Harvard-Westlake sophomore NIKILA SRI-KUMAR was a member of the 2004-2005 staff of the Harvard-Westlake Chronicle, which was awarded first place in General Excellence for a high school newspaper by the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Sri-Kumar, who is interning at the Palisadian-Post this summer, has participated in school journalism for six years and was editor-in-chief of Harvard-Westlake’s middle school magazine, The Spectrum. The Chronicle is published eight times during the school year and boasts a staff of more than 60 students. The newspaper has won the award three times and was commended for “fine use of color and in-depth stories” by the CNPA, as well as “excellent artwork, good reporting and handling of the tough issues.” Advisor Kathleen Neumeyer has been teaching journalism full-time at Harvard-Westlake since 1992. She was the substitute advisor when the merger between Harvard and Westlake schools was announced. Neumeyer has a journalism degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and was a reporter for United Press International for eight years. She was also a contributing editor of Los Angeles magazine for 20 years and taught journalism part-time, off and on, for 25 years at Cal State Northridge. Neumeyer has freelanced for national magazines such as The Economist, Ladies’ Home Journal, McCalls’, Emmy magazine, and others for 30 years. “I was thrilled the first, second, and third time that the Chronicle won first place in the state of California,” Neumeyer said. “Journalism is not a required course, so the students who work on the Chronicle do it because they love it, and they work hard to put out a real newspaper that tells what is really happening at school. We are very fortunate that the Harvard-Westlake administration is supportive of a strong student journalism program.” This fall Sri-Kumar will be a News Section Head and Chief News Photographer for the Chronicle. o o o STEPHANIE RUTHBERG, daughter of Miles Ruthberg and Mrs. Catherine Schreiber-Ruthberg, is attending the Cornell University Summer College program this summer. The program offers real university courses and the opportunity to earn college credits and explore majors and career options. Students were admitted to Summer College based on their high school records, standardized test scores, application essays, and recommendations from teacher or guidance counselors. o o o RICHARD UWE MONTZ has received faculty honors for the 2005 spring semester at Trinity College. To earn this honor, a student must achieve a grade point average of at least 3.667 with no individual grade under B minus. o o o MICAELA SHAYNE ROSENTHAL, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Monroe B. Rosenthal, has been honored with admission to the Peabody College dean’s list. To qualify for the dean’s list, a student must receive grades equivalent to a 3.5 on the 4.0 scale for the semester. o o o NICOLE TAMAR BEHESNILIAN has achieved the dean’s honor list at U C Santa Barbara. A student must achieve a grade point average of 3.75 in a program of 12 or more graded units. Nicole is majoring in environmental studies. o o o ANDREW PANKIN, son of Stuart and Joy Pankin and a graduate of Crossroads School, has been named to the merit list at Kenyon College for the second semester of the 2004-2005 academic year. A student must earn a grade-point average of at least 3.45 on the 4.0 scale to be eligible for merit list recognition.

