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Rotarians learn more about their gift of sight
By Mary Ann Cook
FLYING OPTOMETRIST: Tracy Miller, a Los Gatos optometrist and Rotarian, brings the gift of sight to the Tarahumara Indians who live in the Copper Canyon area of Mexico. Copper Canyon is a remote area where health services were nonexistent until the arrival of the Flying Doctors.
Miller presented a slide show/talk of her adventures to bring eye care to Mexico at a Los Gatos Rotary meeting recently. The area takes nearly two days of travel to reach and the delegation uses plane, train, bus, taxi and foot to reach it. Armed guards accompany the train.
Drug traffic is so prevalent that there's often fear that the plane will be mistaken for a trafficker and be shot down. The hotel in which the team stays was twice robbed last year, although not at the time they were there.
Miller makes two or three trips a year, accompanied by retired dentist Stephen Krug of Pleasanton and pilot Hank Guenther, a Los Gatan who owns The Saddlerack. She started with the Flying Doctors and "got hooked on the people." Miller works primarily at an orphanage that keeps growing.
When she started going there six years ago, it housed 300. It is now home to 3,000 orphans. These days her forays are financed in large part by a grant from Rotary International.
Miller devised her own method of treatment. When she first started she worked with donated glasses, trying to match impairment with donation, a time consuming, hit-or-miss task. It was also a heavy burden carrying in the boxes of glasses.
After contacting optical suppliers, she was able to acquire an auto refractor at a reduced price, lens and inexpensive empty frames. She is now able to customize the lenses on the spot. Now, in four or five days, she can supply glasses to as many as 350 people, a tenfold improvement.
Dental care is more badly needed than eye care, she says, and though she can't go very often, others do, including Los Gatos dentist Jack Chamberlain. It's hard to get an intern to staff the health clinic in this remote and danger-riddled area.
Mexican doctors in training serve a year of internship, but there is no one stationed at the clinic at the moment. Women interns aren't accepted because of the inherent dangers. About her dedication to the Tarahumaras, Miller says, "I get so much more out of it than I give."
HALL OF FAME: Steve Wozniak, who coupled a central processing unit with a keyboard and disk drive that had color and graphic capabilities when he invented the Apple II, will be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in September.
The personal computer Wozniak invented now became affordable and ushered in a new era and a new highway called information. The Apple II was patented in 1979. A National Science Foundation survey reported that 54 percent of Americans now have access to a computer.
The ceremonies, which will induct six others, including Walt Disney, will be held in the inventors museum in Akron, Ohio.
SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS: Monica Bullard and Irina Rozhansky, both West Valley College students, won $800 scholarships from the Los Gatos-Saratoga branch of AAUW. Carol Howard was scholarship chairman and the awards are presented to re-entry women who are math or science majors transferring to a four-year school.
Bullard will enter the nursing program at San Jose State University. Rozhansky is a math major who intends to teach and will also head for SJSU. The funds come from the annual Chinese New Year dinner.
In other AAUW news, new officers are Allyson Lageschulte, president; Ann Martin-Rowland and Bernie Fawley, vice president, programs; Marlene Lamb and Bette Peska, v.p. membership; Jean Wenberg, v.p. educational foundation; and Patricia Weber, v.p. finance. For information on joining AAUW, call Peska at 408.356.1994.
BOOT CAMP FOR DOGS: Did you know there is a boot camp for dogs? Anna and Tony Neal are sending their dogs, Roxy and Rudy, both dachshunds, to camp in San Ramon for further discipline this summer. The Neals are expecting a baby in November.
They want to make sure their dogs are well-behaved when the baby joins the family. So far the dachshunds have been top dogs in the household, but that will soon change. Rudy is the dog that won an entry to the Wienerschnitzel race early last month, but got spooked by another dog on the track and spent the race time evading his attacker.
ON SALE NOW: It's time to sign up for the Los Gatos-Saratoga Community Concert series for 2000-2001. "There's not a better musical bargain to be found than a season ticket for the concerts in Los Gatos High School auditorium," declared the late Weekly-Times columnist Robert Aldrich.
The series will feature the jazz group Side Street Strutters on Sept. 10, at 4 p.m.; violinist Linda Wang on Nov. 12; the San Jose Wind Symphony on Jan. 21; and pianist Cristiana Pegoraro on April 22. All concerts, except the September one, are at 2:30 p.m.
Season tickets cost $40 for adults; $35, seniors; $10, students. A family membership plan is $85. For tickets, call Ray Strong at 377-1106, or Lea Frey at 356-5698.
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