Tennis Teacher Is Still an Ace With Her Devastating Serves

More than 10 years ago, senior amateur tennis champion Patricia Cody had one of the best serves among women tennis players in the world.

At a contest for the fastest serve in the late 1970s in New York, Cody’s serve was timed at 101 m.p.h., fourth best in a field of 12 participants, including Wimbledon tennis champion Virginia Wade.

The 50-year-old Paramount resident has not slowed much since that time. She is still delivering a devastating serve and continues to win. Cody has collected more than 30 senior tennis titles during a span of about 20 years of competing in the national public parks tournaments, which are the major contests for amateurs.

Her most recent victories were at the national public parks championship in Canton, Ohio, where she won four senior titles. She finished first in the singles division for women 45 years old. She won the women’s doubles for 40-year-olds with partner Linda Stude. She and Ricardo Remolif won mixed doubles in divisions for 40- and 45-year-olds.

Cody complements her big serve with other solid tennis strokes, said Tony Cantabene, one of the area’s good senior male players. He and Cody play against each other regularly at the Lakewood Country Club and Tennis Center.

“We have played about a thousand times over the years. She has won about half the matches,” Cantabene said.

Cody, who played softball and basketball at Huntington Park High School, did not pick up a tennis racket until she was nearly 18. A high school girlfriend got her interested in the game, she said.

“I still remember my first match,” Cody said, adding that she did not win a game. Shortly after the defeat, she began to take lessons from tennis teacher Vince Gilbert, who lived in Bell.

She said she spent the next 10 years or so sharpening her game on the public courts, where she is as well-known for her powerful play as her temper.

“I’ve thrown a few rackets on the court. Some I’ve thrown into nearby trees and just left them there,” Cody said.

A Chicago Sun-Times columnist once described Cody as a player who was “mad all the time.”

Cody said her intensity comes from her desire to be perfect.

Her dedication has won her more than 300 trophies and plaques. She won the Southern California Junior College championship in 1959 when she attended Compton College. In 1969 and 1970 she competed at both the Wimbledon Championships in England and the U.S. National Championships in Forest Hills, N.Y.

When Cody is not competing, she teaches tennis, using the money she earns to travel to the tournaments.

Retired Rio Hondo College administrator Alex Pantaleoni has been honored by state education officials as the outstanding vocational educator of the year for his work in establishing the community college’s police science program.

Pantaleoni, 61, started the two-year program in law enforcement education in 1963, and was the only full-time staff member for almost three years. Today there are 25 full-time and 250 part-time instructors teaching classes in criminal evidence, criminal investigation, criminal law and other related subjects.

“I never had any worries about its growth potential,” Pantaleoni said. “It was a needed program and is still needed. At the time the program was like a wine whose time had come. And it just got better.”

Pantaleoni received the award from the California Community College Administrators of Occupational Education. He taught at Rio Hondo College 27 years before retiring in August.

Lynwood resident Lorna Hawkins has received a commendation from the Giraffe Project, a national organization that recognizes individuals who “stick their necks out,” through volunteer service to make things better.

After her son Joe Nathan Hawkins, 21, was killed nearly two years ago, Hawkins helped organize a citizens group to monitor the crime in her neighborhood. She also became the host of a community cable TV show aimed at helping others who have lost relatives to gang violence.

Hawkins, 38, a telephone saleswoman for a Compton company, quit her job recently to become a full-time crusader against drugs and gangs. The Giraffe Project, based in Langley, Wash., was started in 1982 by Ann Medlock, a former magazine writer, and her husband John Graham, a former foreign service official.

A quilt designed by ABC Unified School District preschool students and stitched by their parents won first place last month at the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona.

ABC adult school teacher Cecilia Damron was impressed with the quilt that was completed in her class by the students and parents, and entered it in the contest. The quilt won first prize in the preschool through second grade division of the fair.

James Bacon, 96, and his wife Ruth, 92, were honored recently on their 74th wedding anniversary by the Bellflower City Council.

The council also presented plaques to members of the Bellflower Old-Timers Reunion, which holds a picnic every year for long-time city residents. Honored were Esther and Howard Meagher and Elmer Klamroth, the founders of the club, and Ramon Bashor, who has lived in the city his entire 80 years.

* Three Cal State Long Beach industrial design students have won honors in the North American Sony Design Vision ’90 competition for college students to create futuristic telephones. David Emery, 26, created a device that translates languages and displays a photograph of the caller. Emery won a trip to Tokyo to compete in the finals of the competition next month. Leonard Hong, 25, won a $1,000 scholarship for a “Talkman,” a telephonic device equipped with both a headset and a handset. Tark Abed, 24, won a $1,000 scholarship for his “Telesketch,” which allows designers to transit their drawings telephonically.

* Cynthia Sinchak, who has five years of experience in mall management at Huntington Center in Huntington Beach and Carson Mall in Carson, has been appointed assistant manager of Stonewood Center in Downey.

* Downey resident Richard R. Spencer, a recent graduate of the California Highway Patrol Academy in Sacramento, has been assigned to the Santa Fe Springs area. A former Marine, Spencer is a graduate of Warren High School in Downey.

* Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), who is retiring, was honored recently at a special appreciation ceremony in Washington for his support and contribution to the Job Corps program, which trains disadvantaged youths for employment. Hawkins, 83, received a plaque. Hawkins has served in the House since 1962.