About Us

Peter grew up on the island of Newfoundland, which is located in eastern Canada. He now resides in Calgary, Alberta, with his wife Andrea and two cats, Mango & Kiwi.

Peter is currently an Events Coordinator with the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary since 2014.

Peter became a fan of the Carpenters after viewing the Karen Carpenter Story in 1989. Since than, he has been collecting Carpenters items from all over the world. He specializes in photographs of the Carpenters and has thousands of images ranging from publicity shots to photos given to him by family, friends and fans of Karen Carpenter.

Peter's photo collection has been used in various Carpenters book projects by Randy L. Schmidt such as Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter, Yesterday Once More: The Carpenters Reader and Carpenters: An Illustrated Discography. Photos where also used in the recent book release of Carpenters: The Musical Legacy by Mike Cidoni Lennox, Chris May and Richard Carpenter.

Peter is excited and honoured to be on the Planning Committee of the Carpenters 55th Celebration.

PETER DAWE

Greg hails from Albany, NY where he lives with his partner Jon of 28 years and their two cats, Marshmallow and Beauregard. He is a travel consultant by day and a Walmart Electronics associate by night. He has been a Carpenters fan after hearing "Close To You" on the radio for the first time. Ever since then, he's been hooked!

Greg is avid collector of CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays. His CD collection well surpases the 7,000 mark with over 200 of those being by the Carpenters and his DVD/BluRay collection is over 2300 titles. This does not even include LPs and 45s from back in the day!

Greg had the honor of meeting Karen & Richard during their 1975 summer tour with Neil Sedaka at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga, NY. His signed 'Horizon' album is his prized possession.

Greg is thrilled to be organizing this event once again after performing the same duties in 2019 for the 50th Anniversary Celebration in Thousand Oak, CA

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KATHY PEREZ

Kathy was born and raised near Downey, CA. She attended high school in Downey and
eventually moved there when she got married after graduating from college. She retired last
year after 39 years as an elementary school educator. Her 3 children are all grown up and she
has one grandchild, Maggie.

Always a Carpenters’ fan and an advocate for Downey’s historic
and cultural landmarks, her life underwent quite a change in 2016 when she worked with the city to bring a Carpenters’ concert to the Downey Theatre to celebrate Downey’s 60th Anniversary. The following year she met Carpenters’ fans from all over the U.S. as part of a “Carpentour” in Downey. This experience had quite an impact on her and she wrote about it in an article for the local paper. From then on, she dedicated her spare time to advocating for the promotion and preservation of the Carpenters’ legacy in their hometown.

In 2019, she met with then mayor, Rick Rodriguez, and educated him about the Carpenters’ 50th Anniversary and the various Carpenter-related sites around town. With his support, “Welcome to Downey-Home of the Carpenters” signs were posted in 3 different locations and arrangements were made to host a tour for fans attending the 50th celebration. For the first time, the city of Downey officially proclaimed April 22nd as “Carpenters Day” in Downey and Kathy received the proclamation at a city council meeting on behalf of Karen & Richard. Just a few months later, she proudly presented Richard with the proclamation and his own “Welcome to Downey-Home of the Carpenters” sign.

In 2020, newly-elected councilmember, Mario Trujillo, responded to Kathy’s emails regarding the city’s Carpenters Collection which is housed in the library. She felt the collection deserved to be prominently and permanently displayed within the newly-remodeled library. Although It still does not have a permanent location, the display was up for the launching of the latest Carpenters’ biography, “Carpenters: The Musical Legacy” in November, 2021. The mission to find a permanent location is still one of Kathy’s priorities as she and Councilmember Trujillo work together on city projects which will truly give the Carpenters and their fans what they deserve.
Hopefully, by 2024, some of these projects will be in place in time for the 55th Celebration!

GREG KURITZ

CHRIS MAY

Chris May is a music director, arranger, radio host and long-time Carpenters historian and enthusiast, not to mention a moderator and contributor for the popular online Carpenters forum at 'A&M Corner.' Many of his radio/podcast interviews for 'The Download' featured guests including notables such as Richard Carpenter, John Bettis, Herb Alpert, Dionne Warwick, drummer Hal Blaine and bassist Joe Osborn (of Hollywood's famous 'Wrecking Crew'), Carpenters bandmate Bob Messenger, Tom Bähler, and Grammy-award winning engineer Al Schmitt.

Chris also recently completed an 8-year stint as music director for a mega church in the Palm Springs California area, and previously toured as the music director for the 'Carpenters Tribute Orchestra' throughout the 1990s with sell-out shows in Japan, followed by several years in the field of artist development and studio production.

Chris is one of the authors of the highly acclaimed book 'Carpenters: The Musical Legacy' released in 2021. Written along with Mike Cidoni Lennox and Richard Carpenter, this is the definitive biography of one of the most enduring and endeared recording artists in history—the Carpenters. For the first time the Carpenters story is told from the perspective of Richard Carpenter, through more than 100 hours of exclusive interviews and some 200 photographs from Richard's personal archive, many never published.