Air Force Cadet From Yorba Linda Jumps Into a National Championship

James L. Travis, a Yorba Linda native enrolled at the Air Force Academy, won the Overall Collegiate Parachuting Champion award at competition in Clewiston, Fla.

Travis won the overall award for capturing first place in style, accuracy and overall performance--the three individual events he entered. In the accuracy event, the academy senior landed on the dot in three of his four attempts and missed his last attempt by 2 centimeters.

The Colorado Springs, Colo., academy’s Wings of Blue parachute team captured its 17th national championship by winning 18 of 25 medals. The parachuting event drew 85 participants from colleges throughout the country.

Ed Peterson, director of instrumental music at La Quinta High and Allen Elementary schools, was presented the I Make a Difference Award for his contribution to musical education and culture in Garden Grove by the Garden Grove Education Assn.

The Thalassa yearbook at San Clemente High School received first place with special merit honors from the American Scholastic Press Assn. for its 1987-88 edition. One judge commented, “Your yearbook was one of the two to three best books I have seen this year.”

Yearbook editors were Laurie Kim, David Anderson and Marianne Worley. The adviser was teacher Sheila Kasprzyk.

“McGruff’s Drug Prevention and Child Protection Programs,” a series of audiotapes, has been donated by Telephone Pioneers, a service division of Pacific Bell, to the Brea Police Department for use in its School Resource Division.

The tapes talk about child abuse, drug abuse, alcohol, skateboarding, bicycling, pedestrian safety, crime prevention and gangs.

Maureen DiMarco, a member of the Garden Grove Unified School District Board of Education since 1981, has been named president-elect of the California School Boards Assn. for 1989. The group represents more than 5,000 elected school board members throughout California.

DiMarco, who is studying for a law degree at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, is a past president of the Orange County School Board Assn. and a former executive board member of the Orange County Administrator Training Center. She was named the 1987 Woman of Achievement by the Business & Professional Women of Orange County.

She is also a member of the California Elected Women’s Assn. for Education and Research and is a volunteer with the American Cancer Society. DiMarco and her husband, Richard, have two daughters, who attend Garden Grove schools.

The Leukemia Society has named Orange Mayor Don E. Smith and Mayor Pro Tem Gene Beyer honorary maitres d’ for its annual Celebrity Waiter Luncheon on Feb. 3 at the Doubletree Hotel in Orange. The society has raised $20,000 from the past two luncheons. Business and civic leaders who will wait on tables include Peggy Calvert, Dr. James Doty, Georgann Gall, Doris Holbert, James Laub, Betty Michaels, Furman Roberts, Dan Scinto, Alan Trider, Bill Otter and Diane Winchester.

The luncheon is a spoof on black-tie affairs. Tickets, available at the society’s office in Tustin, are $25 each.

Orange Fire Chief Martel Thompson has been elected president of the Orange County Fire Chiefs’ Assn., an organization of more than 100 fire agencies throughout the county and professionals from the business and educational communities.

Newport Harbor area residents Jim de Boom, Dave Grant, Tom Deemer and H. Ross Miller were recognized for their volunteer services by the Newport Beach Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission.