Lennox area residents Secorro Ramirez and John...

Lennox area residents Secorro Ramirez and John Luhman are among 27 VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) recruits who recently completed two days of orientation training in project development techniques. Ramirez, 37, and Luhman, 23, will now spend 12 months as full-time volunteers with the Richstone Family Center, assigned to a children’s after-school arts, crafts and sports program at Lennox Park. The Richstone center is a nonprofit agency for the prevention and treatment of child abuse.

Pedro Alvarez Jr. of the Los Angeles Harbor Department Port Police has won the port’s Officer of the Year award for 1988. The 40-year-old Torrance resident was recognized at a meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners for his distinguished performance, including the arrest of a smuggling ring that brought 80 aliens into the port, and the early detection of a major wharf fire at Berth 73, which helped prevent more extensive damage to fishing boats and the wharf. Alvarez has been a Port Police officer for the last 8 years and a Los Angeles city employee since 1972.

Lawndale Mayor Sarann Kruse has been named to the board of trustees of the Hugh O’Brian Youth Foundation, a leadership training program developed by the actor after a visit with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Africa in 1958. Inspired by Schweitzer’s humanitarian efforts and his philosophy of encouraging independent thinking, O’Brian established the foundation and started leadership seminars for California high school sophomores. Now an estimated 10,000 students nationwide participate, according to foundation officials. Kruse said she hopes to help establish the leadership program in South Bay high schools.

Darlene Galindo is the new president of De Oceana Chapter, American Business Women’s Assn., a nonprofit educational organization that meets monthly at the Velvet Turtle in Torrance. For information, call Galindo at 399-2775.

Christine A. Smither has been named the Outstanding Student in Computer Information Systems at Southern Oregon State College for the 1987-88 school year. Smither is a graduate of Pacific Shores High School in Manhattan Beach.

Isabelle Hyder of Torrance is one of about 350 recent high school graduates nationwide selected as a Congressional Scholar for her academic achievement, leadership and citizenship. The scholars attended a National Young Leaders Conference in Washington early this month, where they met with leaders and news makers from government, the media and the diplomatic corps.

M. Bruce Robinson of Manhattan Beach and Jeffrey F. Zabludoff of Rancho Palos Verdes have become Big Brother volunteers with Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles. Robinson is an employee of Security Pacific Merchant Bank, and Zabludoff is an employee of the Wentworth Co. Each will spend half a day a week with fatherless boys between the ages of 6 and 12. For information on becoming a Big Brother, contact the private, nonprofit, non-sectarian agency at 1486 Colorado Blvd., Los Angeles, or call 258-3333.

Four South Bay residents have been named to serve on the board of trustees for Torrance Memorial Hospital Medical Center. They are Kathleen Crane, a Torrance attorney who lives in Manhattan Beach; Torrance resident William Oberholzer, executive vice president of Republic Bank in Torrance; Rolling Hills Estates resident Joseph Hohm, owner of Medical Accounting Service of Redondo Beach, and Ray Alan Rahn, senior vice president of finance for Torrance Memorial.

Dr. Sharron L. Thompson is the new medical director of rehabilitation services at San Pedro Peninsula Hospital. A board-certified psychiatrist, Thompson was chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Watts Health Center in Los Angeles. Before that, she was a staff physician at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center.