St. Jude Medical Center Gives Award to 5 Patients

St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton recognized five patients with the Spirit Award for serving as role models to others with disabilities.

Honored were Stephen Beck of Fullerton, who is recovering from a stroke; Patricia Howard of Fullerton, recovering from a brain injury; Glenn Watje of Whittier, recovering from a spinal cord injury; Charles Giboney of Whittier, a pain-management patient, and Margaret Ward of Laguna Hills, who recovered in the Transitional Care Center.

They were selected for their positive attitude and efforts to become as independent as possible, which served to motivate patients and staff members, according to a hospital spokesperson.

Darby Davis of Anaheim Hills was returned to her third consecutive term as president of the Orange County Lupus Support Group sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation, Orange County branch.

Kristen Yunsun Naah, 24, of Huntington Beach has become a Peace Corps volunteer and is working with agricultural cooperatives in Mauritania, Africa, to analyze needs and initiate activities and programs to address them.

The graduate of Huntington Beach High School and UCLA, where she earned a degree in international economics, also gained experience as a project director of the International Mentor Program and as a tutor for the Prison Coalition.

David W. Stein, vice president of Northwest Trust Bank of California in Newport Beach, has been named to the Board of Trustees of the House Ear Institute, nationally known for its research and treatment of ear and balance problems. He is a Laguna Niguel resident.

Dana Hills High and UC Berkeley graduate Harold Taw, a Laguna Niguel resident, has been awarded a Fulbright grant to study current and past student activism in northern Thailand.

While in Thailand he also plans to lead a course on U.S. minority literature at Chiang Mai University on a volunteer basis.

Sharon St. Clair was one of 150 teachers who participated in a six-day Summer Teacher Institute at the National Gallery of Art in Washington to study the Renaissance in Europe.

The Newport Beach resident and teacher at Walt Disney Elementary School focused her study on the gallery’s collection of painting, sculpture, graphics an decorative arts from Italy and the Netherlands.

She also visited Renaissance art collections at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington.

Huntington Beach resident Cory Reddish Taggart was awarded the $1,000 Dr. Homer A. Nelson Memorial Award at the Southern California College of Optometry’s annual honors convocation. She is a fourth-year student at the Fullerton college.

Tracey Colins, 13, of Huntington Beach has been named a regional finalist in the Miss TEEN Magazine Miss Teen-age America program. Her picture will appear in the December issue of the magazine.

Dr. Kathryn J. Stewart of Garden Grove has been named to a new leadership program sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to explore the linkage between health education institutions, primary health care providers and communities.

The aim of the program is to learn how those three groups can work together to improve health care.

Stewart, 38, a director in the family medicine program at Harbor General Hospital/UCLA in Torrance, was selected from a national pool of 200 nominees.

Newport Beach resident Tom Maddock, a registered professional engineer in 17 states, has been awarded the top management honor given by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The John I. Parcel-Leif J. Sverdrup Management Award recognizes Maddock’s leadership skills in civil, sanitary and water resource engineering projects.

He is chairman of Boyle Engineering Corp. in Newport Beach and is a featured speaker at conferences and symposiums on water resources.

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