Effie (Rupert) Warnock

June 29, 1930

HANFORD CA 

The sun shone here nineteen years ago last Christmas. That is why Mrs. Effie Warnock is secretary of the local board of trade. 
If it had been cold that Christmas or foggy or rainy, Mrs. Warnock and her husband W.D. Warnock, might have returned to Kentucky as they had 
intended. But it was neither cold or rainy; the sun was shining and as a result the Warnocks’ two weeks stay in Hanford lengthened into one of 
a least nineteen years. 

Mrs. Warnock was christened Effie Rupert 41 years ago at Grayson, Ky. She graduated from the Grayson Grammar School and later from a business 
college at Lexington, Ky. Thereafter she changed her name to Warnock. Nineteen years ago she came to Hanford with her husband to visit his 
brother, R. H. Warnock. The sun shone and they stayed.

Having made Hanford her home it was inevitable that Mrs. Warnock should become secretary of something or other. She began by being assistant 
secretary of the Kings County Fair Association. It was while she was thus employed that Frank C. Russell, secretary to the Hanford Board of Trade 
became impressed with her work and prevailed upon her to become his assistant in which position she served from 1920 to 1923. For two years then 
Mrs. Warnock devoted herself to housekeeping, but in December 1925, she was chosen secretary of the board. Now she is not only secretary of the 
board of trade, but secretary of the merchants’ bureau and of the airport commission.

The reason Hanford’s annual homecoming day came into existence is that when city officials were trying to think of a way of celebrating 
Hanford’s fiftieth anniversary in 1927, Mrs. Warnock remembered the homecoming days in Kentucky. 

Being a secretary and a housewife at the same time is impossible, Mrs. Warnock says. If you are going to be secretary, you must hire some one 
to do your housework, for being a secretary takes up evening as well as days.