Several former Palisades High football players figure to play key roles on their Pacific-10 Conference teams during the upcoming college football season. Two PaliHi alumni are at 13th-ranked Cal, including 2000 Palisadian-Post Cup Award winner Geoff McArthur. A second-team All-American last season, McArthur is on pace to break Cal’s career receiving records this fall and could even make a run at the Heisman Trophy. The Bears’ senior wide receiver ranks fourth in school history in receiving yards (2,326), fifth in receptions (145) and needs 51 catches and 406 yards to become the team’s all-time leader in both categories. He set school single-season marks last year with 1,504 receiving yards, 85 catches and 10 touchdowns and ranked second behind Pittsburgh’s Larry Fitzgerald in receiving yards per game. McArthur was a human highlight film his senior year at Palisades. He led the nation with 1,779 receiving yards and his 91 catches (28 for touchdowns) ranked fourth in the country. He also played free safety on defense, making 80 tackles and intercepting three passes, and was voted the Los Angeles Times’ Westside Player of the Year. One of McArthur’s teammates at Palisades has rejoined him at Cal: Palisadian Eric Beegun. Though a shoulder injury forced him to redshirt last season, Beegun is expected to add depth at tight end and also contribute on special teams, where he played in 11 games as a true freshman. ‘ Beegun also enjoyed a stellar senior season at PaliHi, catching 20 passes for 300 yards and four touchdowns and earning All-Western League first-team honors. As a junior, Beegun made SuperPrep magazine’s All-West Region team after 25 receptions for 621 yards and nine touchdowns. Cal opens its season Saturday at Air Force. In January, David Koral transferred to UCLA from Santa Monica College and he will be a back-up for starting quarterback Drew Olson in the Bruins’ season opener Saturday against Oklahoma. Koral has two seasons of eligibility remaining. As a sophomore in 2003, he completed 155 of 281 passes for 2,202 yards, 18 touchdowns and six interceptions in nine games for the Corsairs. Koral signed with Vanderbilt in February 2001 but left after that season due to a change in coaching staff. He suffered a broken collar bone after one game at Santa Monica College the following year. He walked-on at Florida State in Spring 2003 but returned to SMC in the fall. Koral had two remarkable seasons at Palisades under head coach Ron Price. As a junior, he threw for 4,902 yards and 58 touchdowns and tied a national record with 10 touchdown passes in one game. His senior year he passed for 4,057 yards and 44 touchdowns, including a national prep record 764 yards against Van Nuys. Across town at USC, one of Koral’s primary targets at PaliHi is the first-string punt returner for the top-ranked Trojans. Greig Carslon, a redshirt junior, is 18th on USC’s career punt return list, with 48 runbacks for 365 yards. The sure-handed Carlson, a one-time walk-on now on scholarship, is also a reserve wide receiver. Carlson caught 66 passes for 1,380 yards with 26 touchdowns as a wide receiver in 2000 and had four interceptions as a defensive back. He added two touchdowns each on punt and kickoff returns. When Koral broke his arm during Pali’s first round playoff game at Birmingham, Carlson stepped in to throw for 260 yards and three touchdowns and he ran for two more scores. Up the coast at Oregon, Geoff Schwartz, who won the Post Cup Award as outstanding senior athlete at PaliHi in the spring, is already making an impression as a freshman offensive lineman for the Ducks. He was a standout performer in pre-season workouts and is practicing with the second-string line.
Palisades Volleyball Club Tryouts
Now in its 20th year, the Pacific Palisades Volleyball Club will be holding tryouts for its boys teams beginning next Sunday. The club enjoyed a successful Junior Olympics in Austin, Texas. PPVBC’s top 16-and-under boys squad finished fifth in the nation, with its only two losses coming against the division finalists. Tryouts for 17-and-under and 18-and-under boys will be Sunday, September 12 at Palisades High’s main gym. Registration begins at 7 p.m. and tryouts are from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Tryouts for the 15-and-under and 16-and-under boys will be Sunday, September 19, at the same time and location. Tryouts for 14-and-under boys are Friday, September 17, with registration at 6 p.m. and tryouts from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at PaliHi. Make-up tryouts for all age groups are Friday, September 24, with registration at 6 p.m. and tryouts from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Cost of tryouts is $15 per player and participants will need volleyball shoes, shorts, knee pads, a t-shirt, water and a good attitude. For information, call 226-2848.
