The holiday season always brings back poignant memories, including some involving longtime colleagues at this newspaper, Julius Gius and Joe Paul Jr. 

For anyone who tuned in late, Gius was the editor of the then-Ventura Star-Free Press for three decades, starting in 1960. During his tenure, Gius created the local Bellringer campaign, an inspiration prompted by a court order in Northern California.

In the 1970s, soliciting shoppers for money at Christmas became almost a national fad. Besides the traditional Salvation Army kettles, with their bellringers, such organizations as the Hare Krishnas and Black Muslims also wanted to solicit Christmas shoppers for cash donations.

The Hare Krishnas' approach seemed to be to make themselves so annoying that folks would give money to make them go away.

When a huge shopping mall in the San Jose area barred some solicitors, the mall was taken to court and the panhandlers won. The court eventually ruled that walkways at shopping malls were, in effect, public property and, therefore, public solicitations for funds were an exercise in free speech so no solicitors could be barred.

Whoever was running the Esplanade shopping center in Oxnard at the time — I've mercifully forgotten the name — overreacted by telling the Salvation Army that the kettles and bellringers were no longer welcome there. Since the kettles and bellringers were such a vital part of the Salvation Army's annual fundraising, local officials appealed to Gius about what to do.

What he did was to created the Bellringer Fund, which, in three decades of existence, has raised more than $1 million, with the newspaper absorbing all the costs of operating the fund — the solicitations, the collections and the disbursement to the Salvation Army. 

It was a brilliant idea by Gius, and the paper was rewarded with the California Newspaper Publishers Association award for best public service. I'm proud to have had a hand in winning some CNPA awards, but this was all Gius' idea — and best public service is the most satisfying of all CNPA awards — since it recognizes a paper's contribution to the betterment of the whole community.

The panic over the San Jose court ruling has subsided and Salvation Army kettles and bellringers are again familiar sights around Ventura County at Christmas. 

But The Star's Bellringer has become so popular and so worthy that it's now as much a part of Christmas as the red-nosed reindeer and "The Nutcracker Suite."

The Bellringer allows our readers to honor the memory of a loved one publicly, since the dedications are published in The Star. The donors are also contributing to a worthy cause — the Salvation Army's crusade to make Christmas a bit merrier for folks who need that help.  

Incidentally, the hassle over who has the right to solicit donations in public places is far from over. Los Angeles has been agonizing over the legality of barring some soliticitors, particularly at Los Angeles International Airport. There are so many worthy causes, but if everyone has unlimited access to solicit money by accosting all the passengers at LAX, it's doubtful that anyone would ever catch a plane on time.

The other memory of a colleague stirred by Christmas is Joe Paul's tongue-in-cheek club, Delay Until Nearly Christmas Eve — better known as DUNCE.

His columns graced this newspaper for 30 years, and DUNCE was a typical Paul put-on. I think he even had membership cards.

Under the heading of leaving no spoof unlaughed at, some merchants whined that DUNCE would skew the Christmas shopping habits of our readers. And this was years before Dr. Seuss even created the Grinch.

All Paul was doing was poking fun at those of us who procrastinate about Christmas shopping until the very last minute. It was a typically humorous idea by him.

DUNCE club membership cards may not be available now, but for longtime readers of this newspaper, the Bellringer offers the perfect way to honor the memories of both Julius Gius and Joe Paul Jr. 

If you want to use this unique way of helping others while acknowledging these two men or your own loved one, send your donations to: Bellinger. Box 6006, Camarillo, CA 93011.

— Chuck Thomas is a Star columnist whose column appears on the Opinion pages each Saturday. His e-mail address is star4cthomas@earthlink.net.