District shows PRIDE in employees

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- The normally desolate boardroom of the Newport-Mesa

Unified School District was crammed to overflowingTuesday night, when the

first round of employees were recognized for their outstanding service to

the district and the community.

District officials said they knew it was long past time for employees

to get a few well-deserved pats on the back. That notion was reinforced

when 70 nominations were received for a new award created in the fall.

Of those 70 nominees, 25 earned the honor of being a recipient during

the first round of the quarterly awards.

An employee recognition committee formed last year developed the PRIDE

program in an effort to give praise and boost morale. Each letter in the

title of the program stands for one of the five areas in which an

employee may be recognized. P stands for positive attitude, R recognizes

the person’s number of years in service to the district, I is for

initiative and creativity, D is for dependability, and E is for

excellence in customer service.

Morale was certainly up Tuesday night. There was whooping and

hollering as the 25 names -- from principals to payroll clerks and

teachers to janitors -- were called out.

The loudest applause was for Tommy Reminisky. He is apparently the

district go-to-guy.

“He’s a maintenance supervisor but, boy, does he do more than that,”

said Laura Atkins, coordinator of administrative services for the

district.

Another round of earsplitting applause went to Temoc Zamarripa, who

now takes care of maintenance for Whittier Elementary School but has been

around for years.

The other 23 award winners were Valerie Braun, Alan Engard, Javier

Garcia, Nancy Hamilton, Norma Hanson, Michelle Hileman, Lynda Hughes,

Marge Newman, Joan Allen, Jean Cook, Eileen Hueston, Carol Irwin, Michael

Jones, Karen Kendall, Lisa Latchford, Nancy Malone, Mike McGuire, Pepe

Montenegro, Claire Ratfield, Barbara Rothman-Haddock, Shelley Stanforth,

Sandy Stovall and Todd Warren.

The district will be accepting nominations for the second set of

awards over the next few months.