Budding Environmentalist Visits Brazil

Adriana Nodar was eager to get a firsthand look at the rain forest.

The Westside teen-ager was one of eight students to win an all-expense paid trip to Brazil. Nodar’s winning drawing was selected from more than 200,000 international entries from youths 11 to 15.

The Little Green Environmental Arts Project, sponsored annually by the beauty care company Sebastian International, encourages youths to write or draw their concerns about the environment with an emphasis on the rain forest.

“Art shows how beautiful the environment is,” said the 15-year-old high school student. “I wouldn’t have entered the contest unless it was environmentally based. It’s a good way to inspire people to recycle.”

Nodar combined her artistic skills and love of nature to produce the winning entry. Her drawing, in oil pastels and soft colored pencils, shows Mother Earth cradling a smaller Earth and crying. The caption reads “Make Your Mother Proud: Recycle.”

“I wanted to portray through her feelings how important Earth is,” said the Pacific Palisades teen-ager. “From the emotions that I portrayed, I wanted to get a message across to make people respect Earth.”

Earlier this month, Nodar traveled to Brazil with other winners who came from as far away as Holland and Japan. During the 10-day expedition, she visited the city of Manaus on the banks of the Rio Negro River before going into the rain forest by boat. Excursions included a visit with local natives and a crocodile spotting trip.

“I have never seen anything like it,” she said. “The jungle was a whole different world and now I understand how precious it is.”

Nodar also said she saw that other countries treat environmental issues differently than the United States.

At Marymount High School in Los Angeles, she is president of the Environmental Club. She and her classmates have established a recycling program for aluminum cans and paper.

Westchester resident Philip Klinkner has been named holder of the Rev. Charles S. Casassa Chair of Social Calues for the 1993-94 academic year.

Klinkner, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University, will develop programs related to the 40th anniversary of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that declared segregation unconstitutional. The appointment includes a research grant.

Klinkner teaches American politics and has conducted extensive research on political parties and the Supreme Court.

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West L.A. College President Evelyn Wong was recently named distinguished alumnus by the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology.

Wong earned a doctorate in education from Pepperdine eight years ago. The California native holds a master’s degree in education and a bachelor’s degree in business from UCLA.

Attorney Richard Stavin, a business and civil litigator in Century City, has been appointed to the board of directors for the Coastal Cities Unit of the American Cancer Society.

He will oversee the development and implementation of the unit’s annual fund-raising plan. As campaign chairman, he will also create strategies to identify financial and volunteer resources.

William Boswell has been named a fellow of the American College of Radiology.

Boswell, selected for his outstanding contributions to the field, was one of 112 new fellows named by the college’s board of chancellors.

The Los Angeles resident was selected during the college’s annual meeting last month in Orlando, Fla.

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