P.V. Estates’ Dollarhide to Retire Dec. 30

John E. (Buck) Dollarhide, public safety director in Palos Verdes Estates and a city employee for 32 years, will retire at the end of the year, it has been announced by Mayor James H. Kinney.

Dollarhide, a lifelong South Bay resident who makes his home in San Pedro, has been credited by the city for innovations in the Police Department.

He began the reserve specialist training program, in which more than 55 people in various professions, including doctors, attorneys and photographers, donate time to the department and the city. Dollarhide also supervised installation of a state-of-the-art dispatching system, which permits immediate response to calls.

Dollarhide, 58, joined the Palos Verdes Estates department as a patrolman in 1953 and rose through the ranks to become police chief in 1972. In 1983, he was appointed public safety director, supervising both the police and fire departments. Dollarhide will leave the city on Dec. 30 when he and his wife, Lillian, will retire to Big Bear Lake.

Torrance Police Capt. Darrell C. Lanham has been honored by the City Council for coordinating the city’s annual Armed Forces Day Parade for the past 14 years. Lanham, who heads the police traffic and emergency services bureau, has been a member of the force for 28 years.

William Lavoie of Redondo Beach, chairman of the engineering department at Los Angeles Valley College, has been named Innovator of the Year by the National League for Innovation in Community Colleges. Lavoie developed high-tech programs in computer numerical control and computer-assisted design, using trailers as mobile classrooms to bring the instruction to industry as well as Valley College students. He is currently designing a center for advanced technology and is developing new programs in office automation and robotics. Before coming to the Van Nuys campus, Lavoie taught at El Camino College in Torrance.

First-place winners in the third annual Redondo Beach Sand Castle Competition were Nicholas Harmon of Hawthorne in the pee-wee division (age 6 and under), Dale Higgins of Manhattan Beach and Paul Owens of Redondo Beach in the free-form division, Jean-Louis Michel of Redondo Beach in the junior division and Kathi Walker of Lawndale in the senior division. The winners were presented plaques by Mayor Barbara Doerr.

Jerry Goddard, former city councilman, principal at Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach and a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve, has earned his silver “jump” wings by completing the Navy’s basic parachutist course at Lakehurst, N.J. The course includes physical fitness training and extensive classroom work in air and wind factors and emergency procedures.

For the second year in a row, Robert Miller of Redondo Beach has been named Fiddler of the Year in the senior division state championship. Last year he also placed second in the national competition for his division in Cortez, Colo. Miller learned to play the fiddle at age 16 in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was born in 1910, but didn’t take fiddle playing seriously until his retirement at age 64. He was honored recently by the Redondo Beach City Council.

Redondo Beach Mayor Barbara Doerr has proclaimed Jan. 21 “Red Allison Day” to honor a member of the city’s historical commission. Allison has also been awarded honorary life membership on the commission.

Daniel Sprague of Torrance has been given the American Red Cross’ highest honor, the Certificate of Merit, for saving a 15-year-old Torrance High School student from drowning.