TRIPLE CROWN: Saratoga son Ankur Luthra won not one, not two, but three awards upon his graduation from UC-Berkeley recently. He copped a gold medal that is given to the top graduating senior. It also meant he was valedictorian and the graduation speaker—the other speaker was former Clinton administration Chief of Staff Leon Panetta.
Luthra also received the Bechtel Citation, which is given to the most distinguished senior in all the engineering disciplines, and he earned the Haas Citation, given to the top graduating business student. Whew. Earlier this year he was named a Rhodes Scholar and will go to Oxford in the fall to earn a master's in computer science. Then it's on to Harvard for a combined four-year degree to put a J.D.-M.B.A. under his belt. That's a combined law and business degree program to which only a handful of students are admitted.
About eight are chosen from the 900 who attend business graduate school and the 600-some who are admitted to Harvard Law School. "I feel blessed, like there's a higher power watching over me," Luthra says about his successes in this highly competitive process.
When his formal schooling is over, he'd like to be part of a corporate mergers company because they intrigue him and he could use his technical knowledge, legal and business training all at the same time. The '99 Saratoga High grad is the son of Ravi and Tripta Luthra.
THE WINDS OF HOPE: A new book by a Saratoga Hall of Fame author is Paul Brown's The Winds of Hope. It's his second book, and it's published by XLibris. This one is creative nonfiction, since it's based on a true story but written in fiction format—dialogue, characterization, a dramatic recreation of historic happenings.
It's set in 1926 North Dakota and covers a span of three years in the lives of hard-pressed Dakota farmers.
The story of their hardscrabble existence is one of broken dreams but also personal triumphs as they hurdled hardships and tragedy. Brown's father, Charles Brown, was the pastor of the Dakota community and he is one of three main characters in the book.
The Saratoga author himself was a toddler during the time covered in the book. However, he researched extensively, reviewing his father's journals and church records. He also interviewed a half-dozen of those settlers still alive to tell their stories of courage and faith etched out of a primitive land.
Brown's previous work was a how-to, From Here to Retirement, published by Word Books in '88. In it he offers strategies on aging, building a new identity, growing in new directions. He covers finances, attitudes, marriage and health.
A retired engineer, Brown taught cybernetics at San José State University. He was probably one of the first to graduate from the school in that field. Later on, he taught retirement planning at De Anza College. The author and wife Alice are active in the Presbyterian Church and have four grown children and 10 grandchildren. To order copies of the book, call 888.795.4274.
THANK YOU: Teenager Kristina Wick, now living in Colombia, where her parents are serving a mission, was in Saratoga recently to deliver a thank you from Colombian preschool children to Immanuel Lutheran Church parishioners. The gift was made by the preschoolers that have been taken to heart by church members.
The children are enrolled at the Colegio Latinoamericano, where Barit and Dan Wick teach and administer, and this was in appreciation for the Trust Fund established by Immanuel Lutheran members and for the quilts and dresses sent to Cartagena by the church women.
TV SPOT: An interview with Saratogan Catherine Burr, author of the book Silicon Secrets, will air at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 11 over local access channel 15, KSAR in Saratoga and KCAT in Los Gatos. The host and interviewer of the show, Saratoga Today, is Norm Kline, Saratoga council member. Burr's book is selling at the top of the Amazon.com lists, she reports.
DARK RED SONNET: Uncorked!, the new wine store on Big Basin Way, held a gathering one recent evening that introduced a new wine to the world. It's called Sonnet and it's a pinot noir from 2001 Monterey grapes. Seems the winemaker, Anthony Craig, born in England, is a devotee of the Bard.
So his pinot noir is a tribute to England's foremost poet. He's got another naming task ahead of him, too, because Craig is married to Elena Sharkova and they are expecting their first child in December. The Russian-born Sharkova took Charlene Archibeque's place as choral activities director at San José State University.
Craig spent nine years with David Bruce Winery, working his way up the grapevine hierarchy. He claims he ran out of gas in Los Gatos after fleeing Los Angeles and liked the area so much he decided to stay on.
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By Mary Ann Cook