Rec Center Roundup
The Palisades Recreation Center’s Summer Basketball League concluded with its championship games last weekend. In the Minor Division, the Cavaliers swept the Lakers two games to none and in the Major Division the Spurs beat the Timberwolves two games to one. In baseball, the Minor Division Dodgers defeated the Angels two games to none. Sign-ups for fall sports (roller hockey, boys and girls basketball and flag football) are in progress. Parents can register their kids by mail or by stopping at the Rec Center office (851 Alma Real Drive) through the end of next week. Cost per player ranges from $90 to $100. Practices for fall sports begin later this month and games begin the first week of October. Flag football will take place Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Girls basketball games will be on Saturdays in the small gym and boys basketball games will be on Sundays in the small gym. If the new gym reopens on schedule October 19, basketball games will be moved there. Roller hockey will be Friday nights or Saturday afternoons on the outdoor basketball courts. AYSO will use the Pali Rec Center playing fields for its younger age division practices from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and for games on Saturdays throughout the fall season. Progress continues on the floor replacement project in the new gym. Pali Rec Center Director David Gadelha is hopeful the gym will be available by the third week of fall basketball. ‘They have stacked the new floor in sections but they haven’t started laying it down yet,’ he said. ‘They may be waiting to let the floor acclimate a bit before they start. No one has been by in a couple of weeks.’ The 90-day project began July 19 and the City of Los Angeles hired a private contractor, Hur Hardwood Flooring, to complete the work. Gadelha insists the facility will not be reopened until a guard or security grate is installed around a pressure gauge that burst and caused irreparable water damage to the wood floor.
New Coach Sets High Standards
Conditioning and Positive Attitude Are Keys to Rebuilding Palisades’ Program
Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
Athletic director Leo Castro could scarcely contain his excitement when he was named head football coach in the spring. He brings a wealth of experience to the job, along with a qualified staff that he hopes will return the Dolphins to the success they enjoyed in the late 1990s under Ron Price. Castro replaces Jason Blatt, who posted a 9-13 record in two seasons. “We have a lot of raw talent,” said Castro, who was the offensive line coach at Granada Hills back when John Elway was the Highlanders’ quarterback. “How good we will be depends on how much our kids progress and whether they play to their potential. It’s a new coaching staff, a new system, and some of our players have had three or four coaches since they’ve been here, so there is always an adjustment period. But if everyone catches on fast, we could be very good.” Helping Castro will be his son, Aaronn, who will serve as offensive coordinator, and Joe Kearney, who will coach the defensive line and linebackers. Longtime Pali assistant George Burns and newcomer Steve Sims will be the offensive and defensive line coaches and Carter Austin, who was the Dolphins’ head coach in 2001, will work with the running backs and safeties. With only 35 players on varsity, Castro and his staff made conditioning their first priority this summer. “We got the players in the weight room and we stressed conditioning pretty early on,” Castro said. “That’s going to be big for us because we don’t have the numbers I was hoping for. We’re going to have quite a few guys playing both ways for four quarters, so they’re going to have to be in shape.” Just as important as conditioning, however, is the positive approach the coaches bring to practice every day. “If there is one thing I wanted to change, it was to make the game more fun for the kids and one of the ways to do that is to motivate them in a positive, not a negative fashion,” he said. “We want them to learn and for each and every kid to have an opportunity to play at both [varsity and frosh/soph] levels.” Castro said the Dolphins’ offense will include multiple sets and look similar to the one USC employed last year on its way to the national championship. “We’re going to have a lot of three- and five-step drops with a lot of crossing patterns. We’re going to throw the ball more than last year.” Burns, who has already conducted several “chalk talks” with Pali’s offensive and defensive linemen, said he likes the players’ attitudes so far. “These kids are a very coachable bunch. They seem receptive to what we are saying, but the real test will be how well they remember when it’s time for the kickoff.” Palisades opened 3-1 last season, but lost six of its last seven games when injuries and ineligibilities took their toll. This year, the Dolphins are more concerned with how they finish than how they start. “The coaches definitely have big goals,” said senior David Villalobos, who could be the starting center and will also play linebacker on defense. “They want for us what every team wants–to win the City championship. We’re behind them, we trust them and we think they can lead us there. But of course, we have to get it done on the field.” Villalobos will have a herculean task trying to fill the shoes of 6-3, 240-pound Jeremy Shorter, who graduated last spring. Also lost to graduation are tackles Greg Clark (6-4, 250) and and Palisadian-Post Cup award-winner Geoff Schwartz (6-7, 310). Palisades returns only two offensive linemen from a team that lost to El Camino Real in the first round of the City Invitational playoffs last season: Villalobos (6-1, 225) and Dominique Baker (6-1, 290), but they will be helped by Mitchell Schwartz, Geoff’s younger brother, who will start at tackle. “Mitchell is really coming on strong,” Villalobos said. “For someone so big, he’s very athletic. He gets very low on his blocks. He has been very impressive in practice.” Other linemen who could play both ways include seniors Justin Page and Sompon Nagbe and junior Christian Clark, who was a standout on junior varsity last season. At guard and backing up Villalobos at center could be junior Terrence Morris (5-9, 238). Expecting a productive senior season is quarterback Dylan Cohen, who has worked the last three weeks perfecting his spirals after spending the first half of the summer at baseball camps. In fact, Cohen was selected to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ elite prep team last week and hit two home runs in batting practice. But his sole focus now is on football and he is confident his second year as a starter will be more productive than his first. “My timing on the slant routes is good and my arm strength is there,” Cohen said. “I’m seeing the field a lot better, I’m reading the defense better and I’ve got a year’s experience. I would say our strength is in our running backs and our offensive line. If those guys can give me time, I’m going to make some plays.” After throwing for 645 yards and six touchdowns and rushing for five touchdowns last season, Cohen hopes to put up bigger numbers in Pali’s new offensive scheme. Backing up Cohen will be senior receiver Steve Collins and receiver/strong safety Robert Gillette, who quarterbacked Pali’s frosh/soph squad last year. Palisades lost some of the speed it was expecting back when last year’s starting tailback Ellis Anderson and his half-brother Isaiah Green (who averaged almost three touchdowns a game on frosh/soph) transferred to Long Beach Poly. Still, the Dolphins will have halfback Anthony Anaebere and fullback Andre Harris in the backfield again. Harris rushed for 734 yards and four touchdowns last year while Anaebere added 401 rushing yards. Cohen will also be the punter and placekicker as he was last season, when he converted 19 of 23 extra points and made two of three field goal attempts. “Kicking is a strongpoint,” he said. “I’ve been punting about 50 yards in the air in practice and the ball is turning over and hanging up there a long time. I haven’t practiced my placekicking too much yet but I will as we get closer to our first game. We’ve all got to step it up a notch in practice starting today.” On defense, Pali will be led by Villalobos, Page, guard/linebacker Alphanso Gray, defensive back Joseph Luckett, linebacker Christian Sanchez and free safety/cornerback Eugeni Borisson. “We have a lot of good guys coming up from frosh/soph,” Villalobos said. “Our defense is not big, but we’re fast. If everyone just plugs their gaps, we’ll be able to stop the run.” The last time Castro coached football was at Lincoln High in 1999, but he has taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 27 years and knows all about Palisades’ proud tradition. “This school has won more City titles than any other and I want to restore pride in the athletic program. Football is but one of many sports I want to succeed.” While Blatt stressed rushing and defense, Castro and his staff look to employ a more balanced attack, which should give the versatile Cohen an opportunity to make plays with both his legs and his arm. “The defense won’t know what we’re going to do,” Cohen said. “We’ll run, we’ll throw, we’ll do some bootlegs, we’ll do some play action. Whatever it takes to keep the defense guessing. I’m not afraid to tuck the ball away and run if I see an opening.” Senior wide receiver/defensive back Brandon Bryant, who led the team in receptions last year, thinks the Dolphins can be better than they were in 2003: “If we mix it up and everyone stays on the same page, we can have a good season. One thing I learned last year is that it takes a team effort. We all have to play together as one or it won’t work.” The Dolphins face a daunting schedule, with six of their 10 games away, including next Friday’s opener at perennial City Section power Sylmar. Pali also has nonleague games against Los Angeles and San Pedro (both beat the Dolphins last year) and opens Western League play with back-to-back road games against Westchester and City finalist Venice. “Honestly, I think we can go 8-2 if not better,” said Villalobos, one of the Dolphins’ team captains last year who hopes the new coaching staff will name him a captain again this season. “We believe we are better than Sylmar and I think we’ll come in better prepared for that game. San Pedro and Venice are going to be tough but we can upset them and I see no reason why we can’t beat everyone else. Don’t be surprised if we win our league and go deep into the playoffs.” Palisades’ frosh/soph went undefeated under head coach Ted Baker last season and was loaded with speed and talent. But only three players return from that squad and new coach Calvin Parker knows he must begin a rebuilding process. “Most of the standout players from last year are either up on varsity or transferred out,” Parker said. “So I have no idea how good we’ll be.” Parker has yet to decide on a quarterback, but said three freshmen are in contention for the starting job: Raymond Elie, Mike Latt and Allen Ferguson.