“Mary Lou’s War,” a first novel by Lia Schallert, takes the reader to a different era. The time reflects how the nature of women has changed in the past 60 years. Straight out of high school, Mary Lou, the protagonist, 17, works at an Army hospital dealing with administrative issues for soldiers who have been broken both emotionally and physically. In spite of pressures to go against her character, the heroine remains true to her core self. Although it’s distressing to see an age where women were denied promotions because of their gender, it’s also refreshing to see true femininity. This is a book that will cause endless debates in book clubs. Mary Lou is a fascinating character. There are correlations between Schallert and Mary Lou. Schallert, who was raised in Richmond, Virginia, also worked in an Army hospital during WW II at age 17. When asked if the story was based on her life, Schallert smiled and said, “There’s a lot of me in Mary Lou in the book.” When asked if the end of the book was true she said, “The whole last part of the book is true.” When she was young, Schallert wasn’t serious about her schooling. She went to a Catholic high school, where she took four years of both French and Latin. When she went to college, she didn’t feel it offered the same challenges as her high school, and left after a year. She actually mastered the rudiments of typing at college which helped her to get a job with the Army. After the war, Schallert moved to Los Angeles and studied acting. Schallert met her husband, William, at the Circle Theater, which was the first professional theater-in-the-round in the country, located on El Centro in Hollywood. The first play she was ever in was “Rain” directed by Charlie Chaplin. She remembers that Chaplin directed his actors by showing them how to do it. William has worked steadily in stage, television, and film. Among other roles, he’s played the father in numerous shows, including “The Patty Duke Show,” “New Gidget,” “Little Women,” and the “Nancy Drew” series, leading him to joke that he’s the most promiscuous father on televlsion. When Schallert first started her acting career, she worked a lot in theater and television. “I was quite driven, but once I had a baby it was different,” she said. She continued to act, but not with the same intensity. The Schallerts had four children, all boys. When her boys were teenagers she said, “I reached a certain point when I thought it’s better if I’m home a lot.” Most actors take class to keep fresh when they’re not working, and Schallert was no exception. She would bring in interesting monologues to class, and her teacher, Jeff Corey, would ask where she got them. Off-hand, she’d reply, “Oh, it’s some obscure play you don’t know.” After a while, he became suspicious and then confronted her, “I know you’re writing these.” He encouraged her to take a writing class. Her first one was a UCLA Extension class. Out of that class came a core of writers who started to meet weekly to critique each other’s work. When the woman leading that group quit, Sid Stebel who teaches a master class at USC, took over as the mentor. The group has been meeting for 15 years once a week, and there are still five or six members from the original group. “It’s a supportive group, no one gets hostile or mean,” Schallert said. “Everyone is so nice.” She dedicates “Mary Lou’s War” to her husband William, Stebel and the Westside Writing Group members. Schallert tries to write every day from 1 to 5 p.m. She still writes in longhand, then puts it on the computer. “I’ve had fun,” she said. “It’s very satisfying to go up to your room and be in another world.” Schallert has written four other manuscripts, as well as a screenplay. Lia Schallert will be signing her book at Village Books on Thursday, August 18, at 7:30.

Sometime last winter harpist Michelle Gott, 20, was walking through the hallway at Juilliard, where she’s a third-year student, when she was stopped by an oversized, colorful poster announcing the summer program at the Henry Mancini Institute. “I noticed ‘jazz,’ ‘studio training’ and ‘scholarships,’ and all that really appealed to me,” says Gott, who has been playing her golden instrument since she was 4-1/2. For the classically trained Gott, HMI promised to stretch her versatility, as she says. She auditioned and was accepted as one of the 84 very accomplished musicians selected from 600 applicants from around the world to participate in the four-week summer education program held at UCLA. “I needed something more challenging on a day-to-day basis, and this is giving me more training in improvisation and sight reading.” Indeed, in rehearsal for HMI’s chamber orchestra concert two weeks ago, Gott was plucking, sawing and jabbing away as if in heated dialogue with her instrument. Different from other summer music programs, HMI is open to college and post-college-aged musicians, and focuses on versatility regardless of students’ backgrounds. Instrumentalists and composers receive hands-on training with professionals in a range of musical expressions’jazz, improvisation, contemporary and film music in large and small ensembles. “HMI crosses all musical boundaries,” Ginny Mancini, Henry’s widow, told the Palisadian-Post. “In order to be a full-fledged musician today, you have to be versatile to make it in this industry. All these students have mastered their instruments, they’re all very good, but that doesn’t translate into a successful career in music.” HMI was founded in 1997 by composer and conductor Jack Elliott in honor of his friend Henry Mancini’one of the most