Viv and Bud Goff named Pinedorado Parade grand marshals

It may be harder than usual for the husband-and-wife team of 2015 Pinedorado parade marshals to just sit and wave as they are driven down the full length of Main Street on Saturday, Sept. 5. 

Sitting still isn’t part of the busy lifestyle of Viv and Bud Goff. For instance, she’s used to directing (theatricals, not traffic) and he’s front and center in most Lions Club activities, including in the farmers market parking team every Friday afternoon. 

Pinedorado Chairman Greg Wilson said of the Goffs, “No other couple in town has done as much for the arts” and various nonprofits.

The marshals

The Goffs have been inveterate volunteers since they moved to Cambria in 1993, after deciding that property they’d bought in Atascadero wasn’t where they wanted to build a house and retire.

How do Viv, 85, and Bud, 92, stay so active and involved? 

“You have to have a passion,” she said of hers for the Pewter Plough Playhouse and his for the Lions Club.

Cambria’s more than home for them now; the little town keeps them inspired. 

“There’s so much to do here,” she said. 

Their diverse passions began early. 

Bud was an Air Force pilot and instructor during World War II. The couple married in 1952 and launched their Accurate Wire Products wire-fabrication business, where she learned how to spot weld, did the bookkeeping and delivered such company products as wire magazine racks.

Viv was “a Girl Scout leader, Cub Scout mother, Little League Snack Shack volunteer for all of the games and volunteered for the Red Cross (delivering blood),” she recalled of their years in Palos Verdes Estates where they raised daughter Lori and son Roger. (The Goffs now have five grandchildren, three great grands and one great-great.)

But wait for it: Viv also “became a professional bowler (30 to 40 games a week), learned how to shoot trap and was a roller-skate dancer,” she said. Then “I needed more to do, so I took an additional job at the bank, and after that took a job at Rolling Hills Board of Realtors,” where she became the executive director. 

Meanwhile, Bud branched out, responding to an American Heart Association newspaper ad for the first cardiopulmonary resuscitation class in the Los Angeles area. 

“We learned CPR on Saturday and returned to the hospital on Sunday for our instructor class,” he said. “No manuals. Just one typed sheet” provided each day. Their physician instructor went on to help the Heart Association develop its teaching manual.

After Bud taught CPR at hospitals around the Los Angeles area, “I became a member of the affiliate faculty,” he recalled. In 1980, he attended emergency-medical technician school, “after which I started volunteering as an EMT at Torrance Memorial Hospital.”

Cambria

After their move to the Central Coast, Bud “assisted in the emergency room at Twin Cities (hospital) for 12 years,” and then worked for 14 years with the Sheriff’s Office’s volunteer patrol. 

In addition to his myriad Lions Club duties, Bud served on the North Coast Advisory Council for five years.

Former club president Andy Zinn said this is “Bud’s 20th year as a Lion. He has been president three times and is always on the board (currently as a director emeritus). He has great passion for helping the youth of Cambria.”

Bud started as a Lion “the same year the food building was built, and he has worked every year to make sure that our products are high quality at a great price for families,” Zinn said. In fact, the food building at the Pinedorado Grounds is named “The Bud Goff Food Court.”  

And Viv? In typical jump-in-with-both-feet fashion, the singer joined Cambria Chorale and 927 JAZZ (with Roberta Lemming, MaryLyn Villeneuve, Virginia Baxter, Lloyd Oksen and Art Pearson), while also serving as bookkeeper for the Twin Cities volunteer organization (for seven years).

She was a founder of the Cambria Youth Music Fund, resigning last year as treasurer after 18 years. 

Zinn said Viv “helps oversee the Chorale Music Scholarship Fund, which is supported by the Lions Club. She has also been a tireless supporter of our community.” 

But her true love? Viv began volunteering at the Pewter Plough Playhouse in 1998, the year it became an official nonprofit organization. She was treasurer for six years, then became president and treasurer again in 2010. She’s still the playhouse’s treasurer, box office manager, house manager and director, plus being an actress and singer. 

Viv loves to direct. In life, “you’ve got to really feel whatever you do. That’s how you find your passion. As a director, I have to become each character and feel whatever that character was feeling.”

She has partnered with entertainer David Manion for a decade, writing, directing and performing in musicals at the Playhouse, two USO shows and one Follies show. “I’ve been in nine Follies shows, and some nonmusical plays at the playhouse.”

Viv said she’s thankful to Pewter Plough founder Jim Buckley, now 102 years old. 

“The man’s a genius. He stands up for what he thinks and feels. I thanked him for the last 17 years of my life, for letting me be part of that wonderful venue” and expand her artistic horizons.

Do the Goffs plan to slow down anytime soon? Not happening. 

“I returned to college at Cuesta to finish my music education I started in 1948,” Viv said. “I got my degree when I was 71.”

While Viv has joined Bud in his passion for the Lions Club (she joined the club a few years ago), he remains steadfastly unmusical and nontheatrical. 

“They don’t even let me carry the music,” he said with his so-recognizable grin. “The notes would change.”

With a deadpan expression, Viv quipped, “He’s not kidding.” 

This story was originally published August 19, 2015 at 12:16 PM with the headline "Viv and Bud Goff named Pinedorado Parade grand marshals."