A teen-ager trips the light fantastic like an old pro.
STRICTLY BALLROOM: Dance studio icon Arthur Murray was long off the tube by the time Grant McKee was born, but the 15-year-old Rolling Hills Estates resident is already an old pro at the fox trot and tango.
Recently he and partner Erin Roberts, 18, of Westminster, won the top prize for dancers in their age group at the U.S. Ballroom Dance Championship in Miami.
“It’s just a rush of energy,” McKee said. “It’s a fun hobby with lots of competition.”
Five years ago, his parents, Doug and Sheila McKee, persuaded him to take lessons, and he got hooked. The elder McKees, themselves a generation or so removed from Lawrence Welk’s era, had taken a few lessons of their own.
“I fell in love with it,” Grant McKee said. “It took over my life.”
So much so that he quit the Palos Verdes Peninsula High School soccer team so he could practice hoofing for up to 18 hours a week.
Some friends “used to think ballroom dancing was a little bit on the weird side,” he said. “But not any more. They stick up for me.”
Some day, McKee said, he would like to be a veterinarian or doctor. But “I’ll always dance,” he says.
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A FIRST FOR FRESHMAN: South Bay Rep. Jane Harman (D-Marina Del Rey) has been appointed a member of the House and Senate Conference Committee for the Defense Authorization Bill.
It is the first time in the history of the House Armed Services Committee that a freshman member of the panel has won a spot on the prestigious conference group, which will reconcile the House and Senate’s versions of the nation’s defense spending plan.
The appointment was made by Ron Dellums (D-Oakland), chairman of Armed Services, who said Harman has “demonstrated exceptional ability and genuine interest during the crafting of the bill, the markup and the floor debate.”
Harman’s district, which runs from Marina Del Rey to San Pedro, is home to the nation’s areospace and defense industries, which have been forced to dramatically downsize with the nation’s economic slump and the end of the Cold War.
Harman said in a statement last week that her main focus in working with the conference committee will be to retain and build high-skill, high-wage jobs in the South Bay.
She also said her mission on the committee will be to make sure that the space-based defense systems being built by local firms are retained in the final version of the defense bill.
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STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Paying tribute to a one-time political rival, Los Angeles City Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., who represents the harbor area, praised former council candidate Diane Middleton last week before colleagues confirmed her appointment to the Los Angeles Housing Authority Commission.
Only months after the two competed for a seat to represent the council’s harbor district, Svorinich told colleagues that, “Over the past six months, we have grown to be very supportive of one another’s endeavors.”
Middleton, a 49-year-old San Pedro attorney, was named to the housing authority commission by Mayor Richard Riordan two months ago. A member of the South Bay Women’s Lawyers Assn. and the National Lawyers Guild, Middleton is also president of the board of directors of Toberman Settlement Center and on the board of Harbor Interfaith Shelter. Seven of the city’s 21 public housing projects, home to 21,000 residents, are in the 15th District’s Watts to San Pedro boundary.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“My kids could literally look out the classroom and see a crane. But they didn’t know what it was.”
--Wilmington elementary school teacher Suzanne Galindo, expressing hope that a course to be introduced next month will enlighten children on the workings of the Port of Los Angeles.
LAST WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS
San Pedro: The Los Angeles City Council agreed to extend restrictions on multifamily developments along Pacific Avenue until permanent regulations are drafted and become law. The restrictions are aimed at assuring that the commercially zoned corridor is not overrun with incompatible apartment buildings and other multifamily developments.
Redondo Beach: After hours of heated debate, the City Council on Tuesday tabled a vote on the appeal of a project that would combine condominiums with restaurants and retail shops. The council directed staff to consider ways to reduce the density of the development, which would be located on a 4.7-acre site on Pacific Coast Highway. The council will reconsider the matter Nov. 2.
Redondo Beach: San Diego County Assistant Sheriff Melvin E. Nichols was selected as the city’s new police chief. Nichols assumes the post Dec. 1, replacing retiring chief Roger Moulton. Nichols, who was picked from a field of 41 candidates, spent about 30 years with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and served as station commander in Poway and Del Mar. He will be paid $92,000.
THIS WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS
Inglewood: A three-member state committee will arrive early this week to begin helping school officials develop long-range financial plans for the Inglewood Unified School District. The committee members, chosen by the district’s board from a state-approved list, are: Carol Bailey, retired director of fiscal services, Capistrano Unified School District; Thomas Godley, assistant superintendent, Newport-Mesa School District; and Peter Yasitis, associate superintendent, Alameda County Office of Education.