successful composers in television and film, as well as a popular pianist and conductor. Ginny recalls that her husband, who passed away in 1994, never wanted anyone to do anything using his name. “But then after he died, Jack approached me about starting the institute. I had been involved with Jack on other projects, such as the jazz philharmonic orchestra; he always had something going in new music. I called together some music people like Quincy Jones, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith and Patrick Williams and we sat in my living room to talk about it. They all thought it was a brilliant idea.” Over the past nine years 476 alumni from over 41 states and 27 countries have graduated from the summer education program, and many are hired regularly in ensembles throughout Los Angeles and the U.S. In 2000, HMI established a community outreach component that provides school partnerships, after-school artist-in-residence programs and free community HMI alumni concerts. The summer program musicians are treated to four weeks of all-expense-paid study with guest artists, composers and conductors. A number of Palisadians participate as master teachers, including conductors David Newman, film composer, and Vince Mendoza, jazz composer and conductor of the Metropole Orchestra of the Netherlands. French horn player Richard Todd, currently the principal horn with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. also participates. The students are selected to make up the HMI orchestra, and in addition certain students are chosen to play in the big band, jazz strings bands and in the HMI chamber orchestra. Free concerts are arranged throughout the month, with the culminating concerts featuring a Latin music motif on Friday, August 12, at the California Plaza downtown, and the Mancini Musicale featuring Bobby McFerrin and the HMI Orchestra on Saturday, August 13 at Royce Hall. “This program is really a roller coaster of music, with a limited set of rehearsals, similar to professional experience,” says Mendoza, who is the chamber orchestra conductor. “I think that this is a time for personal discovery. The students are responsible for preparing the concert in a very short period of time. “I quickly appreciated the amount of the conviction of these students the first moment I met with them,” Mendoza continues. “I asked them who wanted to be a musician, and they all raised their hands and their pencils went flying. Since that first meeting the read-throughs have been getting better and better, and better.” Because of the Mancini legacy, jazz and film composition have always been the core part of the program, says Executive Director Dan Carlin, music director, editor, music supervisor and soundtrack producer. The opening concert with the HMI orchestra, conducted by HMI artistic director Patrick Williams, featured Henry Mancini’s theme from “Mr. Lucky” and Duke Ellington’s “Grand Slam Jam,” but also debuted HMI student composer Matthew Janszen’s “Release.” Janszen’s story is different from most musicians, because he did not major in music in college. “At Purdue, there was no school of music,” says Janszen, who got his degree in acoustical engineering. “I stared writing music, and because there was no competition, the school band and ensemble played my work. So I learned by doing.” Janszen’s schedule at HMI is a bit different from the instrumentalists because he has private lessons in conducting, group lessons and master classes. “My assignments are all about experimentation. I wrote a string octet, which we recorded, and another assignment was to produce a Christmas song. You learn how to conduct your own session, deal with the composer and get it published. I can also write anything I want; it’s open to experiment with anything.” Janszen, who will attend the University of Kansas to study theater sound design, has refined his ambitions. “I want to write the understory and soundtracks for live theater,” he says. “This summer has been great.” Tickets ($50; $20 for students) for the culminating concert honoring Bobby McFerrin performing with the HMI Orchestra at Royce Hall are available by calling 825-2101.

Will Rogers once said, “Even if you’re on the right track, you get run over if you just sit there.” You get the feeling the Jubilee this past weekend had exactly the right tone and spirit that Will Rogers State Historic Park deserves: it’s back on the right track. In old photos of the Will Rogers ranch, there was always a horse in the shot. Rogers’ favorite animal was the horse, and his favorite horse was called Soapsuds. In the past few years, even the boarding of horses at the Park has been suspended. It’s been a sad absence. Saturday was different. There were 45-minute horseback rides, pony rides, horses doing tricks and even a farrier demonstrating the art of blacksmithing. At the riding arena, which is the dirt oval above the green lawn, special stands had been set up for the large crowd of spectators to view the various acts. Will Rogers impersonator Robert Basgall rode into the arena, welcomed the crowd and acted as emcee for the program. Ambassador to State Parks June Lockhart arrived riding in a horse-drawn wagon. “Our dream is that this place will become as beloved by you as it was by his family 75 years ago,” Lockhart said. “Next year the restoration of the ranch house will be complete and we’ll have a dedication then.” “We’re proud of what the state is doing here,” Will Rogers’ grandson Chuck Rogers said. “Grandpa would’ve wanted to see people use the park and enjoy it.” After introductions, Patty