A milestone celebration
Ronald and Anita Kelly are getting ready for a big day. The Orange residents will be celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary on Feb. 17, one day after their birthdays on Feb. 16.
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Ronald and Anita Kelly’s wedding day in 1956.
(Photo courtesy of the Kelly family) -
Ronald and Anita Kelly are still in love after 65 years of marriage.
(Photo courtesy of the Kelly family)
Ron is a retired master gunnery sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served as a drum major in the Marine Band for 27 years. After his retirement from the military, he had two additional careers — with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County Airport.
Anita is a seamstress and ran a home-based business. The couple’s great delight is their four children, 11 grandchildren and, soon, nine great-grandchildren. Happy anniversary!
Paying respects, one flag at a time
When Eagle Scout candidate Pierce Stewart of Troop 772 in Laguna Niguel chose his Eagle project, he wanted to do something that would rally the community and generate a feeling of patriotism, especially during the pandemic.
The first thing that came to mind was the American flag. As the community purchased new flags to fly, older flags needed to be retired with respect. That’s how Stewart chose his Eagle project. His goal was to collect 100 to 200 flags.
“Within three days, the community had rallied, and I had over 500 plus flags in hand to retire,” Stewart said. “Within 19 days, over 2,600 flags had been collected. People were really supportive, even excited about the project. I was surprised how many people had saved multiple flags for years, looking for a place that would retire them.
“I taught a lot of people how to appropriately fold their flags, while others were delivered to me already folded. My troop rallied and folded an amazing number of really cool flags for the upcoming retirement ceremony.”
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Scout Pierce Stewart, 15, of Aliso Viejo retires a tattered flag in Reno, Nevada.
(Photo by Brett K. Brofman) -
Scout Pierce Stewart, 15, of Aliso Viejo shows his troop how to fold a 31-year-old flag from the 1989 Boy Scout Jamboree. (Photo by Brett K. Brofman)
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Scout Pierce Stewart, 15, of Aliso Viejo, during the final flag retirement ceremony.
(Photo by Brett K. Brofman)
Stewart made the project even more exciting by incorporating his summer travel plans, calling the trip his “2020 Flag Tour Adventure.”
So how do you retire more than 2,600 flags? You reach out to your community mortuary to donate cremation services.
Not only did the folks at O’Connor Mortuary of Laguna Hills offer their services, they provided the use of their chapel room to conduct the flag retirement ceremony. They also videotaped and streamed the event so that others could watch from home.
Stewart said he felt proud about being able to adapt the ceremony to fit COVID-19 and Boy Scouts of America guidelines, while still honoring the flags. Because of the large number of flags, most were cremated in shifts over a few months.
The ceremony included a display of 400 folded flags, a Scout-led posting of the colors, and a memorial speech that ended with a live bagpipe send-off. It was a proud day of honor and respect.
— Submitted by Troop 772
UCI students reflect on pandemic in new book
Students from the University of California, Irvine are self-publishing a book about their lives during the COVID-19 crisis. “Patience and Pandemic” is a collection of photographs, essays and poetry solicited during the summer of 2020 as a way for Anteaters to express themselves during the stay-at-home order.
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“Patience and Pandemic” is available on Amazon.
(Photo courtesy of Karishma Muthukumar) -
The “Patience and Pandemic” editorial board at the cover launch event. Top row, from left: Dinelli Jinadasa, Karishma Muthukumar, Caitlin Yee; bottom row, from left: Jazmin Viayra, Meenakshi Chandrasekaran, Anganette Cisneros
(Photo courtesy of Karishma Muthukumar)
The organizers originally came together in late 2019 as part of the Patient Project, a UCI compassion-in-action initiative centered around the concept of alleviating anxiety in hospital waiting rooms. Undergraduates aimed to promote conversation and community by waiting alongside patients in health care centers. When the pandemic hit, they pivoted to chronicling life under quarantine and its similarities to waiting.
“It’s challenging to be in a waiting room, a place where people often find themselves anxious and alienated, so we wanted students to reimagine what it means to be a patient,” said project founder Karishma Muthukumar, UCI’s 2019-20 Dalai Lama Scholar. “But then COVID-19 happened, and the whole world became a waiting room, so we decided to focus on the experience of being in quarantine.”
An editorial board made up of seven UCI students pared the 165 entries down to about 50. The resulting book reveals the voices and vulnerabilities of both undergraduate and graduate students, including those from the medical and law schools.
“Patience and Pandemic” launches in print form, edited by Muthukumar, a junior in cognitive sciences and biological sciences, and designed by Caitlin Yee, a sophomore in biological sciences. The student editorial board hopes to follow up with an interactive, digital community journal later in the year.
The book is supported by UCI’s XIV Dalai Lama Endowed Scholarship Fund and by the Strauss Foundation. The Patient Project, which became a campus organization in December 2019, will serve as a means of community engagement around “Patience and Pandemic.”
— Submitted by Karishma Muthukumar
Westminster students named semifinalists in national STEM contest
Students from Westminster High School in Westminster are being recognized nationally for their idea to bring change in their community using STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills.
Westminster High School is one of 75 semifinalists in the 11th annual Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest, a nationwide education competition that challenges sixth through 12th graders and their teachers to creatively use STEM skills to address a challenge in their community.
As a semifinalist, Westminster High School will receive $15,000 to be redeemed on DonorsChoose.org (a nonprofit organization that facilitates direct donations to public school classroom projects) as well as a Samsung Galaxy Note 20 to execute the project this school year.
The project involves designing and creating a lightweight, breathable and fire-resistant filtration material that can easily fit under normal firefighter gear while also effectively filtering out toxic fumes. The suit will include an embedded mask made out of the same materials.
The International Association of Fire Fighters estimates that 60 percent of firefighters will die from cancer due to the toxic fumes inhaled while fighting fires. In California, where wildfires have ravaged much of the state, the men and women fighting fires are not always equipped with the proper gear to filter out the toxic soot they encounter.
Anaheim native mans helm in pilot house aboard USS Russell
Boatswain’s Mate Seaman David Marquez of Anaheim mans the helm in the pilot house of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Russell (DDG 59). The Russell is on a scheduled deployment with the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group conducting routine operations in the Third Fleet area of operations.
The Bravo! section highlights achievements of our residents and groups. Send news of achievements for consideration to ocrbravo@gmail.com.
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