Just RewardsWhen it comes to earning good...
Just Rewards
When it comes to earning good grades, a capitalistic lesson is being taught at Reseda High School.
“We have always honored our academic achievers with the usual assemblies, pins and pieces of paper,” said Sue Spears, assistant principal of student services.
But last year, she got a brainstorm that is really paying off.
Spears thought--when she received complimentary passes to Magic Mountain--why not give away things the kids really would enjoy, rather than the traditional academic memorabilia?
In addition to soliciting companies for tickets for amusement parks, restaurants, clothing stores and the movies to pass out as rewards, her simple idea was give the highest achieving kids cash.
School Principal Robert Kladisko immediately sent her off to dial for dollars.
At a recent evening open house assembly in front of parents and friends, nine straight-A students--each of whom is an academic excellence repeater--were given $50 checks.
The funds were donated by a number of institutions, including the local branches of First Interstate and Security Pacific banks, Reseda Dodge, Kolbe Honda and Bob Falletta of State Farm Insurance.
Most of the students reportedly planned to save the money. We won’t bank on it.
What a Drag
Stuntman and Shadow Hills resident Dale Gibson has a new little trick.
While being dragged on his back by a horse going full gallop, the cowboy stuntster then attempts to remount the horse.
We won’t insert the obligatory “don’t try this at home” since this is probably not a behavior that is going to sweep your neighborhood any time soon.
First, you have to train a horse to go 35 m.p.h. while dragging a full-grown human.
Second, you have to catch the horse once he understands what you have in mind.
This is not to infer that horses are smarter than humans.
There are plenty of humans who have it all over the horse.
Dale Gibson, who has a degree in business administration from Murray State University in Kentucky, may not be one of them.
Gibson, who is looking to become the best-known horse stuntman in the business, has so far doubled Lou Diamond Phillips in “Young Guns” and the sequel, and Phillips, again, in “Renegades” and “Three Kings.” He also has doubled Matthew Broderick in “Glory,” as well as appearing in a number of other films and television productions.
He was doubling British rock star David Essex for a film called “Shogun Mayeda,” when, dressed as a Samurai warrior, he first tried the remounting trick on location in Yugoslavia. He was using a horse he had not worked with instead of his highly trained Appaloosa stallion, Waco.
“The horse panicked at my weight and, instead of dragging me in a controlled gallop, he bolted at a dead run,” Gibson recalls. “We were galloping through the fields and woods, and I was taking a real pounding when a stone wall loomed in front of us and I thought the horse was going to jump.”
Lucky for him, the horse turned away from the wall and stopped, or Gibson would have been Express Mailed to Albania.
He then got up and did it over again four times, for the camera.
New Boys Network
For 12 years, the Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce has sponsored Reach-Out Day for the young men at the Pacific Lodge Boys’ Home.
On this day, various members of the business community invite one or several lodge residents to spend a day in their workplace, visiting with company officials, being taken to lunch and generally getting a first-hand look at how the wheels of commerce turn.
The boys become one-day hotel managers, lawyers, auto mechanics, printing company executives and the executives of small businesses of every kind.
By far, according to Robin Durant, director of administrative services for the lodge, the job experience most enthusiastically sought by lodge residents is to work with a local fire or police department officer for a day.
Overall, this male bonding experience is a spin on the tradition where pater took his little preppie to the office to show him what he might inherit.
Because the boys at the lodge are, in many cases, wards of the court, they will probably not be inheriting a business and are not likely to have a mogul for a dad. But, Durant said, the experience gives the boys a better focus on what they do and do not want to do with their after-school lives.
It also gives them an opportunity to make an impression on some potential employers. Several of the companies participating have, in the past, offered the young men jobs.
Keeping It Clean
What if the Person or Persons Who Made Us All looked down from the clouds and saw all the garbage and graffiti in the San Fernando Valley?
What if They roared: “You people either clean it up or go to your room!”?
For those who would rather clean it up, there will be an anti-graffiti and community trash removal program from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 2. For information or to volunteer, call the Los Angeles police.
Annette Banda is the contact at Devonshire Division, Sgt. Pete Weinhold at Foothill, Sgt. John Staugaard at North Hollywood, Sgt. Mike Flynn at West Valley and Sgt. Robert Shallenberger at Devonshire.
Overheard
“I’m canceling my cable TV because I believe in punishing the messenger.”
--Northridge man to a friend after watching the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on C-SPAN
