Saratoga News

Saratoga Sampler

Mary Ann Cook

Saratoga woman makes a grand president

AS GRAND president of the Young Ladies Institute, a foremost organization for Catholic women in the Western U.S., Marge Young has traveled the three West Coast states and Hawaii at quite a clip this year, visiting each of the 126 institutes under her jurisdiction, as well as each of the bishops in those states.

Sounds like an institute or a bishop every three days: She must have been hard to find at home this past year. It's up to the grand president to pick a philanthropic theme for the year, and Marge picked illiteracy (combating it, not promoting it, of course).

Some YLI members tutored San Quentin inmates as their project, while others raised funds through fashion shows. Marge chose that topic in memory of her father, an immigrant from the Azores who became a successful dairyman but never learned to read. "Think what he could have accomplished if he had," she speculates. Her year as GP was a "wonderful experience." She says respect and warmth greeted her throughout her travels.

YLI was founded in San Francisco in 1887 by three young women who wanted to help an ill, financially strapped friend. Today there are 12,000 members. Our Lady of Los Gatos is the local branch. In her non-grand-president life, Marge is the M in the J & M Glass Company she founded with her late husband. When she completes her term this month, she'll redirect her energies to her business, which she now runs with her son. She's one of the few of us who's really on the cutting edge.

OPERA BUFF alert: When Opera San José offered a weekly five-session class for $20 on the changing characteristics of opera, they figured they needed 15 in order to make it fly. They got 300 responses. But the rehearsal hall only holds 150, so every check over that number had to be returned. Development Director Larry Hancock is the lecturer. He was OSJ artistic director Irene Dalis' graduate teaching assistant and has been with Opera San José since its inception. The class may be offered again, but the ante's going up. Call 437-4450 if you're interested.

HI ACHIEVERS: Two Saratoga High scholars, Charles Wang and Ajay Narasimha, won first and second prize in the Los Gatos Rotary's International Affairs Contest. Wang won $1,000 for first, Narasimha $300 for second. The winners were judged on their essays about the benefits of the Euro dollar and their answers on an exam. Wang will head to Harvard in the fall; Ajay, a sophomore, has a fine start at the honors game.

Nine seniors were honored by the Saratoga-Los Gatos chapter of the National Charity League for their six years of community service in that organization. They helped chaperone the athletes at Special Olympics competitions; entertained at Courageous Kids, the organization for children with cancer; worked with the families at the Family Living Center and helped at the Battered Women's Shelter. The nine are Brianna Bruton, Jennifer Chalmers, Heather Ferreira, Maren Hanssen, Ashley LaMore, Meagan Leach, Melissa Lum, Sara Pidwell and Ashley Ralston.

And here's a young man who won 23 awards when he graduated from Sacred Heart School. Bobby Conrado, 14, accrued a 4.0 grade average, was secretary of the student council, ran track and played basketball, volleyball and soccer. He won a Citizenship Award from the Saratoga Rotary and an Award for Excellence in academics from Sacred Heart, plus 21 other scholastic awards. He credits "hard work for these fine results." His parents are Paul and Libby, and Bellarmine beckons in the fall.

MARLENE Duffin, she of many hats, will don two new toppers for the coming year: president of the Good Government Group and president of the Saratoga Lions Club, perhaps the first female to lead that group, since women haven't been accepted as members for very long. Until a few years ago, the female counterparts were enclosed in a totally separate organization called Lionesses.

Duffin has been part of every school governing board here--elementary, high school and West Valley, as well as the League of Women Voters and AAUW. If cloning is ever made legal sounds like Saratoga would be well-served by cloning Marlene Duffin.

SO SUCCESSFUL was Bobbi Battaglia's spring front-door wreath that a small bird made a nest in it. Gradually five light blue jelly-bean-sized eggs appeared in that nest. Bob Battaglia, fearing that the constant comings and goings of the front door would disturb the potential new arrivals, moved the entire construction to a front column of their house for its protection. But within days a predator had knocked down the wreath/nest, and the eggs were gone. Whether victim to a raccoon or cat, no one knows. The Battaglias have positioned wreath and nest back up, hoping the mother will try again.

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