Youth

News for the 18-and-under crowd

HUNTINGTON BEACH

Freshman Wins Eagle Scout Award

Justin Ryan Ramos, 14, a freshman at Marina High School, has achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America.

Ramos earned 29 merit badges. His Eagle project involved refurbishing school-lunch benches for the Bethany Bible Fellowship. The project took 160 hours to complete and required the help of nine other Scouts and five adults.

Ramos, a member of Troop 227, is a son of William and Linda Ramos.

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IRVINE

DARE Graduates 1,100 6th-Graders

About 1,100 sixth-grade students were recently graduated from a 17-week Drug Abuse Resistance Education program in the Irvine Unified School District.

By the end of the school year, about 2,200 students are expected to have completed the DARE program at the district’s 21 elementary schools.

A DARE program has also been inaugurated for eighth-grade students at Irvine Unified’s six middle schools.

Eighth-graders will receive 10 lessons from Irvine Police Department DARE Officer Bob Anderson.

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GARDEN GROVE

Five Dance Trophies Won by Guardettes

The Garden Grove Guardettes, a youth dance and drill team, won four first-place trophies in the Saddleback Southern California dance/drill championships held at Saddleback High School. The team also won a second-place trophy.

Team captain Angie Mendonis was named Junior Miss Southern California for her solo performance. Kimberly Shields placed third in Miss Southern California Song competition and Tracy Greenberg was third in the Little Miss Southern California division.

The Guardettes topped the independent intermediate prop, independent small dance, independent military and independent small military divisions. They were second in the independent song division.

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LA HABRA

Geography Contest Winners Announced

Carden School has announced its winners of a geography contest. They are fourth-graders Michael Kang and Stephen Huck, fifth-graders Ajay Shah and Matthew Cota, sixth-graders Stephen Clark and Jason Chu, seventh-graders Estella Castillo and Nagwa Seif and eighth-graders Daniel Tallant and Jessica Raymond. Overall, Ajay Shah took top honors.

Shah is now eligible to compete in the national Geography Bee championship in Washington in May.

--COMPILED BY MIMI KO, BILL BILLITER, RUSS LOAR AND BERT ELJERA