2 Westside Couples Prepare to Fly Plane Around World on Vacation

Brentwood residents Evy and Marty Lutin and Malibu residents Renny and Bernie Shapiro will soon be embarking on an unusual vacation.

The two couples plan to fly a Cessna propjet around the world on a two-month journey. Departing May 30 from Van Nuys Airport, they will follow a course that will lead them east to Europe and beyond. Travel destinations include stops in Iceland, Scotland, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Sicily, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, Siberia and Alaska.

They estimate that it will require about 80 hours of flying time and 5,600 gallons of fuel to complete the 18,000-mile trip.

Bernie and Marty are both pilots and share an interest in aviation. “We talked about making this as an adventure and picked parts of the world that we haven’t visited before,” Marty Lutin said.

The trip has evolved into a search for family roots as well as an adventure. The four are all of Russian descent and hope to take a closer look at their ancestors’ homelands.

“My family was from Russia,” Evy Lutin said. “I want to see how they lived, their struggles and the courage it took to leave these places.”

With the assistance of the United Jewish Federation, the four hope to meet with Jewish leaders and explore old Jewish communities.

“We want to see what’s going on since there’s been so much change in the last few years,” said Evy Lutin.

They have been preparing for the trip for the last year. The Westside residents have done in-depth research on travel destinations, obtained landing permits, made fuel arrangements and applied for various customs forms.

The pilots, who share a combined total of more than 11,000 hours of flight time, brushed up on their flying skills. Their wives gathered emergency supplies and food supplements and attended survival training sessions. “You have to be flexible because you never know what will happen,” Renny Shapiro said. “And you have to be open to new experiences and willing to try new things.”

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Jeffrey Trenton was elected to the National Board of Trustees of the Leukemia Society of America at its annual meeting last month in Phoenix.

Trenton, a trustee of the society’s Greater Los Angeles chapter for seven years, has served as vice president and president of the chapter.

He lives in Santa Monica.

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Board of Supervisors Chairman Ed Edelman reappointed Westside resident Judith Galperson to the Los Angeles County Music and Arts Commission.

The Cheviot Hills resident has served on the board for 18 years. An interior designer, she also serves as vice president for education at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.

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Jack Wright has been named the winner of the Peterson’s National Counselor of the Year award.

Wright, a counselor at Santa Monica College, was cited for his work at Franklin High School in Highland Park, a campus with 96% minority enrollment, where he worked for 26 years before arriving at SMC last fall. He was responsible for securing renewable grants and scholarships totaling $5.1 million for graduates in the Franklin class of 1992.

Peterson’s publishes several college guides and education-related materials.

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Linda Zagzebski was named a recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend.

Zagzebski, a resident of Westchester, will receive $4,000 to complete her book “Virtues of Mind” this summer. The book presents the Loyola Marymount University philosophy professor’s original theory of knowledge based on intellectual virtues.

She was one of 1,436 applicants nationwide.

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