Francis Ching, 60, a native Hawaiian, is retiring after 20 years as supervisor of the Los Angeles County Dept. of Arboreta and Botanic Gardens, which includes the LA County Arboretum in Arcadia.
The south lake of the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum has dropped from three acres in surface area to about two acres. In 1958, the center depth was nine feet. Now it is two feet.
Jason Koh, 13, a student at First Avenue Junior High School, was named Los Angeles Theater Organ Society Organist of the Year for his performance at the Sexson Auditorium at Pasadena City College.
Retired Arcadia physician Edward Hayes died in a scuba diving accident Saturday as the result of drowning according to officials from the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.
Rebecca Switzer, a math instructor at Arcadia High School, was one of 10 Los Angeles County teachers selected as a finalist in the Jaime Escalante Mathematics Teacher Awards program.
Arcadia-born Ruth Reeder, author of the recently published book, "Lemon-Twist: No Salt Added," will be the featured speaker at the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum on June 10, 1991.
First Avenue Junior High was one of 3 area schools to receive the state Dept. of Education's Distinguished High School and Middle School Awards. Arcadia's Foothill Jr. High received the award in 1988. The other winners included San Marino High School and the L. A. County High School for the Arts at Cal State Los Angeles.
The Asian Pacific American Legal Center, which recently persuaded Temple City, Rosemead and Garden Grove to stop restricting the use of foreign languages on business signs, has requested a change in the Arcadia city ordinance that allows only 1/3 of the area of a sign to be in a foreign language. The new ordinance is more restrictive than the law that was deemed unconstitutional in Pomona in 1989 which required at least 50% of a sign to be written in the Roman alphabet.
Karen Garr is one of 400 pari-mutual clerks behind the betting windows at Arcadia's Santa Anita Park. The 44 year old Arcadia resident has been close to the race track since 1969, when she started as a "pony girl" in the back stretch of Santa Anita Park.
An anonymous donor apparently has withdrawn $225,000 in support of county botanical programs because of concerns about a proposed merger between the L.A. County Natural History Museum and the county Dept. of Arboreta and Botanic Gardens.
The opening day of Oak Tree marked the introduction of satellite wagering on Santa Anita Park races at Hollywood Park and Los Alamitos. After years of resistance, Santa Anita Park has fully embraced satellite wagering in a bid to win back fans lost to the lottery and urban congestion.
Partick Anderson, 23, of Inglewood remained in custody on suspicion of murder charges for the shooting death of Henry Miller, 27, of Los Angeles, who was killed in the paddock at the Santa Anita Park race track, making this the first shooting at the track in its 55-year history.
Funeral services were held Tuesday for Richard Jarnagin, who created and directed the Los Angeles Co. Parks and Recreation's tax assessment districts. The 63 year old Arcadia resident died April 15 in his home after a struggle with cancer.
County supervisors called a halt to a plan to merge the Department of Arboreta and Botanic Gardens with the county Museum of Natural History because the county's Economy and Efficiency Commission has not made sufficient progress on it and because the board needs to replace recently retired arboreta department head Francis Ching.
James Domney, 49, is leaving his position as City Librarian after 11 years in this position and 18 years with the library. Kent Ross, 45, who started at the library at about the same time as Domney, was recently appointed as the new City Librarian.