Teacher Given Award: ‘I Make a Difference’

Garden Grove High School history and social studies teacher Jack Sorter, who has helped raise thousands of dollars for charities at home and abroad, has received the “I Make a Difference Award” from the Garden Grove Education Assn. Since 1983, he and students at the school have raised $6,000 for the Sutton Home for the developmentally disabled in Garden Grove, where his daughter, Cheryl, 26, is a resident. The students also sent aid to the 1985 earthquake victims in Mexico City and to a poverty-stricken village in southern India. “My goal as a social studies teacher is to foster student concern, compassion and willingness to help others,” Sorter said.

Yorba Linda resident Rahul Sharad Krishaswamy, who earned 46 merit badges, and, as his service project, built three footbridges over streams at Oak Canyon Nature Center in Anaheim Hills, was presented his Eagle Scout rank at an awards ceremony in the Yorba Linda Public Library. He is a freshman at El Dorado High School and a member of Boy Scout Troop 706.

Fullerton resident Scott Kambak, an educational psychologist and marriage, family and child counselor, has been named Educational Psychologist of the Year by the California Assn. of Licensed Educational Psychologists.

Dennis W. Bracken, executive chef at the Grand Hotel in Anaheim, was named Chef of the Year for the Southern California region by the Orange Empire Chefs Assn. The Anaheim resident started his career as a cook in the Navy and attended Los Angeles Trade Technical College. He has prepared food for President Richard M. Nixon and many Hollywood celebrities, including Bob Hope. He is a member of Chefs de Cuisine of California, the Rocky Mountain Chefs Assn. and American Culinary Federation, and is president of the Orange Empire Chefs Assn.

Ralph Allen & Partners of Santa Ana received an Honor Award from the Concrete Masonry Assn. of California and Nevada for its design of the Orange County Transit District bus maintenance building in Anaheim.

Costa Mesa marketing consultant Maria Piscopo, author of “The Photographer’s Guide to Marketing and Self-Promotion” and a teacher at Orange Coast College, has been elected president of the Southern California-based Visual Artists Assn.

Fullerton College selected five of its staff to receive Staff of Distinction honors, and their names will be engraved on plaques in the Administration Building. The five, who will be honored at an awards recognition reception in late spring, are Carl E. Schwartz of Laguna Beach, a social science instructor honored for teaching excellence; registrar Kristeen L. Burns of Yorba Linda, for college support service, and theater arts instructor Tom Blank of Fullerton, for contributions to his field. The other recipients are business and computer information systems instructor Joyce Morton of Corona del Mar, recognized for contributions to her field, and biological sciences instructor Harold K. Plett of Fullerton, for teaching excellence.

Traffic engineer Nelson Wong and Louis Montes, lead man on a street crew, were named Employees of the Year by the La Habra City Employees Assn.

Newport Beach Police Lt. Jim K. Carson was one of 200 law enforcement officers who graduated from the FBI’s 11-week National Academy at Quantico, Va. Participants came from 48 states, 10 foreign countries and five military units.

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