NORTH HOLLYWOOD : 3 Area Students Win Volunteer Group’s Awards

Mention the word “teen-ager” today and many think of gangs, drugs, guns and violence. At the North Hollywood-based East Valley Coordinating Council, however, the term evokes thoughts of leadership, hope and visions of America’s future.

Yesterday, the council, a 62-year-old community-based volunteer group that serves North Hollywood, Studio City and Toluca Lake, honored three of its area’s “best and brightest” with certificates and $75 checks at its 44th annual awards luncheon held at the First United Methodist Church in North Hollywood.

Recognized for their academic achievements, community service and standing as youth role models were: Frank Ray Griggs, 17, an 11th grader from Zoo Magnet School; Katherine Fox, 18, a senior from Grant High School, and Maurice Shivers, 17, a senior from North Hollywood High School. The three also received award certificates from the offices of County Supervisor Ed Edelman and L.A. City Council President John Ferraro.

Shivers, a basketball player, aspiring actor, student council member and commissioner of athletics at North Hollywood High, was “surprised and happy” to learn he’d won an award.

“I didn’t know until two weeks ago that I was nominated by my English teacher,” he said. Shivers, who has a 3.6 grade point average, will attend UC Santa Barbara and major in mechanical engineering.

The Grant High senior plans to attend Pepperdine University and major in business administration. Nominated by both her pastor at First Presbyterian Church and her Sea Explorer Scout leader, Fox has served two terms as treasurer of her troop. She’s certified in water safety and CPR, and also works as a baby-sitter. At church she’s a youth choir member, deacon, Sunday school teacher, camp counselor, editor of the newsletter and was a 1992 delegate to the Presbyterian Youth Triennium held at Purdue, Ind.

Winner Griggs wasn’t always a model citizen. Five years ago he was having trouble with his attitude, school, family and substance abuse.

“My family, girlfriend and support system hung in there and I turned my life completely around,” he says. Now clean and sober for two years and a magnet honor student who’s enlisting in the Marines this June, Griggs says he’s trying to help others avoid his mistakes by working as a teen counselor with the group “Because I Love You.”

He also volunteers as a speaker on substance-abuse panels and works part-time at AMC Theaters in Burbank.

In addition to its student awards, the council also honored Lin White, founding artistic and stage director of the Los Angeles Music Theatre Company, with its Citizen of the Year Award; Dorothy Barrett, founder and director of the Academy Children’s Workshop, with its Humanitarian Award, and the Rev. John Moody, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of North Hollywood, with a special recognition award for outstanding community service on behalf of his church and the area’s Interfaith Council.