Public Safety Awards Include 4 for Heroism

Fourteen public safety awards, including four for heroism and one for valor, were presented by the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce at its 17th annual awards luncheon.

Receiving the heroism awards were Ellen Landsman and her husband Gerald Landsman, who managed to enter a locked garage and rescue a young man attempting suicide with carbon dioxide gas. Other honorees were Steve Machado, who alerted tenants in an apartment building of a fire, and John P. Elliot Jr., who helped a police officer restrain an intoxicated customer at a restaurant.

All are Huntington Beach residents.

The valor award was presented to Huntington Beach Fire Department Capt. Jim McKay, who saw smoke in a neighbor’s house, broke a window to enter, crawled on his hands and knees in the smoke-filled interior to reach his sleeping neighbor, and carried her to safety.

Awards for merit were presented to Huntington Beach fire engineers Bob Campbell and Jim Holman; Firefighter Scott Nelson; Police Sgt. Jeff Cope; Police Detective Tom Gilligan; public works employees Merle Plumb, Robert Civitano and Amador Vega, and to city public information officer Bill Reed for alerting city residents to public services and safety.

The city of Garden Grove won first place for Senior Citizen Oriented Programming from the National Assn. of Television Operators and Administrators at the group’s annual conference in Miami.

The winning cable station entry, which competed with presentations from 66 other cities, was “Young at Heart,” a profile of the H. Louis Lake Senior Citizen Center in Garden Grove.

A dinner-dance Oct. 16 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Anaheim will honor Rabbi Haim Asaand his wife, Elaine, of Temple Beth Tikvah in Fullerton. It will be the first of a number of events throughout the year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the temple. Asa is the temple’s founding rabbi.

La Palma artist Diana Magrann won first prize for her life-size rendering of Elvis Presley during the 1988 Elvis International Tribute Week in the Graceland Exhibit Hall in Memphis, Tenn.

Her portrait, one of 100 entries in the contest, depicts the singer in a white jumpsuit embellished with 30-inch fringes that he wore only once, for his 1970 performance at the Forum in Inglewood. She was presented with a certificate and ribbon.

Magrann, a co-founder of Artists and Doctors for a Drug-Free America, will join other artists in exhibits across the nation to deliver messages for prevention of substance abuse.

The first exhibit was held at the La Palma Community Center.

Michael K. Hayde, president of Western National Properties in Costa Mesa, will receive the 1988 Good Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America at noon today at the construction industry’s award luncheon at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel. The award recognizes his support in both Scouting and the community.

Garden Grove resident Dr. Angelo E. Dagradi, 71, frequently honored for his work during 50 years of practice and teaching in gastroenterology, was honored by 130 of his colleagues at a dinner. He retired as professor emeritus at the UCLA Harbor School of Medicine in Torrance.

“The dinner was a way of showing our respect for a man we honor and appreciate,” said dinner chairman Dr. Eric R. Lee. “He is loved by all.” A perpetual travel scholarship was also established in his name for physicians in training.

Anaheim resident I-Shih Chang was named winner of the Trustees’ Award for Distinguished Achievement from the Aerospace Corp. in El Segundo. Besides winning the award, the highest honor given by the corporation, Chang received $10,000.

Chang, a graduate of the University of Kansas and the University of Illinois, is an engineering specialist in the fluid mechanical department of the vehicle and control systems division.

He was cited for “outstanding contributions to the advancement of solid rocket motor thermal and flow analysis techniques, and to their application in restoring national launch vehicle capabilities.

For the second consecutive year, Orange Coast College’s Food Service and Hotel Management Department has been named the best in the state by the National Restaurant Assn., following its annual Awards of Excellence competition.

Daniel R. Beard, a professor of food service management at OCC, said, “I think (the award) validates what we’ve been able to accomplish here in recent years.”