The Weekly Newspaper of Torrance Herald Publications - Torrance, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Lawndale, & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 7, No. 15 - April 13, 2017 Inside This Issue Calendar of Events.............2 Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................2 Classifieds............................6 Crossword/Sudoku.............6 Legals.................................4,7 Pets........................................5 Real Estate...........................8 Sports....................................3 TerriAnn in Torrance..........4 Weekend Forecast Fourth Annual Torrance PD Awards and Appreciation Lunch On March 30, the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Torrance Police Department, recognizaed and honored contributions by police personnel as well as members of the community. In this photo, honorees S. Kim, M. Wessels, T. Besse, E. Bernier and Sgt. Ahmad pose with Chief Matusda, Deputy Chief Anderson and other members of the TPD Awards Committee. Photo by Torrance PD Social Media Coordinator Christina Ortiz. Local Spelling Bee Winner Headed to Nationals Competition By Cristian Vasquez When Calle Mayor Middle School’s Jennifer Former School Board Member on Mission to Collect Shoes Story by Cristian Vasquez collect the most shoes,” Dr. Blischke told When Dr. William Blischke, President the School Board. “What I would like is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, CSU expand to the other schools if possible.” Dominguez Hills and former Torrance Last spring Dr. Blischke launched the School Board Member, read that through pilot program CSU Million Shoe Campaign, Soles4Souls, Manhattan Beach residents which sought to collect shoes for Soles4Souls were able to collect 1,500 pairs of shoes, at Cal State Dominguez Hills. Within a he became determined to do the same. week and a half, $100 was collected, along In late March Dr. Blischke attended the with 195 pairs of shoes. Torrance Unified School District’s Board “The CSU is the largest public university meeting, as well as one of the regular City in the country with 470,000 students; Council meetings, to extend an invitation CSU-ERFA [California State University to the Torrance community to join the Emeritus and Retired Faculty] is the largest Soles4Souls cause. organization of its kind, so one of my goals “I got a call from Shery High School as their president is to collect a million [in Torrance] where we have three groups shoes from students, faculty, staff and the competing with each other to see who can Lau correctly spelled “ursine” at the Los Angeles County Scripps Regional Spelling Bee, she earned more than a place in the National Scripps competition during the week of Memorial Day. The win made Jennifer the second member of her family to represent Torrance at the nationwide competition hosted in Washington, D.C. “My brother [Timothy Lau] grew up watching the national spelling bee, so I kind of grew up watching with him,” said Jennifer. “I finally got to go [Nationals] when I was 11 to watch my brother compete and that’s when things kind of clicked and I wanted to do it as well. That is when I felt motivated.” Jennifer beat out fellow Torrance Unified School District (TUSD) student Navneeth Murali from Victor Elementary School, who recently won the TUSD Elementary Spelling Bee and earned the opportunity to compete in the Los Angeles County Department of Education competition--part of the California State Elementary Spelling Bee that began in the 1980s. The Scripps National Spelling Bee started back in 1925 when nine newspapers gathered to host a spelling bee in an effort to promote literacy. It has since grown into the national spelling bee, with an estimated 11 million students participating each year. With a first-place finish in her school’s spelling bee, Jennifer went to Los Angeles County Scripps regionals where she was the best among the county’s top spellers. Having both siblings win and compete in the same competition is unique for the spelling bee competition, as much as it is for the Lau family. “It’s a little surreal--there are 25,000 contestants from all over Los Angeles County that participate in their school bees and the top 110 compete in the regional bee,” said Jennifer’s father David Lau. “Both times, it was quite an experience and we were shocked that they did so well. We didn’t have any expectations. We simply told them to try their best and they both did great.” As Jennifer prepares for the national spotlight, she isn’t looking to change much in her preparation and plans to keep her approach consistent. On a daily basis the eighth grade student loves discovering new words, stemming from challenging reading materials, television and her general surroundings. “You don’t know what words you are going to get, so you have to be good at finding patterns in words--especially from certain languages,” said Jennifer. “That helps you take an educated guess. So if they give you a certain word with its origins in French, then you need to know that there are certain spelling patterns for certain sounds. There are also root words and that helps.” However, Jennifer has found an additional resource as she prepares for the main event in her brother Timothy, who has taken it upon himself to act as a non-official coach for his younger sister. “He is very good at motivating me and shows me new things to learn--he opens my mind to new ways to learn or different ways to approach words,” said Jennifer. “He’ll highlight details that I might have missed and make me realize it’s not as intimidating or difficult. It feels less intimidating when he is around.” As one of the nation’s oldest and most recognized competitions, the Scripps National Friday See Spelling Bee, page 2 Mostly Sunny 66˚/53˚ Saturday Mostly Sunny 67˚/54˚ Sunday Partly Cloudy 66˚/54˚ See Shoes, page 5
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