Mayer of Culver City, dressed in a black jacket, top hat and white gloves, rode into the arena on her 1,650-pound Dutch Warmblood horse, Exakt. She explained and demonstrated to the crowd the steps, the skips, the canter and the trot the horse is required to do for Olympic dressage. The skill of Exakt, the U.S. Freestyle Champ, became more evident once Mayer invited five children out into the arena to mimic the horse’s steps, including skipping two, flying change, and skipping two. Striding out like he was at the OK Corral was gun spinner Joey Dillon, dressed in a black cowboy outfit, his spurs jangling. He demonstrated the gun technique that the greats used in all the Western movies and television shows, including forward spins and backward spins with both right and left hands. Dillon explained that he learned to twirl play guns while watching Westerns with his dad. As a child, Dillon wanted to learn a particularly difficult skill, which involves throwing the gun from behind over the shoulder as it twirled. The problem was the possibility of hitting his head with the gun. “The neighbors were probably amused watching the small boy on the front lawn, dressed in flip-flops, shorts, with a helmet on his head, throwing a gun over his shoulder,” Dillon said. Riding a horse and stopping in front of the crowd, Ramon Becerra jumped off, gave an order, and the horse lay down. One spectator in a surprised voice said, “The horse did that just like a dog.” Becerra then called for his other horse to come into the arena. When that horse was next to him, he mounted it, then had it step carefully over the first horse, so there was a horse above the one lying on the ground. Eventually, he had both horses lie on the ground as he did roping tricks while standing on them. Felix Lopez of Whittier, who is considered one of the best ropers in the world, awed the crowd with his demonstration. He teaches team members of the Broken Horn Ropers, which is a culturally diverse and multi-generational group. They’ve been featured in the Rose Parade as well as other venues throughout Southern California. “Skills that are common on ranches throughout the middle of the United States are a novelty to city kids,” said Tom Mahar, the official roper for Will Rogers State Park. “There are two kinds of roping, there’s cattle roping and then there’s trick roping.” He explained that the rope is stiff, and keeping the loop in a circle is based on centrifugal force. As he easily moved the rope back and forth on either side, doing a “butterfly,” he said, “The rope gets kinks, so you’re basically getting the kink out; it goes back in and you get it out.” Practice steers had been set up on the lawn below the arena, and members of the Broken Horn Roping club were giving tips and showing people how to lasso the steers. In one case, a dad was trying to lasso his son. Mahar saw a 1921 Will Rogers movie, “The Roping Fool,” at the ranch house 25 years ago, and was so inspired that he took up roping. “Tricks take a long time to learn,” he said, smiling, and added, “Forever. To learn the butterfly or merry-go-round, just one trick, can take from six weeks to six months of practicing.” Visitors to the park got to admire the skill of numerous other roping artists, including Pat Puckett Riata, Cattle Cutting All-Stars and the Dave Thornbury Trick Roping Show. “Wish they had money to do this more often,” Mahar said. “They should have this every weekend.” He looked around at the large crowd on the lawn listening to the Drew Davis Band sing “All Right Now.” Across the lane, farrier Jon Childs demonstrated how blacksmiths heat metal and shape shoes over hot coals. He explained that modern-day blacksmiths use propane now instead of coal to heat the metal. Horses need to be reshod every six to eight weeks. Childs explained that farriers remove and replace the shoes on horses, blacksmiths make the shoes. Will Rogers impersonator Basgall, after emceeing the program at the riding arena, walked among the crowd, answering questions and playing the perfect host at his adopted home. He was a Fox television and kids club host in the San Jose area, when the Western Stage Repertory Company told him a year ahead of time that they’d like him to play Will Rogers in “Will Rogers Follies.” When he asked why they were asking him a year ahead of time, they explained, “You need to learn how to rope.” “It became addictive,” Basgall said. “I started roping seven days a week, seven hours a day. I lost 25 pounds learning to rope.” He explained that more than playing the part of Will Rogers, it’s learning the philosophy. “Everyone who’s done the role’it’s changed them and how they see life.” He said the beauty of Will Rogers was that his humor would cause a person in the audience sitting next to the other person to say, “You know he’s right about that.” As if to make Basgall’s point, he steers you to Rogers’ quote: “There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.” Basgall, after being smitten with the beauty of Will Rogers’ life and philosophy, started his own company, Wild West Performers. When he was contacted to work the Jubilee, he was ecstatic. “This was my goal: to come here and walk through these doors,” he said. “Then I could die today happy.” He donated his fee for the Jubilee back to the park, as well as the fee for some of the performers he had brought. As the nearly perfect day came to a close, Walter Gray with California State Parks, reflected, “It was a very mellow event, a perfect family audience,” he said. “It mirrors the kind of programs we’d like to see on a regular basis.”

