Congratulations

Eleanor Childers was surprised by friends recently in honor of her

90th birthday.

Hosted by Anita Vennari, guests were called in advance to provide

favorite snapshots, notes, poems and other memorabilia to be included in

a “Friends” scrapbook.

While presenting the scrapbook to Childers, a collection was secretly

taken to purchase a tree and wall plague from the city of Burbank. Days

later, Childers was surprised to learn a pink flowering crepe myrtle tree

will be planted at Verdugo Park, where her children used to play.

Friends attending the celebration were Jean Andrus, Pat Carr, Charlene

Dettmann, Mary Jo Hjelmstrom, Elena Hubbell, Julia Larsen, Connie Lackey,

Pam McDonald, Nancy McDonnell, Helma Melikian, Shirley Nelson, Barbara

Osborn, Millie and Peter Simic and Elaine Thomas.

Pat Gunn, Tomme Lenz and Elaine Sollod were unable to attend but did

send items for the scrapbook.

Jim Goss, director of Creative Production for The NBC Agency, has been

awarded the 2000 Gerald L. Phillippe Award for outstanding contributions

to community service.

The award is presented biannually to General Electric employees.

Gerald Phillippe, for whom the award is named, is a former chairman of

General Electric who was also a leader in public service.

Along with the award, Goss received a $1,000 grant that he will donate

to his church. He has been a volunteer leader in the Burbank Unified

School District for many years. He has served multiple terms in

leadership positions as president of the McKinley Elementary School Site

Council and as chairman of the Burbank Unified School District’s GATE

parent advisory committee.

Goss also served on the school district’s family life/sex education

committee, the Jordan Middle School Site Council and the Burbank Unified

School District’s Strategic Master Plan committee.

Goss and his wife, Cheryl, also co-founded Parent/School Partnerships,

which encourages parental involvement in public or private schools,

guiding and training parents to become effective advocates and partners

with teachers and the administration in their child’s education.

Goss joined NBC as page in New York in 1976 and ultimately became a

writer/producer in the East Coast office. He moved to NBC Burbank in 1981

as a writer/producer and became manager and, later, director of drama

series promotion in 1983. He went on to become director of comedy series

and production.

As director of creative production, Goss is responsible for the

creative direction of network promotion on a variety of alternative

media, including TiVo and ReplayTV.

The couple has a daughter, Christina, and reside in Burbank.

Justin Umpierre of Burbank recently was named a Chancellor’s Scholar

at Syracuse University.

Chancellor’s Scholarships are awarded to first-year and transfer

students at Syracuse who have strong academic credentials in high school,

are active in extracurricular and community activities and demonstrate

good character and citizenship.

Awards are as high as $6,000 per year and are renewable.

Umpierre is enrolled in Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of

Public Communications.

Briana Rad, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bahram N. Rad of Burbank,

recently earned academic honors from The Loomis Chaffee School in

Windsor, Conn., for the fall term.

The Loomis Chaffee School is an independent, college-preparatory day

school with approximately 714 students.

Alison Sanders, daughter of Robin and Steven Sanders of La Canada

Flintridge, recently received the Academic Achievement Award with high

honors in the Golden State Exam in first-year algebra competition.

Sanders placed in the top 6% of all students who competed in the

statewide competition.

The competition was based on a multiple-choice and written response

examination given to first-year high school algebra students.