DIFFERENT VIEW: Personnel director Jack Elsner had...

DIFFERENT VIEW: Personnel director Jack Elsner had been dismissed by the Orange Unified School District in April, a year away from retirement. But Elsner, later reinstated in a lesser job, recently won a pat on the back from outside the district. He was named an “Administrator of the Year” by the Assn. of California School Administrators. The group praised him for “visionary” leadership and “focusing on what’s best for the kids.” . . . Says Elsner: “It’s a dichotomy.”

LEGAL HELP: Future legal eagles may get their start through a new summer-job program at local law firms. Twenty-nine Santa Ana high school students were picked for Summer Employment in Law Firms. The goal is to open doors and inspire. Students will earn $6.18 an hour and learn job-seeking and cash management. . . . “Their law-firm employers expect a full day’s work from these kids and we know they’ll do a great job,” said Gary M. Pohlson, president of the Orange County Bar Assn.

LOOKING BACK: For a quarter-century, Orange County’s poor have relied on the Costa Mesa group Share Our Selves for food and medical help. The group, which began as a church charity based in founder Jean Forbath’s home, celebrates its 25th birthday Sunday. Volunteers help 35,000 people each month. Forbath said the county’s bankruptcy won’t help. . . . “We were hoping we’d be out of business by now,” Forbath said. “But it looks like we’ll be needed more than ever.”

NAME’S THE SAME: UC Irvine graduate Mark Ito got the laughs he wanted at commencement Saturday by having his middle name announced as “Judge.” Ito, no relation to the O.J. Simpson judge, worried people might not like the gag. But if the applause was any clue, it was a hit. The economics major, whose real middle name is Shinichi, is mulling graduate school. Law school? “Definitely not,” Ito said. Probably finance.