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By Humphrey Carter

PALMA
THE celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Fray Junipero Serra museum in Petra on Saturday are going to have important repercussions for the future of the museum because the Chargé d'Affaires at the United States Embassy in Madrid, Arnold Chacon, pledged the embassy's full cooperation in efforts to give the museum, dedicated to the founding father of California, greater exposure.

One of the first steps the United States Embassy is going to take is to invite the award-winning actor and director and former mayor of Carmel - which was founded by Junipero Serra's Alta California Missions in 1770, to visit the museum and home of Serra in Petra.

The President of the Fray Junipero Sera Association and former US Consular Agent in the Balearics, Tummi Bestard. said yesterday “it's still early days to talk about Eastwood, but it was one of the measures discussed during the anniversary celebrations.” Bestard also revealed that Clint Eastwood knows all about Fray Junipero Serra.
During Eastwood's two year term as Mayor of Carmel-by-the-sea from 1986 to 1988, the then Balearic President, Gabriel Cañellas, took a group of six local mayors, including that of Petra and Bestard, over to the States and they all had dinner with Eastwood during a visit to Carmel. “He knows all about the history of Carmel and California and how Junipero Serra founded nine cities including San Fransciso and Los Angeles,” Bestard said yesterday.