Pupils Who Are 2000% Inspired

The one date most of us recall instantly is the year we graduated from high school or college. Wouldn’t it have a nice ring to be able to say you were part of the Class of 2000?

Cal State Fullerton has selected a group of 30 of the best and brightest students who will graduate that year for what it calls Project 2000. They will remain as a group until graduation ceremonies. They’ll have their own T-shirts, and other activities are coming up.

Last week Cal State Fullerton held a reception for the students and the professors who nominated them.

“We wanted to take a look at who our leaders will be in the next century, and what they are like today,” said Dave Reid, the university’s public affairs director, who came up with the idea.

All have received excellent grades but stood out to their professors in a variety of other ways. Some because they are brilliant and take demanding courses. Others, such as Annette Peeples, were chosen because of the tremendous effort they made to get an education.

Peeples graduated from high school in Arizona in 1976. Though she did study interior design at a trade school, she concentrated during most of her years after high school on putting her husband through Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Their son, Thomas, was born in 1982 and daughter Kelly came along in 1987. Between those births, Peeples took classes at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

She returned there after Kelly’s birth, studying architecture. But when her daughter was about 2 1/2, they discovered she was autistic.

“My daughter needed me at home, so any thoughts of going to a four-year school had to be put on hold,” she told me.

Last year, with her daughter more self-sufficient, and with her husband’s encouragement, Peeples renewed her pursuit of a four-year degree. She switched to communications, convinced that her experience dealing with her daughter’s autism has provided her skills she can use to help others.

She will beat her son to graduation ceremonies by one year; he gets his high school diploma in 2001.

Reading through extensive biographies of the 30 students in Project 2000, I was struck by how determined most of them are. They juggle school and career-enhancing activities, as well as jobs necessary to pay their way. One student works at a cattle ranch near Chino 20 hours a week. Another has worked full time at Disneyland while taking care of his mother, who has cancer.

One of the most poignant stories comes from Thanh-Thuy Lieu, a mathematics major from Placentia. Seven years ago, she graduated from high school in Vietnam with almost no prospects that she would even get a chance to go to college and a shot at her dream of becoming a teacher.

But her father, who had been living in the United States for many years, was finally able to afford to send for the rest of his family. Lieu and her mother, brother and sister joined him in Orange County. Lieu still couldn’t go to college because she knew almost no English.

But she took courses to learn the language. In addition to beginning college last year, she became a U.S. citizen. While she takes subjects such as algebra, mathematical model building and computer courses, she’s holding down two tutoring jobs to pay her expenses.

When I called Lieu, she couldn’t stop giggling at the new attention she’s getting because of Project 2000.

“I never thought I was smart; I never thought anyone else thought I was smart,” she said. “This is all unbelievable to me.”

Candles & History: One of my favorite places in this county is the county-operated Heritage Hill Historical Park at 25151 Serrano Road in Lake Forest. On Saturday night, you can see the place at its most splendorous, during its 12th annual candlelight tour.

The sidewalks connecting the historical park’s four turn-of-the-century buildings will be lined with more than 1,000 luminaries. The buildings include the original adobe from the old Serrano ranch (still standing at its original site), a schoolhouse, a ranch house and a church, all from the old El Toro area.

Flamenco and Spanish guitar music and dancing will take place at the old adobe and the ranch house. Holiday carols will be played on the old pump organ at the church. It’s all for $3, and you don’t need reservations.

Don’t Mock These Folks: The high school lawyers are back in court this week. Orange County’s Mock Trial competition concludes Thursday night at the County Courthouse in Santa Ana. The names will be familiar to anyone who follows this at all.

The final four teams: Esperanza High of Anaheim--last year’s county winner--Cypress High, El Dorado High of Placentia, and Fountain Valley High. Cypress and El Dorado were also in the final four competition last year.

Wrap-Up: Several people called or wrote following my column last week about Randy Kraft. He’s the serial killer convicted in 1989 of murdering 16 young men and boys in Orange County. After eight years, his appeal is barely to first base.

One of the callers was retired Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin, who sentenced Kraft to death. McCartin was famous on the bench for getting to the point when he had to. He once summed up a murder defendant’s alibi with a single word: “Hogwash.”

McCartin noted that he has sent nine men to death row, and none is close to execution. The first, William Payton, who killed a Garden Grove woman, has been on death row awaiting appeal for 15 years.

“I keep thinking that I will outlive at least one of these guys I put there,” said McCartin, 72. “But now I’m beginning to wonder.”

Another caller was Carol Neal of Orange, one of the jurors who convicted Kraft at a trial that ran almost a year. After such a lengthy review of extensive, gruesome evidence, she said, “it was almost impossible to return to just a normal life. I think most of us on that jury probably needed counseling later.”

Neal’s alternative to therapy was to get a new job. She now works for the county’s Social Services Agency. She explained to me: “After the Kraft trial, being a systems analyst no longer seemed important.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com