Blanck Students Earn Black Belts
Palisadians from Gerry Blanck’s Martial Arts Center received their black belts from Japan last week. The highest honor was awarded to 27-year-old James McMahon, who has trained in the art of Yoshukai Karate since the age of 7. He earned his fourth-degree black belt and, along with it, the prestigious title of Shihan-dai. Earning his third-degree black belt (Sempai) in the same discipline was 21-year-old Dustin Ovitz, who has been practicing since he was 8. Receiving second-degree black belts were Ashley Harrison (17) and Nicole Lynch (16). First-degree black belts (Shodan) went to 14-year-old Gavin Brown, 19-year-old Matt Lallas and 16-year-old best friends Eve Ayeroff and Mikaela Dunitz. Grand Master Yamamoto, a 10th-degree black belt, will visit Los Angeles on Wednesday, September 8’his first stop on a tour of United States dojos.
Volunteering to Be An AYSO Referee
By SUE PASCOE Palisadian-Post Contributor Unlike many sports in the Palisades, AYSO Soccer is an all-volunteer organization, including the referees. Some parents have protested saying that position is one that should be a paid one. There are problems with that idea including cost and availability. Three refs are needed for every U-8 match and above, and with games running simultaneously, and the price for a soccer ref costing $50 and up, the cost of supplying refs would run in the hundreds of thousand dollars for the season. It was suggested that we hire college students to work as referees. For just the U-8 boys’ division, which runs five games at the same time, you’d need 48 refs each and every Saturday. The challenge becomes getting everyone to realize that volunteering is the spirit and soul of the organization. Many people are hesitant to become referees for several reasons. They don’t know the game or they never played it as children. They’re afraid they’ll make a mistake. They’re afraid someone will yell at them. If you examine those reasons, doesn’t it sound like what we’re asking our children to do? They’re nervous because they’ve never played this sport or position before; they’re worried because they might make a mistake; they’re afraid someone might yell at them. We expect them to try anyway, so it seems like we should hold ourselves to the same standard. To help parents learn more about the laws of soccer, AYSO volunteers will be holding Referee clinics this Sunday, August 29 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and again at the same time the following Sunday, September 12 at the Pacific Palisades Public Library. If you just want a field refresher, you can come just for the afternoon. The people teaching the courses attended these same courses several years ago, and feel this is one way they can give back to the community by training new referees. All refs will be given free uniforms, whistles and badges on the completion of the course. Youth referees are also welcome to attend. If you absolutely cannot attend one of these two clinics, you may also attend a clinic offered by another region, which you can find at the Area P website: www.ayso1p.org. If your child will be playing in the U-8 division or older, you must attend the full day; if your child is playing only in the U-6 division, you may attend from 8:30 a.m. until 1 p.m., although we encourage you to attend the full day. Again, you cannot referee without having been trained by AYSO. The mandatory AYSO referee meetings will be on Wednesday, September 8 and on Wednesday, September 15, both at 7:30 p.m. at Mort’s Deli. The AYSO season starts for U-10 and above on Saturday, September 11, and for U-6 and U-8 on Saturday, September 18.
