New High School Principals

Two new high school principals have been hired by a unanimous vote of the seven-member Board of Education of the ABC Unified School District.

Alex Yusem will become principal of the 1,900-student Artesia High School in Lakewood. Yusem had been principal for the last three years of West Covina High School. Yusem, a resident of Downey, replaces Joseph Quarles, who was recently named director of personnel for the ABC district. Yusem has a Ph.D in curriculum from USC, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UCLA.

Nadine Barreto has been named principal of the 2,100-student Gahr High School in Cerritos. She had been director of elementary education for the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District. Barreto, a resident of Cerritos, replaces Mara Clisby, who was recently named assistant to the superintendent of the ABC district. Barreto previously served five years as principal of Killingsworth Junior High School in the ABC district. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UCLA.

Both principals were hired at annual salaries of more than $50,000.

Interim College President

Barbara Kalbus, vice president of academic affairs at Long Beach City College, has been named the college’s interim president effective Aug. 29. John T. McCuen recently announced his resignation after six years as president to become director of the Heald Institute of Technology near Sacramento.

Kalbus, 55, has been with the college since 1957 in a variety of capacities, including life science instructor and head of the Mathematics and Science Division.

McCuen, also 55, attributed his resignation to personal matters, though he announced it just two days after publicly lambasting state policies regarding community college education.

Tracy O’Connell, director of public information, said the college board of trustees is establishing a committee to conduct a nationwide search for McCuen’s replacement.

New Skipper of Battleship

Capt. Douglas J. Katz will become commanding officer of the battleship New Jersey during a ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday aboard the ship at Dry Dock 1 in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. Katz is a native of West Virginia and a 1965 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. His most recent assignment was director of professional development at the academy.

Katz will replace Capt. W. Lewis Glenn Jr., who in a following ceremony will be promoted to rear admiral and reassigned to head the Naval Training Command Pacific in San Diego. Glenn has skippered the battleship since September, 1985, including an extended deployment in the western Pacific, the first such mission for a battleship battle group since the Korean War.

Sixth-Grade Quizzers Win

A team of sixth-grade scholars from Signal Hill Elementary School in Long Beach won first place in a recent round of competition on Kidquiz, an academic children’s game show on television. The students, who won a computer and encyclopedia set for their school, are Brian Gries, Joey Inch, Katy Powers, Jennie Logan, Andrea Mojarro and Alexandra Killian. Their teacher is Karen Parker. The championship match, in which the Long Beach students were paired against a team from Sierra Park Elementary School in El Sereno, will be broadcast at 6:30 a.m. Saturday and 6 a.m. Monday on Channel 2.

RTD Board Chief Reelected

Long Beach Councilwoman Jan Hall has been reelected to a second one-year term as president of the Southern California Rapid Transit District Board of Directors. Hall, a City Council member since 1978, joined the RTD’s 11-member governing board in 1981 as the appointee of Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana. She is the first woman to hold the position in the RTD board’s 23-year history.

Students Travel to Jamaica

Three Compton Community College students, Jovann Greenleaf, Charles Lattishaw and Abdul Kareem Mohammad, received full scholarships to a summer cultural enrichment program. They are in Jamaica through Aug. 17, staying in dormitories at the University of the West Indies and participating in cultural tours, academic studies and lectures under a travel course titled “The Historical Geography of Developing Countries: A World Approach.” The scholarships were made possible by a $5,000 donation from Jim Shields, president of Watt Commercial Development Corp. of Compton.

2 Panhellenic Scholarships

The Downey Alumnae Panhellenic has awarded $1,000 college scholarships to two high school graduates. They are Stacy Aselin from Downey High School, who will attend UCLA, and Catherine Cramp from Warren High School, who will attend California State University, Long Beach. They were selected on the basis of scholastic achievement, community service and interest in national sorority membership.