Man of Vision Award Going to Resident Who Looked Beyond His Handicap

Fayette Birtcher, who has not seen most of the buildings he has created, will receive the Man of Vision award from the Orange County chapter of Retinitis Pigmentosa International at a benefit dinner Saturday at Le Meridien Hotel in Newport Beach.

The 79-year-old Birtcher, afflicted with the degenerative disease that causes progressive loss of vision and eventual blindness, has only 5% of his vision remaining.

He is being honored for his inspired support of others afflicted with the disease. He promotes the philosophy that blindness is a poor excuse for not not trying and that the handicap need not be an obstacle to success.

Birtcher, of San Juan Capistrano, is the founder and patriarch of Birtcher, a national real estate investment firm that has created such buildings as the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles and the $200-million Xerox Centre in Santa Ana, currently under construction.

Janet Buzan, 31, Fullerton resident and Cal State Fullerton graduate, has been elected president of the Fullerton Museum Center Assn. board of trustees. The center will reopen to the public March 19 after a year of renovation costing $700,000.

The museum will feature a state-of-the-art exhibition facility, including space forclassrooms and workshops. Its inaugural show will be the 12th National Exhibit of theEmbroiderers’ Guild of America.

Chris Arriola, a senior at El Modena High School in the city of Orange, and Hilda Flores, a single parent studying criminal justice at Rancho Santiago College, have been named winners of Orange Soroptimist International scholarship awards.

Arriola won the club’s Youth Citizenship Award and Flores the Training Award. Each will receive $600 and will compete for regional awards of $1,250.

Willamene and Wayne Baughn of La Habra were honored by 100 friends and relatives on their Golden Wedding anniversary at a luncheon party in the La Habra Church of Christ.

For their “years of outstanding service to Boy Scouts,” 17 men and a woman received the Orange Council Boy Scouts of America Silver Beaver Award.

They are Hervey (Skip) Davidson of Anaheim; Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley of Newport Beach; Anthony E. Trovato Jr. of Fountain Valley; Tim Mathiesen, Richard Phelan and Barry V. Snyder of Huntington Beach; Shawn Rusmisel of Irvine; William Thacker and Alan R. Tomer of Laguna Hills, and Nancy G. Larned of Mission Viejo. Others are Edmund C. Ginn Jr. of San Juan Capistrano, Roy Bates of Costa Mesa, Robert C. Edmunds of Corona del Mar, Robert J. Shackleton of Newport Beach, Samuel Martin Meeks and Stuart Keith Ward of the city of Orange, Kenneth C. Hoagland of Temecula and Robert A. Pederson of Westminster.

Olga and Clarence Satre of Garden Grove were honored by Villa Nova Restaurant as Orange County’s longest married couple in a search conducted as part of a Valentine’s Day promotion. They have been married for 71 years.

As a means of encouraging children of its members to pursue full-time undergraduate study, the American Compensation Assn. presented a $1,000 grant to Geoffrey M. Lewis of Corona del Mar.

ACA is a group of 11,000 specialists who design, implement and manage employee compensation and benefits programs for worldwide public and private organizations.

Lewis, a student of business administration at UC Berkeley, is the son of Ann Lewis of Corona del Mar and Robert D. Lewis of Ontario, Canada.

Jim Miller, 53, founder and executive director of Shelter for the Homeless in Westminster, which operates three homes (one for single men, one for families and one for single women and mothers with their children), was presented a commendation by the Westminster School District.

The district noted that many of the people the center helps are children who attend its schools.

The certificate also cites Miller’s work last year, which included short-term housing for 4,300 people and feeding 1,300 others from its food center run by volunteers. Miller said General Telephone Co. just donated a van the shelter uses to deliver food to the needy.

Miller, of Huntington Beach, was honored at a fund-raising party held in the Westminster home of Kathi and William Koelzner and attended by 60 people.

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