Saratoga News
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Saratoga Sampler
Students give peace a chance, and get prizes for it
By Mary Ann Cook
PEACE PRIZES: Charles Walton is a Los Gatos inventor who has been sponsoring the Peace Essay Challenge for 18 years. It is open to all high school students, and eight of the top 10 winners this year were Saratoga High students. The top prize of $1,000 was won by Emily Harter of Saratoga High for her poem, "Dust."
Other Saratoga High winners were Reed Danis, who won third place for his essay, "The Korean War: What Preventions Could Have Been Taken;" and Kaveh Hemati, who placed fourth for his public speech, "The War in Iraq: 2001-Present." Natalie Meyer won a fifth place for "Hard-Fought Irony," about the Philippine-American War.
Sixth was Megan Finley for "World War I: A Preventable Disaster." Susie Seondok Park won seventh for "Darfur: Human Rights and Peace Crisis." Jonathan Pwu placed ninth for "If Only: How World War II Could Have Been Avoided." Sivakami Sambasivam was the 10th place winner with a speech, "Lessons from World War II."
The four top winners will give a program at the Unitarian Church on Blossom Hill and Short roads on June 18 at 10:30 a.m. Walton invented the radio frequency identification device that is used to make key cards for entry to hotel rooms and other uses.
GUITAR IDOL: Michael Bautista is the guitar equivalent of an American Idol finalist. A West Valley College instructor, he's rising to the top in the Parkening International Guitar Competition. Bautista is one of the 15 finalists in the prestigious contest, the classical guitar version of American Idol.
The winner of the contest will receive $25,000 and a concert/recital tour with orchestra, all of which will be professionally managed. Bautista was born in Los Gatos, graduated from Stanford and received his master of arts degree with honors from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He lives in Cupertino.
MASTER PIANIST: Famed pianist Jon Nakamatsu was the speaker at a recent Saratoga Rotary Club meeting. Nakamatsu captivated the crowd with his graciousness and humor but really wowed them when he sat down at the piano. Glenn Dick asked that he play, and Nakamatsu enchanted everyone with his performance.
The 1997 Van Cliburn Gold Medalist played Chopin's Fantasy Impromptu ("I'm Always Chasing Rainbows") and was greeted with a standing ovation afterward. Reiko Iwanaga, Saratoga Rotary president, knows Nakamatsu, having worked with him on benefits, and was thus able to enlist him as a speaker.
Asking the gold medalist to play on the Rotary piano was like asking race car driver Dale Ernhardt to drive a farm tractor, Dave Eshleman commented. Iwanaga called the program one of the brightest highlights of Saratoga Rotary's 50 years.
DESIGNING MEN AND WOMEN: Four West Valley College students received awards from the NKBA/GE Design Charette and Scholarship, sponsored by The National Kitchen and Bath Association recently. They are Idit Deutsch, Kay Lee, Jessica Liu and Jorge Villasica.
Deutsch won honorable mention and $1,000; the other three were all finalists and won $50 each. Also, West Valley student Dario Salcido received an honorable mention in the association's Student Design Competition.
West Valley is one of only two community colleges in the U.S. accredited by the Foundation for Interior Design Research, the educational gold standard in the interior design field.
STAND OUT: Dr. Fred Prochaska was named Outstanding Lecturer of the Year at SJSU. Prochaska has been an instructor in social work for the past 16 years at the university. His full-time job is dean of career education and workforce development at West Valley College.
Until recently, he wrote grants for the West Valley-Mission Community College District. His skill is evident in the fact that he secured $17 million in grants last year alone. His evaluations at SJSU have consistently been outstanding from students and colleagues alike.
HISTORY-MAKING WOMEN: Jim Arbuckle, second-generation local historian, will talk about three South Bay women at the Saratoga Library June 7 at 9 a.m.--Sarah Knox-Goodrich, Carrie Stevens Walter and Clara Shortridge Foltz. These three campaigned for women's rights, fair taxes and conservation.
Two were influential in the writing of the 19th Amendment. Arbuckle's father wrote Clyde Arbuckle's History of San Jose and his mother, Helen, wrote San Jose's Women: Colonial Days to 1970, which Jim edited and published. An engineer by profession, he is now following in his parents' footsteps, and will talk about their work, too.
WINGED MIGRATION: The documentary Winged Migration will be shown at the Saratoga Library June 15 at 7:30 p.m. as part of the Guadalupe Group meeting of the Sierra Club. Visitors are welcome, but bring your own cup. Contact is Marj Ottenberg at 408.867.4576.
OPEN STUDIO: Nacera Guerin will hold an open studio at 20241 Herriman Ave. June 3, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. She will have two European shows this year and is now represented by Gallery Agora in New York City, where she will have a three-week show.
Got a tip for Saratoga Sampler? Send email to maryanncook@earthlink.net.
