South County Elks Receive Top Honor
Mission Viejo/Saddleback Valley Elks Lodge 2444 was named an All-American Lodge by the Elks Grand Lodge at its recent convention in Las Vegas. Only six lodges out of 2,400 nationally received the honor.
Former Tustin residents Vera and Andrew Billings entered the Lake Forest Nursing Center in El Toro by wheelchair to attend a party celebrating their 67th wedding anniversary.
Besides friends and relatives of Vera, 94, and Andrew, 99, their only child, Julia Vining of Irvine, attended the party which featured balloons, blackberry marble cake, lemonade and floral arrangements.
Although he shot a hole-in-one at age 90, Andrew said his greatest thrill was the birth of his daughter. The couple also have four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Scott A. Edwards, an English teacher at La Habra High School, was one of four Californians to win the Student Loan Marketing Assn. (Sallie Mae) First Year Teacher Award, which recognizes outstanding performance by a first-year teacher.
Edwards was awarded a certificate and $1,000 from Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest provider of financing for higher education.
Steven Inman II and Andrew Ahn, both of Irvine; John M. Brooks and Joshua Mendel, both of North Tustin, and Nick Peters, of Laguna Niguel, were recognized at a Court of Honor for receiving their Boy Scout Eagle Rank.
Mater Dei High School graduate Paula Kleintjes-Roswall has been selected as one of 20 graduate students in the country to participate in a monthlong research project in the rain forests of Costa Rica.
The former Garden Grove resident, an advanced doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley, was also recently named the recipient of the R.L. Usinger Memorial Award as outstanding student in the department.
She was selected for the research study by the Organization for Tropical Studies at Duke University, the University of Costa Rica and USC.
Dan Davey, of Santa Ana, a retired truck deliveryman, has been presented a $100 check by the Tustin Area Woman’s Club to help with his work with American Indians. Davey founded the Thunderbird Foundation, a nonprofit group to benefit American Indians with scholarships, food, clothing and toys for children.
Recognizing its excellence in membership recruitment and retention along with its service-oriented activities, the Knights of Columbus Council 9599 of the Pope John Paul II Polish Center in Yorba Linda has been honored by the group’s international headquarters in New Haven.
The Orange County group was honored as a Star Council for the 1989-90 fraternal year, the international organization’s top award. Tony Krawczak is the grand knight of the Yorba Linda group.