People

* Spotlight on achievers

Stephen Einstein

Rabbi, Congregation B’nai Tzedek,

Fountain Valley

Scholarship has always been a top priority for Stephen Einstein, rabbi of Congregation B’nai Tzedek.

Besides co-authoring two books and directing the education program at the Fountain Valley synagogue, which serves about 400 families, he recently earned a rare doctorate in Hebrew letters, a goal he had pursued for 21 years.

Einstein, 49, said he persevered because “a doctorate degree is an indication that a person has done long and serious study and research.”

The field in which he received his degree is small. “Once every few years, there’s a graduate,” he said of the program at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.

That the rabbi needed more than two decades to complete his doctoral work is not surprising, given the scope of his interests. Married with four children, he has long been active in the community and is currently president of the Orange County Bureau of Jewish Education, a member of the Fountain Valley School District Personnel Commission and a Fountain Valley Police Department chaplain.

“I’m not a wealthy person so I can’t give lots of money,” Einstein said. “But I have certain talents and abilities, so at least I can share that.”

*

Jack W. Hokanson

Founder, Jack’s Surfboards, Huntington Beach

The Surfing Walk of Fame, which for years has immortalized famous surfers, will pay tribute this year to someone whose contribution to the sport was far less visible than riding the biggest waves.

Jack W. Hokanson, founder of Huntington Beach landmark Jack’s Surfboards, will be honored in August with the Walk of Fame’s first plaque.

Mike Kingsbury, spokesman for the group that sponsors the Walk of Fame, said the award was created this year to honor people who have made contributions to surfing but who otherwise might not have been recognized. “Their contributions are very important in their own right,” he said.

Hokanson, 73, of Dana Point opened the surf shop in the fall of 1957 and sold the business in 1975. Some of the best-known names in surfing will join him as new Walk of Fame inductees at a ceremony Aug. 3.

They are Tom Curren, a three-time world champion; Phil Edwards, who introduced power turning in surfing and was one of the first to ride the famed “Pipeline” on Oahu’s North Shore; Herbie Fletcher, producer of more than 25 surfing videos; Margo Oberg, who in 1977 was the first woman recognized as a world champion, and John Severson, founder of Surfer magazine, the first nationally distributed surfing publication.

The Surfing Walk of Fame, like its Hollywood counterpart, consists of granite stones embedded in the sidewalk at Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway.

--COMPILED BY DEBRA CANO