FIVE juniors from Los Gatos High School will be on their way to Washington, D.C., June 15 for a one-week study tour, thanks to the thoughtful generosity of longtime Los Gatos resident Emerson Shaw, LGHS Class of '33. Shaw has established a "Close-Up Washington" scholarship fund for the high school, a program that's already in more than 3,000 high schools. LGHS students are now eligible for five annual scholarships to help provide a seven-day study tour. Eligibility for the Shaw Scholarship depends upon grades, citizenship on campus and off and the quality of a required essay. The program is in place in other Northern California schools, but is new to this area, according to assistant principal Patricia Hughes.
Winners of the first Shaw Scholarships are DeeDee Barber, Peter Carter, Deva Dawson, Chiara Grabill and Jessica Fennik. Accompanied by Hughes, they'll take a side trip to Colonial Williamsburg, Va., and have workshops and seminars with Capitol Hill leaders.
A former photojournalist, former curator at Forbes Mill Museum and member of the Los Gatos Rotary Club, Shaw has taken numerous journeys of historical interest in California, the United States and abroad.
Hughes suggests checks to LGHS Emerson Shaw "Close-Up Washington" Scholarship Fund (if you can get all that on one line).
THE California Republican Party awarded a special certificate of recognition to Roseann Fisher, longtime Los Gatos resident, at a meeting of the Los Gatos Republican Women May 15 at La Rinconada Country Club. Fisher has been active in the Republican Party for more than 20 years, serving in various capacities. The honor was presented by Bok Pon, the party's Northern California vice chairman. Fisher is currently on the Santa Clara County Transit District Commission for Transit Accessibility.
DAVE Letterman's CBS show from San Francisco May 8 featured Dave's Top Ten List. But this time, instead of citing the list as coming "from the home office in Sioux City," the late-night host proclaimed his list as coming from "Los Gatos, California." Letterman and crew were spending a week in the City by the Bay. Once more Los Gatos rates national attention, but then, ho-hum, we're used to it.
AN eligible bachelor no longer, Tak Kasumoto, proprietor of the Los Gatos Hearing Aid Center, 430 Monterey Ave., tied the wedding knot with Eleanor Best of Saratoga in a May 18 ceremony at the Hayes Mansion in San Jose.
WHEN the curtain closes in the theater it may merit applause, but there were no huzzahs from this writer when a dark curtain cut off most of the vision in the left eye. This was something I'd been warned could happen before I had cataract surgery a year or so ago, with a retina stretched like thin wallpaper due to nearsightedness. At Good Samaritan Hospital, Dr. Walter Stern, of Retina-Vitreous Associates, reattached the torn retina in a 90-minute operation, and I came home after an overnight stay. It will take a few weeks to restore vision fully in that peeper. For a while I'll keep an eye on Los Gatos doings, but literally.
FAMILY Service helpers will get the thanks they deserve at a volunteer luncheon the Family Service Association sponsors June 3 at 11 a.m.at the Neighborhood Center, 208 East Main St. Pianist Cass Bullard will provide the entertainment. All FS volunteers are welcome, says manager Meg Basinski.
KENNETH Peake, longtime owner of the Claravale raw-milk dairy farm in Monte Sereno, was the special guest at a reception May 18 heralding the exhibit "A New Look at Old Los Gatos" at the Forbes Mill Museum. The exhibit, which runs to Aug. 31, includes memorabilia from the dairy farm as well as antique tools and household and office equipment of the past and a newly restored display about pioneer Mountain Charlie McKiernan.
Forbes Mill curator Mary Foster spotted one comment in the visitors' book. A boy wrote, "It was just like history!"
HE'S president of the Cupertino National Bank, but Don Allen's true love is baseball. Allen, a member of Cupertino Rotary Club, described the history of the game for Los Gatos Rotarians. Baseball began in 1840, before the Civil War, but wasn't organized with rules until 1861. The first game was played in Cooperstown, N. Y., so the National Baseball Hall of Fame is located there. Since the first World Series championship in 1903, the Series has been held every year through two World Wars, until the 1994 strike.
When, as a boy, Allen used to watch the San Francisco Seals and the Oakland Oaks on the same Saturdays, the players played because they loved the game. By contrast, a shortstop batting .214 is now paid $1.2 million.
THE Santa Clara railroad depot was the site for a talk and slide presentation by Los Gatos Historian Bill Wulf, who addressed the San Jose History Club May 22 on "Railroads Through the Santa Cruz Mountains."
ARBOR Day on April 25 reminded me that when I was a kid, our family used to picnic at Arbor Lodge State Park on the Missouri River in Nebraska City, Neb. This had been the home of J. Sterling Morton, the pioneer fruit grower, Nebraska territorial governor, and newspaper editor who founded Arbor Day in 1885. The house with its white pillars resembles Scarlett O'Hara's Tara. Pioneers found the prairie bare of trees. Morton strongly encouraged tree planting and the idea caught on. The states set their own dates for Arbor Day. Some are April 22, Morton's birthday.
NOW I know I've arrived! Members of Los Gatos Kiwanis Club, engaged in a scavenger hunt led by MarLyn Rasmussen May 18, stopped by to collect my autograph. Can the Hollywood Walk of Fame be far behind?
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, May 29, 1996.
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