Costa Mesa : OCC to Induct 4 Into Alumni Hall of Fame

Edison High School Principal Jack Kennedy and three other former students of Orange Coast College will be this year’s inductees into the community college’s Alumni Hall of Fame.

The other alumni to be honored this year are Lynn Adams, the top women’s racquetball player in the world for the last seven years; Rush Hill, owner of a Newport Beach architectural firm, and Carlos Palomino, former welterweight boxing champion.

Ceremonies honoring the four alumni will be held at 5 p.m. Oct. 2 in the college’s Fine Arts Hall. A reception will follow. The new Hall of Fame inductees also will be honored during half-time of the college’s homecoming game Oct. 4.

Each year, Orange Coast College picks outstanding alumni to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Plaques bearing the honorees’ likenesses are mounted in the college library.

Kennedy, who has been principal of Huntington Beach’s Edison High for five years, was on Orange Coast College’s football, basketball and track teams when he was a student there in the 1950s. Kennedy has drawn praise for his anti-drug programs at Edison.

Adams was on Orange Coast’s track and field squad in the 1970s. She is a four-time national champion of the Women’s Professional Racquetball Assn.

Hill, who owns the Hill Partnership, graduated from OCC in 1964. He was a special assistant to Ronald Reagan when Reagan was governor of California.

Palomino, a native of Sonora, Mexico, was an Orange Coast student in the early 1970s. He captured the world welterweight title in 1976 and held that boxing crown for almost four years.