Isherwood at 100
Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
By STEPHEN MOTIKA Palisadian-Post Contributor Fifty years ago, the Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood wrote in his diary: ‘Made it! Fifty’the unimaginable age. And now comes what might be the most interesting part of life’the twenty years till seventy. What shall I do with them?’ He produced some of his best work in those two decades, including his novel ‘A Single Man’ and two volumes of autobiography. Aside from a short stint in Malibu, he lived for the whole period in Santa Monica Canyon. In 1959, he settled with his partner Don Bachardy into a house on Adelaide Drive, where he lived until his death on January 4, 1986. It was finally home for a man who spent so much of the first half of his life as a vagabond and prided himself as an ‘outsider.’ Now, in honor of his centennial, a celebration of this major figure of 20th-century letters is underway. Isherwood, who wrote nine novels, four memoirs, three plays (written with W. H. Auden), several books about Hinduism, and numerous essays and screenplays, is everywhere. The Huntington Library in San Marino has mounted an exhibition drawn from his literary manuscript collection (which they acquired in 1999), a series of concerts featuring music by composers Isherwood knew and admired, and readings and lectures. A major new biography will be published this fall, as will the debut of ‘The Christopher Isherwood Review.’ All this for the writer Gore Vidal called ‘the best English prose writer of this [the 20th] century.’ Although Isherwood was born on August 26, 1904, in High Lane, Cheshire, England, he left his native country in 1929 and never returned to live. He first went to Berlin at the invitation of his good friend, the poet W. H. Auden. Isherwood was taken with the city’s lively gay culture and bohemian nature, and spent most of the next four years there. His two novels based on his experiences in that city, collected as ‘The Berlin Stories,’ were the basis for ‘Cabaret.’ In 1939, he immigrated with Auden to the United States, where they first settled in New York. While Auden loved the city, Isherwood did not and made plans to move to California. Sue Hodson, Curator of Literary Manuscripts at the Huntington, said in a recent interview with the Palisadian-Post: ‘Isherwood was attracted to several aspects of the California lifestyle: its exotic reputation, the film industry, and the openness to different philosophical and religious ways of life.’ In September of 1939, Isherwood moved to his first residence above Santa Monica Canyon with a view of the ocean, at 303 S. Amalfi Dr. This part of the Palisades was still ‘rustic,’ home to writers and painters. Novelist Aldous Huxley, a friend of Isherwood’s, lived a mile up the hill. A mutual friend, Gerald Heard, introduced Isherwood to Swami Prabhavananda, a Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order and founder of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, that summer. Isherwood learned meditation from Prabhavananda and moved into the Vedanta Center in Hollywood in 1943 in hopes of becoming a monk. He spent the rest of the war there, but decided in 1945 that the monastic life was not for him. Freed from the constraints of a deeply religious life, Isherwood began a period of intense socializing, promiscuity and anxiety. His restlessness returned, and he spent 18 months away from California, including an extended period of time in South America. Most tellingly, he did not keep a diary or write fiction during these years. He later reconstructed the time in the memoir ‘Lost Years,’ which was published posthumously. It wasn’t until the Broadway hit of ‘I Am a Camera,’ based on his Berlin novels, in 1951 that he began to return to himself and to his diary and fiction writing. Isherwood’s diaries, which he kept until illness prevented him from writing in 1983, exhibit his incredibly straightforward personality, his emotional struggles and intellectual processes. His longtime partner Don Bachardy remembers that keeping a diary was one of the first things Isherwood told him to do; he’s kept one ever since. When the two met, Bachardy was 18 and Isherwood was 48. ‘The only valuable class I had taken up to that point was a typing class in junior high school,’ Bachardy told the Post recently. ‘Chris was completely responsible for my becoming an artist.’ In addition to supporting him through art school, ‘financially and emotionally,’ Isherwood also started Bachardy reading literature. ‘He gave me Hemingway’s ‘The Sun Also Rises,’ Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby,’ and Bront’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ to start and I just went from there.’ Bachardy’s first drawing from life was of Isherwood and he has only worked from life since then. His portraits of Isherwood appeared on each of the writer’s book jackets from the mid-1950s on. The art Isherwood encouraged Bachardy to try when they first met was the way the two connected while Isherwood was dying, as Bachardy produced dozens of ink drawings over the final weeks of his life. They were published as ‘The Last Drawings of Christopher Isherwood’ and represent the last significant black-and-white work Bachardy has done. He now works in color. On Adelaide Drive, Isherwood wrote what many consider his best novel, ‘A Single Man’ (1964), chronicling the day in the life of a British professor living in Santa Monica Canyon whose younger lover has recently died. The novel is a meditation on the temporality of life, but filled with humor, compassion and intelligence. Isherwood acknowledged that it is modeled after Virginia Woolf’s ‘Mrs. Dalloway,’ but that while writing it he was also thinking of the 1960 film, ‘La Notte,’ by Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni. The novel, which resembles in length a film script, reveals Isherwood’s passion for both literature and film. Hodson, who thinks the book is an ‘unsung masterpiece,’ said that Isherwood ‘was attracted and excited by this new medium. He thought that writers of fiction could learn something from screenplays.’ Unlike so many writers who were destroyed by Hollywood, Isherwood balanced his work for the movies with literary projects. Isherwood’s final novel, ‘A Meeting by the River,’ was published in 1967 and from that point on, he dedicated himself to autobiographical projects. ‘Christopher and His Kind’ (1976) tells the story of his Berlin years without obfuscating his homosexuality, as his Berlin fiction does. The autobiography emerged when the gay liberation movement was at a groundswell, and speaks to Isherwood’s leadership as a proponent for gay rights. In the book, Isherwood utilizes both the third-person observer (with the character ‘Christopher’) and the first person narrator participant (the ‘I’). For Hodson, this is a perfect example of Isherwood’s ability ‘to bend literary genres and to invent new forms.’ She also remarked on ‘his seamless, transparent prose’ which ‘seems so simple that its beauty and power sneaks up on you.’ Trying to fit Isherwood’s life into 10 exhibition cases was no easy task, and Hodson had to create scenes that best represented him. At first she thought she would dedicate a whole case to dealing with his pacifism, but realized that she couldn’t let her own fascination get the best of her, and folded the content in with his Vendanta experiences. One case focusing on his work in the film industry displays his screenplay for ‘The Loved One,’ while a neighboring vitrine features letters from other writers he was close to, including Truman Capote, Stephen Spender and Tennessee Williams. Hodson was delighted to be able to include video footage of Isherwood in London with flakes of falling snow catching in his eyebrows as well as a clip of him reading. ‘I really want visitors to hear him speaking,’ she said. In addition to admiring his work, Hodson also grew to like the Isherwood she met in his diaries and correspondence, ‘I found him to be an enormously humane person who was available and generous to people.’ She was impressed with his unflinching honesty, but also by his humanity. In her 25 years at the Huntington, Hodson has curated several exhibitions of great writers who happened to be rather unpleasant personalities. Following the Isherwood exhibition, Hodson is curating a selection of Bachardy’s portraits, drawn from both the Huntington and Bachardy’s personal collection. Bachardy greatly values the Huntington’s efforts to preserve Isherwood’s legacy, and encourage his own artistic efforts. Bachardy still lives in the house on Adelaide Drive, although he has added a second floor to his studio. His sitters get to look out on Santa Monica Bay and the Santa Monica Mountains. It is the view Isherwood loved, and some part of him is still there, for Bachardy said: ‘He is still very much with me. I still get advice from him.’ He added: ‘He never gave me bad advice.’ ‘Christopher Isherwood: A Writers and His World’ is on view at The Huntington Library through October 3. For more information, visit http://www.huntington.org or call (626)-405-2100.
Young Palisadians
SENNA CHEN, daughter of Suzan Vigil Chen and Adam Chen, has recently returned from a month-long study at MexArt, an art institute in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Senna studied drawing and painting, photography, jewelry making and Spanish. She plans to continue her study of art throughout high school and into college. Senna will be a junior at Marymount in the fall. o o o LISA M. HARWOOD, daughter of Bryant and Elaine Harwood, graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in economics from Boston College. Lisa went to Concord-Carlisle High School in Concord, MA. She will be working in Boston next year at Cornerstone Research doing economic and litigation consulting. While at school she worked with Appalachia Volunteers and Campus School Volunteers, and was a member of the Bellarmine Pre-Law Society. o o o Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), a non-partisan 501(c)3 organization promoting multilateralism, honored JESSICA KINLOCH, the daughter of James and Edith Kinloch, with its ‘Young Patriot’ award. The award was created to ‘to honor those extraordinary young leaders who fight for a U.S. foreign policy that is true to American values.’ As part of the award, Jessica participated in an all-expenses paid weekend retreat in Peacham, Vermont, aimed at raising global awareness on university campuses. ‘I feel terrific about receiving the award and moving forward with Americans for Informed Democracy,’ Kinloch said in an e-mail. ‘I was recently also named Senior Political Analyst of AID and am a member of the Board. I hope to use my position to encourage young people and communities across America to help improve America’s image abroad and to engage them in current world issues.’ According to the organization’s director Seth Green, Jessica’s impressive background qualified her for this honor. Jessica graduated this June from Harvard University with an honors degree in history. Her studies focused on the modern international migration phenomenon, specifically on human trafficking and xenophobia. Jessica is a recipient of the DeWolfe Howe grant from Harvard Law School to author a book as a continuation of her honors senior thesis entitled, ‘The Golden Venture Saga of 1993: Complex Dialogues and Continuing Reverberations.’ Jessica is active in the field of human rights and she has worked with some of the foremost authorities in her field. As an accomplished pianist, she has performed extensively in California and New England and also served as President of the Harvard Piano Society. In March of this year, as one-half of the Isengard Duo, she returned home to perform in a violin-piano concert at Pierson Playhouse. Jessica will now help to organize an Americans for Informed Democracy chapter in Dallas, Texas and the upcoming ‘Hope not Hate’ Series on U.S.-Islamic relations, to be held in September as part of a national town hall series in more than a dozen cities nationwide. Her future plans include teaching and law school. o o o Palisades High Seniors GENEVIEVE GOULD and KEREN DALLALZADEH are among a select group of students attending the UC Davis Young Scholars Program this summer. Hosted by the School of Education, the advanced science program introduces up to 40 high-achieving high school sophomores and juniors to the world of original research in the biological, agricultural, and environmental sciences. Gould is working on plant pathology, researching disease resistance in rice, while Dallalzadeh is working in plant biology, studying DNA damage and repair in Arabidopsis thaliana plants, a non-commercial member of the mustard family. Her work can aid in finding more precise and predictable genetic engineering methods for crops. To qualify for the program, students must have a strong academic record, have taken biology and two years of college preparatory math, write a personal essay, and have teacher recommendations.
Fighting for Peace at Age 90
By MARIE-CLAUDE HAMEL Palisadian-Post Contributor On the eve of her 90th birthday, Palisadian Martha Dresher has an inordinately challenging mission: to stand up for peace and the preservation of American civil liberties. Although it seems like an overwhelming task for the average citizen, Dresher has been committed to this fight for peace ever since the Vietnam War, when her son Paul, then 18 years old, successfully filed as a conscientious objector to avoid going overseas. Born in Tampa, FL, Dresher received her graduate degree in Political Science from Yale and moved with her husband Melvin, a mathematician, to Washington D.C., where she worked for the Combined Raw Materials Board, a group of representatives from the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States in charge of distributing raw materials to the Allies during World War II. After the birth of their daughter Olivia, the Dreshers moved to Los Angeles, where their son Paul was born, and finally settled in the Palisades in 1958. As an active member of her community, Dresher opens her door once a month to host meetings for Palisadians for Peace, a group she founded with four other Palisadians about two years ago. ‘We try to promote nonviolent solutions to disagreements,’ she said. Acting as treasurer of the group, Dresher is also the official archivist and files a copy of every piece of literature the group distributes. ‘I have so much material I have to retire. Anything that isn’t pertinent, I keep in my daughter’s room,’ she said. Dresher explained that her group sets up an information table every week at the farmers’ market on Swarthmore Avenue, during which time the members distribute petitions against nuclear weapons, clean money campaign petitions, petitions against certain provisions of the Patriot Act and voter registration forms. Although now mainly involved with Palisadians for Peace, Dresher began her first protest efforts by marching against the Vietnam War. ‘I was opposed to the war. It was a very awful period of all of our lives,’ she said, after explaining that her neighbor’s oldest son was killed at war by friendly fire. In the 1980s, Dresher actively took a role in the California Nuclear Weapons Freeze Initiative, which called for the halt of nuclear weapons production. She helped select one person in each voting precinct of the Palisades to hold teach-ins, make phone calls and get a crew to go door to door to promote the initiative. ‘I think it was a marvelous introduction to an educational time,’ Dresher said. ‘We didn’t get all we wanted, we didn’t get Congress to come through with the freeze, but all the representatives in Congress received a lot of pressure and we kept track of their voting records.’ Additionally, Dresher became active in Palisadians for Arms Race Education, a group that was active during the Cold War and had for its goal to educate community members about the dangers of nuclear weapons. ‘We had a great group going for a while and then the threat seemed to pass and we gradually stopped functioning as a group,’ Dresher said. At the core, Dresher said that her fight for peace comes from her Methodist religious background and her Bible studies. ‘It said ‘Thou shalt not kill,” she said. But Dresher also admits that she has mixed feelings about whether or not she is a true pacifist, since she believes in the right to defend oneself against an assailant. ‘I have never solved that problem,’ she laughed. Dresher’s ambivalent feelings are rooted in the fact that she herself was assaulted when she was returning from a class at Santa Monica College in the ’70s. ‘A man came up from behind and snatched my purse.’ Dresher fell in the gutter and cracked a rib. But in spite of her one hesitation about the merit of defending oneself, Dresher is staunch in her belief. Although her husband passed away 12 years ago, Dresher said that he always supported her involvement in anti-war groups. ‘He was delighted. We felt the same way about the same things. Although we kept our votes secret, I trusted his judgment.’ Dresher said that the same support was expressed by her children when they were growing up. ‘Fortunately, there was an agreement across the board on that.’ Although no longer living in the Palisades ‘ Olivia now lives in Seattle and works on editing and publishing fragmentary/memoir writing, and Paul lives in Berkeley and is a composer and a performer ‘ both continue to give her the support she needs. Though Dresher’s work has touched her family and friends, her positive thinking has also had influence on other members of the community. Marcy Winograd, who has been involved in Palisadian for Peace for about two years, said that Dresher is like no one else. ‘She’s a fabulous addition to our community. She’s a peacemaker within our organization as well,’ Winograd said. ‘Her whole life is a testament to commitment to social justice.’ Winograd, who is also active in the Swing State Sisters and tries to register voters in the hope for change, said that she found inspiration in Dresher’s attitude. ‘She’s always smiling and laughing and positive in her outlook,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of a better mentor.’ In addition to the Palisadians for Peace monthly meetings and the information table at the farmers’ market, Dresher holds peace vigils every Thursday afternoon at the corner of Sunset and Swarthmore but the efforts to grow the membership are ongoing. ‘It’s hard to get people to come,’ she said. ‘We have our core, usually, and we have people who say ‘We like what you do,” but Dresher added that residents who wish to make a difference need to take the initial step. ‘Try to get as much information as you can and raise questions about what the media portrays,’ she said. Dresher said she thought it appropriate that the words of Mahatma Gandhi grace the little flyers of Palisadians for Peace, which she hands out. ‘We must be the change we wish to see in the world,’ it reads. ‘I think it fits right in,’ she said. ‘If there is ever going to be a change, it has to come from us.’
Dr. Jack Coburn, 71; World Traveler, Kidney Specialist
Jack W. Coburn, M.D., a physician and UCLA professor, died suddenly on April 4. He was 71. Born on August 6, 1932 in Fresno, Coburn was a unique, independent spirit from the start. By the age of 15, he was managing his father’s shoe store during his father’s medical absences. After graduating from Grant Union High School in Sacramento, Coburn attended University of Redlands, where he was given a full scholarship, complete with room and board. After graduating magna cum laude, Coburn was accepted at the UCLA School of Medicine. He served an internship at UCLA and his residency at the University of Washington, after which he returned to Los Angeles to become a postgraduate research fellow in metabolism at the Wadsworth Veterans Administration Hospital and UCLA School of Medicine before joining the military. As an Army captain, Coburn was posted to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C. Successfully completing his military service, he returned to UCLA, where he became a full professor in the School of Medicine and Chief of the Metabolic Ward, Chief of Nephrology, Chief of the Metabolic Training Program and Vice Chair of Medical Service at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration. Coburn revolutionized the treatment of renal osteodystrophy. Nationally and internationally recognized as an authority in the field of divalent ion and bone metabolism, he published more than 250 significant scientific articles and received numerous lecture invitations from the most prestigious universities around the world. He received the Belding H. Scribner Award of the American Society of Nephrology and an award from the David Geffen School of Medicine for Significant and Noteworthy Contributions to the Field of Medicine. He was also cited in Naifeth and Smith’s ‘Best Doctors in America’ since 1982. According to fellow physician and colleague Bill Goodman, ‘Jack was infinitely generous. He simply guided me to a level of knowledge, understanding, and insight that I would never have reached otherwise.’ As successful as he was as a physician, Coburn believed that he gained the greatest fulfillment and reward from his role as husband, father and grandfather. He was an avid wine connoisseur and an eager traveler who had visited every continent but Antarctica, but Coburn’s most important time was reserved for his loving family. He and Kathryn Rorem married in 1958, during Coburn’s internship, and together they raised three daughters: Elizabeth Callander, Laurel Wright and Rachel Vandenberg. They were also blessed with nine grandchildren. Coburn is survived by his wife, children and grandchildren, as well as by his mother Eula, sister Sally Shroeter, and sons-in-law Clark Callander, George Wright, and Hans Vandenberg.
