JIM DE BOOM -- Community & Clubs

ALLAN TINGEY -- ARBOR DAY: The name Allan Tingey and Arbor Day go hand

in hand in the Newport-Mesa community. Every third-grader in public and

private schools during the past 26 years has benefited from the

leadership of Newport-Balboa Rotarian Allan Tingey, who died of a heart

attack Tuesday at the age of 82. For decades, he participated in or

organized the Rotary Club’s Arbor Day efforts to provide each

third-grader, around Luther Burbank’s birthday on March 7, with a tree

sapling and planting instructions to take home and plant in a yard or a

pot.

Tingey would coordinate the activity with Hines Nursery, where the

saplings were purchased, the school principals for delivery to the

third-grade classes and with the Rotarians who made the actual

presentations. Each year, one school would be selected to receive a

five-gallon tree to be planted on the school grounds with a special Arbor

Day program presented by the third-graders and attendance by the school

superintendent, school board members and the mayor.

During the years of Tingey’s involvement, some 40,000 saplings were

given to third-graders and you can see them growing today in front- and

backyards all over Costa Mesa, Corona del Mar and Newport Beach. No other

person or group has been more responsible for the greening of

Newport-Mesa than Allan Tingey and the Rotary Club of Newport-Balboa. For

many third-graders, it was the first time they learned firsthand about

our responsibility for our environment and to care for something other

than themselves.

After Tingey retired from Ralphs grocery store as corporate counsel,

the Tingeys moved from Pasadena to Big Canyon and purchased Newport Beach

Travel in Corona del Mar. Tingey and his wife, Adele, loved to travel,

and travel they did, visiting Rotary clubs and YMCAs around the world,

making new friends in the process. Often they hosted international

visitors they had met abroad. Tingey remained active in the Pasadena

YMCA, where he served on the board and the YMCA Men’s Club, the service

club of the YMCA.

Tingey joined the Rotary Club of Newport-Balboa in February 1976. He

served the club in a variety of positions, including as president in

1987-88. For Rotary, Tingey was a willing worker at the city of Newport

Beach Track Meet, the Okazaki Exchange Halloween party, at fund-raisers

and other hands-on service projects. At weekly club meetings, he was

often the greeter, song leader or fine master.

Services for Tingey will be at 11 a.m. today at the Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2150 Bonita Canyon Drive, Newport Beach. In

lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial donations to the Rotary

Club of Newport-Balboa Foundation -- Arbor Day fund, P.O. Box 1944,

Newport Beach, CA 92660.

Janis Dinwiddie, a member of the Los Angeles 5 Rotary Club, upon

hearing of Tingey’s death, sent this note: “My condolences to you and

your fellow N-B Rotarians on the loss of your past president. Although I

never met him, I know Allan must have been a wonderful person -- he was a

Rotarian!”

As you can tell, Tingey made a difference in our community, our world

and with its people. His was a life well lived.

SERVICE CLUB MEETINGS THIS WEEK: Who did you help this week? Don’t

have an answer for that question? Try helping your community and the

world through a service club. You are invited to attend a club meeting

this week. Many clubs will buy your first guest meal.

MONDAY

6 p.m.: Harbor Mesa Lions Club will meet at Zubies Restaurant.

TUESDAY

7:30 a.m.: The Newport Beach Sunrise Rotary Club will meet at Five

Crowns Restaurant.

6:30 p.m.: The Costa Mesa-Newport Harbor Lions Club will meet at Skosh

Monahan’s.

WEDNESDAY

7:15 a.m.: The South Coast Metro Rotary Club will meet at the Center

Club (o7 https://www.southcoastmetrorotary.orgf7 ), and the Newport

Harbor Kiwanis Club will meet at the University Athletic Club.

Noon: The Orange Coast Exchange Club will meet at the Bahia Corinthian

Yacht Club for a program by Craig Pursley, illustrator for the Orange

County Register.

5:30 p.m.: The Rotary Club of Newport-Balboa will meet at the Bahia

Corinthian Yacht to hear James Bruce Sievers “An American in Love with

His Country” (o7 https://www.newportbalboa.orgf7 ).

THURSDAY

7 a.m.: The Costa Mesa-Orange Coast Breakfast Lions Club will meet at

Mimi’s Cafe for a presentation by Jess Bequette on the search for

extraterrestrial intelligence.

Noon: The Kiwanis Club of Costa Mesa will meet at the Holiday Inn, the

Newport Beach-Corona del Mar Kiwanis Club will meet at the Bahia

Corinthian Yacht Club for a program by Capt. Marty Kasules of the Orange

County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol, the Exchange Club of Newport Harbor will

meet at the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum for a program by Garry Brown

of the Orange County CoastKeeper, the Newport Irvine Rotary Club will

meet at the Irvine Marriott for a program by Judge Geoffrey Glass of the

Harbor Justice Center on the new drug court program (o7

https://www.nirotary.orgf7 )

* COMMUNITY & CLUBS is published Saturdays in the Daily Pilot. Send

your service club’s meeting information by fax to (949) 660-8667, e-mail

to o7 jdeboom@aol.comf7 or by mail to 2082 S.E. Bristol St., Suite

201, Newport Beach, CA 92660-1740.