by the hard work of other founding members such as Ivar Anderson and Ted La Rocca, the second club president.

“In the beginning we had monthly competitions,” Sanders said.   “There were also more speakers than we have now, providing a real learning process.”

Sanders was born in Alliance, Ohio, has been a CPA all of his life and came to the desert after retiring from Arthur Andersen Company in 1977.

“Zella and I moved to the desert because I hate cold weather,” he explained.  “I had read that Ike had checked with the weather bureau and found out that this area had more hours of sunshine than other areas of the country, thus more time for golf.  I decided if it was good enough for Ike, then it was good enough for me.”

Simplicity seems to be the order of the day for Sanders.  His first camera was an Argus C-3 with two settings;  “near and far.”  Next he moved to a Nikon with three adjustments; “composition, focus and aperture.”  It sounds like there’ll be a N-80 Nikon for sale soon as his current camera is described as “having too many bells and whistles on it.”

The program chair needs to have a talk with George as his slide archives includes Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore in 1941, just to name a few of his oldies but goodies.  The Mt. Rushmore pictures were taken from a construction ladder.