By NATALIE NELSON Special to the Palisadian-Post It is almost impossible to imagine the scene of the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia last December 26. The chaos that unfolded was inconceivable, and the rebuilding projects are still in the beginning stages, seven months later. After learning about the orphans, the homeless and the unemployed people who were greatly affected by the tsunami, 8-year-old Jade Brenner-Katz knew that she needed to do her part. “I’m lucky to have a great life and I want to help kids who don’t have as much as I do,” Jade said. She wanted to send toys, stuffed animals and clothes to the children who had to go through this traumatic experience, hoping to bring a little light into their lives and let them know that she cared.’ Jade’s mother, Lauren Brenner-Katz, searched for ways in which Jade could get these items overseas and to those who lived in an area that needed a great amount of aid. Jade wanted to make sure that what she sent actually reached children in need rather than be lost in storage or barred from entering the country. As Lauren’s search continued for several months, she met Dr. Martina Fuchs, a pediatrician who had already traveled to Sri Lanka once to help the victims deal with their experience and with their health problems.’Lauren and Dr. Fuchs met through a Buddhist meeting, and Dr. Fuchs agreed to bring the collected items and personally hand them out to children in need. ‘ Jade wanted to collect as much as she could for Dr. Fuchs, so Lauren sent out notices through her homeschooling community. Dr. Fuchs took the 300 collected stuffed animals, toys and clothing from Jade, and packed them into five suitcases to take with her to Sri Lanka. But she was told she was allowed to bring only four suitcases, and would have to leave one behind, or put it into storage.’Dr. Fuchs was determined to get everything that Jade gave her through, and told the Singapore Airlines workers that she would not leave the United States without the extra luggage.’Her intention was so clear that they allowed her the extra bag, and she was able to bring every toy with her. Once Dr. Fuchs arrived in Sri Lanka, she joined with fellow unpaid volunteers from countries such as England, Australia and Germany to set up a children’s clinic within a week. As a doctor with a Ph.D. in pediatric psychiatry, Dr. Fuchs gathered children who needed medical attention or help dealing with their experience, and had them draw pictures of what they saw the day the tsunami hit.’Many children gathered and created their own interpretation of what occurred, and in return, Dr. Fuchs handed out the toys, clothes, and stuffed animals from Jade. Once she did this, Dr. Fuchs saw children smiling and playing for the first time since her arrival. She saw the effect that a young girl with a big idea had and the impact it created. Dr. Fuchs made sure that the pink Converse tennis shoes that Jade had so graciously given away with the pile of goods reached a young girl in great need. Jade wanted to adopt a child to whom she could send money and toys to every month, and Dr. Fuchs found a young girl for her: Nimasha Madhuwanthi. The 3-year-old, who lives with four siblings and her two parents, lost her home and most of her belongings in the tsunami. Now Jade is excited and focused on sending over toys and clothing to her “little sister.” Jade, her sister older Hana, and their mother have joined Dr. Fuchs’ organization, the Real Medicine Foundation.’Jade is the youngest member of the Real Medicine volunteer team, and also a junior volunteer at the animal rescue organization Bichons and Buddies. She continues using her creativity to raise money for Real Medicine. Cash donations can be made through the Real Medicine Foundation Web site: www.realmedicinefoundation.org