Party to Honor Centenarian From China

Duarte resident Yao Zhide turns 100 Friday and will be honored Saturday afternoon by her family at a private birthday party at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia.

Yao was 96 when she came to the United States from Suzhou, China, where she worked with Baptist missionaries and was a church teacher until the Communist Party and cultural revolution suppressed Christianity. Her children are active in the Chinese Baptist church, and Yao continues to address congregations in Southern California.

Her daughter, Cherry Y. K. Chang, grandchildren Billy L. Chang and Grace Lea Chang, and three great-grandchildren are hosting Yao’s private centennial celebration.

Rae Michele Page-Duncan of Diamond Bar has received a 1991 Black Achievers in Industry Award for her accomplishments as creative manager for Little Folk Shop Inc. in the City of Industry.

Along with seven other black achievers from around the country, Page-Duncan received her award recently at a dinner in New York celebrating the 21st anniversary of the “National Salute to Black Achievers in Industry.”

Little Folk Shop is a national children’s retail specialty chain and subsidiary of the Woolworth Corp. Page-Duncan helped develop the company’s private label design and the corporate package that included the graphic design for its business cards and letterhead.

Woolworth is among 135 corporate sponsors of the annual awards, with proceeds going to the Harlem Branch YMCA of Greater New York City.

Judge Phillip J. Argento of Pasadena Municipal Court has been elected chair of the Presiding Judges Assn. of Los Angeles County. Judge Rudy Diaz of Rio Hondo Municipal Court is the new secretary-treasurer.

They were elected by the presiding judges of the county’s 24 municipal courts.

Robert (Mike) Barrios has been appointed El Monte’s new Park and Recreation commissioner.

Barrios, 43, has owned and operated a barbershop in El Monte for eight years.

He succeeds Larry Rich as commissioner.