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SANTA ANA

3 Decades of Teaching Earn Farewell Salute

When Hoover Elementary School teacher Barbara Steinke retired from a career that spanned three decades, grateful parents, fellow teachers and former students gathered to honor her and give her a jubilant send-off.

For most of her tenure, Steinke was an instructor of English as a second language, teaching youngsters in English immersion and bilingual classes.

“She’s an outstanding person,” said Julie McCormick, assistant principal at Hoover. “She takes so much time with each individual student and will stay until 9 p.m. talking to parents if she needs to. She’s very thorough, dedicated and committed.”

Steinke retired after 33 years of service, 27 of them with schools in the Santa Ana Unified School District.

“I’ll miss working with the children and the challenge of making a positive difference in a child’s life,” she said.

Steinke was known for devising innovative classroom projects. To make an English vocabulary lesson more memorable, for example, she helped raise money so that her class could travel by plane from Orange County to Ontario.

She also taught parents to teach and encourage their children, and on occasion accompanied parents who spoke little English on expeditions to the public library to get library cards.

“I get a lot of joy from teaching the parents,” she said. “I teach them my methods, and it’s great to see that the parent has learned and is helping them at home.”

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CYPRESS

Groups Award Scholarships

As part of the annual Cypress Celebrates the Arts program, scholarships have been awarded by civic groups to 10 high school and community college students.

Four scholarships were given in the performing arts division. Phyllis Billon, a student at Cypress College, and Margrette Field of Los Alamitos High School received scholarships from the Friends of Cypress Cultural Arts. Rommel Agatep of Cypress High School received a Women’s Club of Cypress scholarship, and Rebecca Gallegos of Cypress College was given the Cypress Civic Theatre Guild drama scholarship.

Six scholarships were presented in the Visual Arts Division. Kathy Cho of Cypress High School won the Cypress Art League scholarship, and Michelle Deleye of the Orange County High School of the Arts and Kathleen Masselink of Cypress College received scholarships from the Friends of Cypress Cultural Arts.

The Fieldstone Co.-Cypress Homes scholarship went to Jeremy Enfinger of Cypress High School. Kimberly Nething and Amy Kim, both of Cypress High School, won scholarships from the Women’s Club of Cypress.

--COMPILED BY MIMI KO, JON NALICK AND BILL BILLITER