Six of the best lauded for who they are

BARBARA DIAMOND

When you fish in the Laguna Beach pool of accomplished women, you are

sure to come up with keepers.

The Laguna Beach Foundation of the American Assn. of University

Women honored six outstanding women Monday night at the annual

Leadership Dinner at Tivoli Too!

Awards were presented to Laura Davick, Natalie Zucker, Vera

Martinez, Lucinda Prewitt, Jean Raun and K Turner.

“Many of you are here for the people to be honored,” dinner chair

Carol Reynolds said. “You cannot be a leader if no one follows.”

Association branch members introduced the honorees.

Mary Fegraus, whose own environmental credentials are exemplary,

introduced Davick, a leader in the preservation of Crystal Cove as a

state park, honored for her dedication to the environment.

“Laura was one [year old] when her family moved into Crystal

Cove,” Fegraus said. “But Laura didn’t say, ‘This is mine.’ She

wanted to share it.”

Fegraus, a 1999 honoree, lauded Davick for working for 10 years on

the preservation of the historic development and its conversion to a

public park without alienating the state. She was a founder of the

Crystal Cove Alliance.

“I am touched to be here,” Davick said. “This is really about the

opening of the park to the public.”

A $12 million restoration project begun in March will be ready in

12 months. Restoration of the remaining 24 cottages will cost another

$10 million.

“I would like to recognize Joan Irvine Smith -- we could not have

done this without her,” Davick said. “She is my partner in crime.”

Ruth Geis introduced Community Service honoree Zucker.

Zucker came from a family of achievers and fitted right in.

She served as a lieutenant in the WAVES in World War II. She

established the Childrens’ Guidance Center of Whittier. A

psychologist by profession, Zucker is a volunteer at Laguna Shanti

and a docent at the Laguna Art Museum by inclination.

“People don’t achieve things, planning to get an award,” Zucker

said.

The association’s Laguna Beach branch President Karen Dennis

introduced Martinez, who is willing to turn her hand to any task that

helps those in need.

“The first time I saw Vera, she was selling tamales for La Playa

[center for child care and English as Second Language],” Dennis said.

Not all her tasks are so humble.

Martinez is president of the Laguna Beach Community Clinic and a

member of the Cross-cultural Council, the Laguna Beach Woman’s Club

and the Assistance League. She heads Head Start of Orange County and

was the president of Santa Monica and Fullerton colleges.

“When I retired, I joined just about every woman’s organization

there is,” Martinez said. “If I missed one Lee Winocur Field

introduced me to it.

“It’s kind of neat receiving an award for community activism.”

1999 honoree Anne Johnson introduced Prewitt.

“Cindy is a little dynamo,” Johnson said. “If she sets out to do

something, she does it and does it well.”

Prewitt was honored for her contributions to the arts in Laguna

Beach, which include raising funds to renovate the Laguna Beach High

School Artists Theatre, arranging World Beat concerts in the theater,

founding the First Sunday chamber music concerts and music master

classes.

Why she does what she does, even she questions at times.

“One Friday there were several events in town, only 50 tickets had

been sold to mine and the star was stuck in Japan in a typhoon,”

Prewitt said.

But everything turned up trumps. The star showed up and the

audience was there to applaud.

“I can’t make music, but I can preserve it,” Prewitt said.

Barbara Williams-Pemberton introduced public policy advocate Raun.

Raun is a past president of the Laguna Beach unit of the League of

Women Voters, served on the Vision 2030 governance committee, worked

for affordable housing in Laguna, is a mentor-teacher and active in

the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

Raun’s goal is to reform campaign financing in Laguna Beach.

“From long years of teaching American history, I have gained a

great love for our country, but I am not really responsible for this

honor.” Raun said.

“The league dealt with the first Downtown Specific Plan. League

people were in the visioning process and of course, the league says

we have the responsibility to vote and to participate and to help

educate voters.

“I am a little disappointed that this election is so bitter. We

have the right to disagree, but we don’t have to be nasty. Look at

the issues and vote on that.”

Winocur-Field, 1999 education honoree, introduced Turner, honored

in the same field.

“Ten years ago, K Turner beat the pants off me in a school board

election,” Winocur Field said

Since then Turner has done the board and the city proud. She is

the winner of the Orange County Board of Education’s Outstanding

Contribution to Education Award.

Turner’s education is outstanding. She holds degrees in nursing,

law and religious science.

“Education -- learning and knowing is sacred; we need to recover

that which is sacred,” Turner said.

Turner said we must learn to respect differences and to live

together in harmony.

“Not everything can be crammed into a box or a category -- we lack

a simple respect for the ways in which reality is other that we want

it or imagine it to be. A simple example: we teach Third World

cultures form a western paradigm. How arrogant.

“If we have recovered our sense of the sacred, we would recover

our capacity for wonder and surprise, essential qualities in

education,” Turner said. “By conspiring with death-dealing education,

we help create death-dealing education. By deciding to live divided

no more, my colleagues and I are helping to change that.”

Proceeds from the dinner benefit Even Start, Pennies for Peace, a

school in Afghanistan and the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, all

educational projects.

* OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline

Pilot. Contributions are welcomed. Write to Barbara Diamond, P.O. Box

248, Laguna Beach, 92651; hand-deliver to 384 Forest Ave., Suite 22;

call (949) 494-4321 or fax (949) 494-8979.