La Jolla News Nuggets: Memorial Day, Summer Festival, Police & Fire Championships, civil-rights award, more
Mount Soledad Memorial Day event draws 1,100
The annual Memorial Day event at the Mount Soledad National Veterans Memorial in La Jolla drew about 1,100 people May 30 to honor Marine Corps Maj. Megan McClung and others. McClung was the first female Marine officer killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as the first female graduate of the Naval Academy to be killed in action since the school was founded in 1845.
Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, a retired three-star general who served in the Army, gave the keynote address.
The commemoration also included Memorial Day video messages, musical performances, a wreath-laying and a missing-man fly-by.
The Mount Soledad National Veterans Memorial is the only memorial that honors U.S. veterans, living or deceased, from the Revolutionary War to the current war on terrorism with an image of the veteran. More than 5,400 veteran tributes, embedded on black granite plaques, are mounted on 11 curved walls.
The memorial, at 6905 La Jolla Scenic Drive South, is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
Athenaeum Summer Festival returns Sundays in June
The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla will present its 23rd annual Summer Festival beginning at 4 p.m. Sunday, June 5, at 1008 Wall St.
This year’s festival, titled “Back to Beethoven: The Complete Piano Sonatas, Part 2,” will feature pianist Gustavo Romero all four Sundays in June.
Romero, a San Diego native, has won many awards, including first prize in the prestigious Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Switzerland, the Avery Fisher Career Grant and Musical America’s Young Artist Award. He has performed with the world’s leading orchestras and currently is a professor of piano at the University of North Texas.
Dinners are offered after each concert in the festival. Concerts are $50 each (or $192 for the series) for Athenaeum members and $55 each (or $212 for the series) for non-members. For tickets and information about the dinner packages, visit ljathenaeum.org/summer-festival.
Annual Police & Fire Championships to include golf in La Jolla
The 55th annual U.S. Police & Fire Championships will include golf competitions at Torrey Pines Golf Course’s North Course in La Jolla from Monday, June 13, to Wednesday, June 15.
Overall, athletes in more than 40 sports will compete across 30 venues in San Diego County from June 11-19.
For more information, visit cpaf.org/uspfc.
UC San Diego professor wins national civil-rights award
UC San Diego professor Tom Wong has received the Presidential Prize from the American Civil Liberties Union, recognizing his work on immigrants’ rights.
The award is given every other year to an academic professional for outstanding contributions to civil liberties. The award comes with a $10,000 stipend.
Wong has published extensive statistical analyses on current immigration topics, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a program that allows undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to have work permits and protection from deportation; the Remain in Mexico program, which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their immigration court cases progress in the United States; and most recently Title 42, a pandemic policy implemented to help limit the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus that instructs border officials to expel asylum seekers without screening them for protection needs. — The San Diego Union-Tribune
San Diego County approves $10 million for cities to address homelessness
A new grant program that makes $10 million available to cities for new emergency housing projects was approved May 24 by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
The Capital Emergency Housing Solutions Grant Program is part of the county’s Framework for Ending Homelessness, which the board approved last year. Funds from the program will be available to projects in the region’s 18 cities.
Program funds are intended as initial investments for new emergency housing projects, including shelters, safe parking lots, sleeping cabins, tiny homes and/or expanded capacity of existing shelters.
The program is expected to be up and running soon. The county will notify all eligible jurisdictions once the application window opens.
Rotary Club of La Jolla awards scholarships to 15 local students
The Rotary Club of La Jolla awarded scholarships to 15 local high school seniors at its May 24 luncheon.
The recipients are students at La Jolla High School, The Bishop’s School, La Jolla Country Day School and The Preuss School at UC San Diego.
Each year, the La Jolla Rotary Foundation provides more than $200,000 in scholarships from both the Rotary Scholarship Fund and the Florence Riford Scholarship Fund. Awards are renewed annually to recipients who reapply during their undergraduate college years.
Kiwanis Club of La Jolla donates scholarship grants to local schools
The Kiwanis Club of La Jolla’s La Jolla Foundation Scholarship Fund has awarded $50,500 in scholarship grants to seven schools in La Jolla and elsewhere in San Diego in 2021-22.
Former Kiwanis Club President Bart Calame presented Michael Beamer, assistant head of school at The Bishop’s School in La Jolla, with a $6,000 check at the club’s May 20 meeting.
La Jolla High School, The Preuss School at UC San Diego and Gillispie School, all in La Jolla, along with University City High School, San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts and Monarch School in San Diego also received awards.
Fundraiser seeks to help former La Jolla Elementary School volunteer fight cancer
La Jolla Elementary School parents have organized a GoFundMe campaign for Hugh Carpenter, a former campus volunteer who is fighting cancer.
The campaign has raised nearly $20,000 so far to help Carpenter and his wife, Allison, who retired from La Jolla Elementary in 2020, with medical bills.
To donate, visit gofund.me/0a98378d.
— Compiled by La Jolla Light staff ◆
Get the La Jolla Light weekly in your inbox
News, features and sports about La Jolla, every Thursday for free
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the La Jolla Light.