Patriots are ‘Still United’

Minuteman controversy can’t keep the parade association from showing its solidarity at brunch.The Patriots Day Parade Assn. held its annual Honorees Brunch Sunday without disruption by outsiders or dissension in the ranks.

“America -- Still United” is the theme of the 2006 parade, scheduled to be held March 4.

Supporters of the Minuteman Project, which the association had denied admission to the parade, did not protest at the breakfast, an annual pre-parade event.

“This will be our 40th anniversary parade, and we are commemorating the first parade with our theme,” association President Nina Reitch said. “We are blessed with the quality of our honorees.”

Journalist Gordon Dillow will serve as parade grand marshal. Retired Laguna firefighter Walter F. Rening was named honored patriot of the year. Cossie Meckling will be honored posthumously as the citizen of the year. Hillary Greene and Robert Knapp are the 2006 junior citizens of the year.

Retired Marine Col. Charles Quilter III, vice president of the association, introduced the honorees, association members and local dignitaries, including Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider, “a fellow flack-catcher.”

Quilter has been in the trenches as the association spokesman in the war of words with the Minuteman Project.

Grand Marshal Dillow has a world of experience with words.

He graduated from the University of Montana’s School of Journalism in 1977 and began a 28-year newspaper career that has taken him across the globe.

Dillow covered the civil war in El Salvador for the San Francisco Examiner in the early 1980s. In March of 2003, as a reporter for the Orange County Register, Dillow volunteered to be embedded with the military in Iraq. He was assigned to the 5th Marines, 1st Battalion, the corps’ most highly decorated regiment. He re-upped for a second tour after the death of his wife, Tule.

Quilter, who came out of retirement to serve as a historian in the war, remembered getting e-mails from home that contained wonderful newspaper articles.

“Who wrote these?” Quilter asked his wife, Ann.

It was Dillow.

“Gordon did a wonderful job of explaining about Marines in combat,” Quilter said. “He was made an honorary member of the battalion, an honor seldom passed out.”

Dillow continued to write about the Marines after he came home, but he also wrote columns that led to important public discourse, according to Quilter.

“His work on behalf of the public is in the highest tradition of American journalism,” Quilter said.

Another wordsmith was honored Sunday.

Thurston Middle School student E.J. Kramer, 13, won the annual theme essay contest that will be included in the parade program.

“In spite of all the challenges, we have found peaceful ways to settle our differences,” Kramer read from his essay. “We are a country of different cultures, religions and political views. But we work hard to accept all of our difference, and this is why America is a proud nation.”

Both junior citizens of the year said their selection came as a surprise.

Laguna Beach High School Principal Nancy Blade and a school counselor broke the news to Greene.

“I am very honored,” Greene said.

She is secretary of the school’s National Honor Society, president of the local chapter of the American Field Service and business manager of the school’s Brush and Palette newspaper. In her spare time, she is learning to play the bagpipes, perhaps a useful skill if she decides to attend college in Scotland, which is on her short list of choices.

Knapp said he had no idea he was even under consideration for the honor.

“I think they chose me because of a good attitude and having respect for teachers and people,” Knapp said.

He was too modest. Besides a higher than 4.0 grade point average, Knapp is in the running for National Merit Scholar honors, serves as the student representative on the school district’s fund-allocation committee, tutors English as a second language at El Morro Elementary School and Laguna Beach High School, plays varsity volleyball and runs track. He was chosen by Laguna’s American Legion Post to go to the 2005 Boys State in Sacramento.

Rening, the 2005 patriot of the year, wasn’t much older than Knapp when he joined the U.S. Navy in 1942. He trained as a hospital corpsman and was assigned to the 21st Marines, a regiment of the 3rd Marine Division.

“There is a special place in heaven reserved for corpsmen who save the lives of Marines,” Quilter said.

Rening participated in the assault on the island of Bouganville in the South Pacific in 1943, surviving the sinking of his transport ship by a torpedo. He completed his six-year enlistment in 1948.

He married and worked as a firefighter for the city of Laguna Beach, as did his son, Steve. Both reached the rank of captain.

“We honor you for your service to the nation and to the Marines,” Quilter said.

Honoring Mechling as the citizen of the year was bittersweet for Quilter. Mechling was overjoyed to learn that she had been selected for the honor. Sadly, she died Dec. 31.

“We decided to honor her posthumously,” Quilter said. “She was a true Laguna original, and we miss her a lot.”

Quilter also paid tribute to other military men of Laguna Beach, including Marines Lt. Col. Jon Bork, retired Lt. John Caldwell, Cpls. Ed Hanke, Kevin Straight and Vincent Ray, and Lance Cpl. Nick Sweeney; Army Spc. Nick Radach; Army National Guard Cpl. Matthew Ampagoomian; and Marine Cols. Barbara and George Ampagoomian.

Laguna Beach High School, which many of the young veterans attended, is the staging area for the parade, which begins at 11 a.m. Marchers and riders head down Park Avenue, take a right turn on Glenneyre Street and another right on Forest Avenue and pass the reviewing stand in front of City Hall.

The Laguna Beach Emergency Communications Team will be stationed around town, providing radio communications for the parade announcers in key locations.

Quilter isn’t exactly kidding when he says, “Half of the city is in the parade, the other half watches.”20060210iueavrncWENDI KAMINSKI / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)The Patriots Day Parade Assn. distributed honors at its brunch on Sunday. Honorees were, from left, patriot of the year Walter F. Rening, junior citizen of the year Hillary Greene, citizen of the year Cossie Mechling (in photograph), grand marshal Gordon Dillow, junior citizen of the year Robert Knapp and essay contest winner E.J. Kramer (front).