9 Single Parents Graduate From Workshop With a Degree of Self-Esteem

The city of Huntington Beach has graduated nine single parents with children from its self-esteem workshop sponsored by the city’s Project Self-Sufficiency program.

Goal of the program is to help unemployed or underemployed, low-income parents make the transition from public assistance to productive employment and economic self-sufficiency.

The graduates are Billie Rasmussen, Wendy Davis, Denise Piper, Virginia Harris, Grace Wu, Joanne Verdugo, Jennifer Campanaro, Debbie Dominic, Afagh Vossoughi, Shelley Hutchinson, Ann Clemens and Betsy Ross.

In addition to city support, local organizations help by providing food as well as child care to the workshop participants.

Christopher Adams, 14, of Newport Beach, a student at Horace Ensign Middle School, will receive the Congressional Award today from Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) during a ceremony in the congressman’s Newport Beach office.

The award, which was established by Congress in 1979, will recognize Christopher’s school volunteer work, his community activities and personal development.

“Christopher has contributed more to his community in the past few years than many adults do in their lifetime,” Badham said.

The youth’s accomplishments include a computer language class he developed and taught for summer school students. Active in the Boy Scout program, he is also a pitcher and umpire in school baseball.

Through a ballot vote of staff members of the Costa Mesa Police Department, Sgt. Ron Smith was named 1987 Officer of the Year, and Catherine Holland, detective bureau secretary, was named 1987 Civilian of the Year. Both were honored at a luncheon sponsored by the New Exchange Club of Costa Mesa and Costa Mesa Tomorrow.

Thomas C. McDermott Jr. of Fullerton, vice president for quality reliability at Rockwell International Corp. in El Segundo, has been named a 1988 Outstanding Engineering Alumnus by the College of Engineering at Pennsylvania State University.

He and 10 others were selected “in recognition of their successes and the impact they have had and will continue to have on the engineering profession.”

He received a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Penn State in 1951.

Besides his numerous professional activities, McDermott is active in the Orange County United Way, Orange County Alliance of Businessmen and the Engineering and Industrial Technology Advisory and Development Council for Cal State Long Beach.

Donna Bagley of Buena Park, an active volunteer and the first woman member of a boys’ club board of directors in the United States, has been named Woman of the Year in the 71st Assembly District by Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress).

Competing against 1,000 entrants, Lillian and Doug McBee of the city of Orange were named second runners-up in a remodeling contest sponsored by the National Kitchens & Bath Assn. The McBees were given a $700 cash prize for their bath and bedroom designs.

John M. Kearney, a nationally recognized advocate for minority business enterprise, has been appointed to the Small Business Administration’s Los Angeles Advisory Council. Kearney, a Garden Grove resident and corporate liaison officer for Hughes Aircraft Co., was the 1986 SBA Minority Business Advocate of the Year.

Juan Ramon V. Medina of Irvine, who is studying at UC Irvine’s School of Medicine to become a family practice physician, was presented a $1,000 scholarship from the California Hispanic American Medical Assn.

Megan Ross of Santa Ana has been named administrator of the Garden Grove-based Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Orange County, where her responsibilities will include volunteer recruitment and management as well as facility management.

She comes to the center after eight years of work as a chemical dependency counselor for the National Council on Alcoholism in Los Angeles County.

The Orange County chapter of the Public Relations Society of America honored Bob Tur and Byron Alperstein with humanitarian awards for their harrowing helicopter rescue of victims caught in January’s storm.

The two Los Angeles journalists were covering the storm damage by air when they spotted people endangered by 25-foot-high waves in Redondo Beach and aborted their news coverage to rescue them. The two managed to pull more than 50 people to safety during several rescue trips.

The humanitarian awards were the first presented by the Orange County chapter.

Submit items to Three Cheers, Los Angeles Times, c/o Herbert J. Vida, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626 .