Black Belt’s Students Soon Learn She Wants Respect

Karate teacher Kathi Wegener, 31, just named to the U.S. Karate Federation team, took her defeat in the recent U.S. Karate Federation’s Western Regional finals in Portland with a sense of pride.

She lost to Maria Silk, 23, of Cypress, one of her students.

“I taught her everything she knows,” said Wegener, a second-degree black belt and one of a handful of women who teach karate full time. “At my age, I have to wonder about my future in competition.”

But not in teaching. The success of the movie “The Karate Kid” has made life hectic but more profitable for Wegener, who teaches karate five days a week to classes in Cypress and Lakewood. Her nine city-sponsored classes each have 25-60 students.

“The movie really sparked a big jump in enrollment,” said Wegener, whose near-term goal is to compete in the 1992 Olympics. She also wants to open her own karate studio.

“The fact that I’m a woman doesn’t bother students once they see what I can do,” she said. She has been in training for 12 years, originally taking karate at Orange Coast College, and has taught for six years. “There aren’t many full-time women teachers. I only know of one other.”

But there is a difference between male and female teachers, she said: “Men are usually bigger and stronger, but women are not as macho as their male counterparts. And women are more understanding of people’s feelings.”

That is not to say she is a pushover. “I enjoy being with kids and can relate to them, but there’s no fooling around in the class. I tell them the rules and I enforce them. I also yell a lot and try to get the kids yelling, too. It gets them charged up.”

But all the time she demands respect. “Karate is an honorable sport, and respect is an important aspect,” she said, one of the reasons she thinks parents want their children enrolled.

Besides teaching kicking, punching and self-defense, Wegener demands discipline, manners and good sportsmanship. The exercise and conditioning students get from the class are added benefits.

But her students also learn to relax.

“At the end,” Wegener said, “we meditate. It’s good.”

At age 12, Ken Boerner of Mission Viejo had a premonition of what his role in life might be. At that time he wrote a song titled “Love the Old.”

Now, at age 32, he is the social rehabilitation director and music therapist of the health center at Palm Terrace, a retirement community in Laguna Hills.

Even Laguna Beach sculptor Ross N. Power, 36, knows it.

“I’m sure people must think it’s strange,” he said, referring to his idea of putting permanent underwater sculptures in every marine sanctuary in the world.

He recently sank a stainless steel sculpture, called “Treasures of Atlantis,” in the ocean near Key Largo, Fla., but careless boaters dropped their anchors on it and vandal scuba divers scratched names on it.

Power recovered the sculpture, welded it back together and put it on public display above water in Key Largo, pointing out it was only meant to stay underwater for a year. “I just wanted to give it a weathered underwater patina,” he said.

Power said he always had a fascination for the marine environment and how it might interact with the art world.

“I deal with symbolism,” he said, “and pioneer the unexplainable aspect of life.”

Back in 1949 when times were different and there were wide open spaces, George L. McMichael struck up a friendship with Mary Aguilar, a customer on a Los Angeles Times newspaper route in Compton. That relationship continued throughout the years.

Aguilar now lives in Laguna Hills Leisure World and just got an invitation from her “young” friend.

McMichael, a captain in the Navy, is turning over command of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo as a prelude to his retirement.

He wants Aguilar to attend the July 24 ceremony.

Acknowledgments--First grader Jacqui Stanley, 6, of Brea, who charmed judges with a country-western song, was named Miss California Cinderella Tot. She will compete July 29 with 100 others in Miami for the national Miss Cinderella Tot title.