Viva La Fiesta -- Viva La Barney!

No one delighted more in Santa Barbara's summer celebration than the late great newspaperman Barney Brantingham. Amid this week's festivities, friends and colleagues raised a glass to his memory.

It’s a plain fact that no human in the history of Santa Barbara more enjoyed the sights, sounds and tastes — especially the tastes — of the city’s Fiesta summer celebration than Barney Brantingham.

Barney, who covered more than 50 Fiestas in his epic newspaper career, never tired of hitting the streets and the mercados to chow down on goat tacos, talk to visitors and crack a few cascarones, bringing his genuine delight in the festivities to the annual task of finding a fresh angle for a story that he never tired of covering.

Barney died at 93 in June, and on Thursday, a few dozen of his newsroom friends and colleagues gathered at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum to toast his memory, trade stories, and share laughs about the boundless curiosity and boyish enthusiasm that made him the most prolific, plugged-in and celebrated journalist in local history.

It was a bittersweet affair, given the damper thrown on Fiesta vibes by fears of Trump’s villainous immigration thugs roaming the streets of California. But as the tribe of veteran reporters, editors, photographers and other practitioners of the journalistic arts munched on empanadas and mini-cupcakes, washed down with sangria and margaritas, the spirit of Fiesta soared with a dazzling performance by the brilliant flamenco artist Sofia Chicote.

The low-key event also was a coming-out party of sorts for the Historical Museum, which acquired in bankruptcy proceedings the voluminous paper and photo archive of the Santa Barbara News-Press, where Barney labored for 46 years, and now has produced Project Fiesta! - its first exhibit based on the collection, a splendid display of the late, lamented daily paper’s coverage of Fiesta through the years.

Dacia Harwood, the museum’s executive director, and planning commissioner Brian Barnwell spoke about the historic import and value of preserving the archive, a day-by-day, 155-year history of Santa Barbara. Former City Editor Jesse Chavarria emotionally recalled how Barney took him under his wing when he arrived in town as a cub reporter, and sportswriting legend John Zant read excerpts from “Why I Quit the News-Press,” the first piece of Barney’s 11-year career at the Independent, which galvanized the town to support the fight for ethical journalism at the morning paper.

Newsmakers was asked to deliver a final toast to Barney. Here it is:

I’m so honored to be invited to propose a toast to Barney, who for so many of us was a composite friend, colleague, confidant, coach and mentor.

Barney was a lot of things, but to me he was, first, last and finally, a newspaperman.

Newspaperman – that’s a word from a bygone era of journalism that’s fallen out of use and fallen out of favor.

But it suits Barney to a T.

Barney was a throwback, a blue-collar, sharp-eyed, shoe-leather reporter who earned his credibility through long hours, lived experience, and a body of work pounded out on deadline, in the public interest and for the public trust.

Barney didn’t think of himself as a journalist, let alone a media star or a content creator. He was a newspaperman: Not an elite but one of the people, he didn’t just report on his community, he was part of it – and no more so than during Fiesta.

I know he would be proud of Camie (Barnwell) and Josh (Molina), who together today told the paradoxical story of Fiesta 2025: Camie, with her deeply-reported Independent cover story about the history and romance of the art of dance that defines Fiesta; Josh, with his heartbreaking piece in Noozhawk about the apprehension and dread making many of our neighbors fear to attend Fiesta this year.

I wish Barney was here to bring his craft and storytelling skill to the truth-telling challenge of weaving those two strands together and helping us to understand Fiesta 2025.

Barney knew this town inside and out – its beauty, its character, and its contradictions. He knew the cops, the mayors, the teachers, the baristas, the dancers, the drunks and the quiet community heroes looking out for those who need a hand to make it through the day.

Barney didn’t only report on life in Santa Barbara – he became part of its fabric -- at turns our conscience, our court jester, our most trusted friend.

He was always there with a notebook and pen, writing it all down so the rest of us could understand where we live and who we are as a community.

So today we say, thank you Barney. For your words, for your wisdom, for covering the beat with a newspaperman’s grit and grace.

Santa Barbara’s story goes on, but Barney’s words, and his spirit, stay with us.

And this town – his town – is better for it.

So please join me in raising a glass to the greatest newspaperman in Santa Barbara history.

Here’s to Barney Brantingham - Viva La Barney – and Viva La Fiesta!

Images: Barney eating his way through Fiesta 2011 on behalf of the Indy (Santa Barbara Independent); Fiesta poster 2025 (Old Spanish Days); the News-Press newsroom tribe (Brian Barnwell); Dance artist Sofia Chicote (Newsmakers).