Annual Abraham Lincoln Remembrance is Today in Westwood

WESTWOOD, CA -- The 27th annual Abraham Lincoln Remembrance will be held today, Feb. 12, at the Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood, featuring a recitation of the Gettysburg Address by Lincoln impersonator Robert Broski and singer Peter Parker.

The remembrance has been held at the Los Angeles National Cemetery since 1994. Actors Charlton Heston, Hal Holbrook, Mickey Rooney and Michael York, comedian Steve Allen, author Ray Bradbury and former Mayor Richard Riordan have been among those reciting the Gettysburg Address.

The program on the 210th anniversary of the birth of the 16th president will be held from 10-11:15 a.m.

Organizers encourage all to attend, particularly students and teachers to be reminded that Lincoln utilized reading to rise from poverty.

The event began in 1993 when the late retired television lighting technician Duke Russell learned there was no celebration planned in Los Angeles for Lincoln's birthday and went to the Hollywood Bowl to deliver the Gettysburg Address in front of a mostly empty facility.

Russell died in 2015 at the age of 89.

City News Service contributed to this report/Photo via Library of Congress, in the public domain: Photo shows Lincoln in a print made from a negative taken by Alexander Hessler, Springfield, Illinois, June 3, 1860.