Bob Hope, Ranchers Named : School Sues to Corral Cattle

Agoura school officials are hoping to lasso comedian Bob Hope into court over a complaint that a herd of 180 cattle has repeatedly escaped from his ranch, trampled a school campus and frightened children.

The officials filed suit against the entertainer and his ranch hands in Ventura County Superior Court this week. They alleged that rampaging cattle have caused $35,000 damage to fences, lawns and athletic fields at Oak Park High School since the first ones tromped through the campus Feb. 20, 1982.

Since then, the cattle have developed a taste for school lunches and returned to munch on campus lawns more than 100 times, said Dan Thompson, superintendent of the Oak Park Unified School District.

Lawn Damage

“When a 2,000-pound cow spreads that weight on four little hoofs, that causes compaction to a lawn like you wouldn’t believe,” Thompson said.

“Besides that, cows have this device for depositing weed seed. And the seed comes with its very own fertilizer. Long after you try to repair the hoof prints, you find you have a major weed problem.”

Rob Corley, the school district’s business manager, said he and other school employees have staged their own roundups to corral cattle along ball field backstops. The animals are kept there until Hope’s ranch hands or county animal-control officers arrive.

Kathy Jenks, the county’s director of animal regulation, said her department has received as many as 100 complaints in the last five years about the cattle.

“The cows come down this path in the afternoon or go back up it to get home in the morning, right when kids are walking to or from school,” Corley said. “We’ve had some confrontations--kids on bikes have been chased by cows.”

School officials said they tried for two years to chase down Hope and his ranch operators to win a promise that the cattle will be steered clear of the campus. They pointed to a log of telephone and telegram complaints that they said had been ignored by Hope’s representatives.

In addition to Hope, their lawsuit names Jim Hunter, Hope’s property manager, and Cliff Holmes, manager of the Chesebro Road ranch where the cattle normally graze. It is about one mile east of the Kanan Road campus.

Hope Called Unaware of Suit

A spokesman for Hope, Ken Kantor, said the comedian was in Oklahoma and unaware of the suit, which was filed Tuesday. Kantor said he thought the school district’s complaint was in the hands of the ranch’s insurance company.

Hunter, of Northridge, declined to comment on the lawsuit. But Holmes was talkative when contacted at Hope’s 2,329-acre Jordan Ranch headquarters at 6270 Chesebro Road.

“I’m responsible for everything. Bob Hope shouldn’t be blamed for this,” the 86-year-old rancher said. “Some of this happened when I was in the hospital. Other times, people have cut the fences and left the gates open.”

Holmes, who worked as a movie studio art director in 1922, said he has leased the ranch from Hope for years. Hope, who has a home in Toluca Lake, purchased the Agoura property in the 1960s and 1970s from Jim Jordan and his wife, who were known in the 1940s as radio’s “Fibber McGee and Molly” comedy team.

Holmes said that whoever cut his fences “drove the cattle down there to that school to force me out” of the Agoura ranch.

Other Agoura ranchers blamed the cattle’s wandering on recent brush fires and past droughts that have limited natural growth on Hope’s ranch. The hungry cattle sniffed out the school when their own rangeland grass became sparse, they speculated.

Fear Cattle Will Return

School officials said the cattle have not come to the school in recent months when rains have restored grazing grass. But they said they are worried that the animals will return when hot weather dries out their own grazing land.

Hank Heeber Sr., a rancher nearby, said many neighbors have tried to help Holmes keep the cattle corraled on the Hope ranch.

“I went down to the school a few times and helped get them out,” Heeber said. “Undoubtedly, they caused some damage. That lush lawn was really inviting to the cattle.”

Don Hurley, an assistant Ventura County counsel who is the school district’s lawyer, offered a similar opinion. “These were not very contented cows,” he said.