People

* Spotlight on achievers

Maryllyn Hargrave

Rotary Club president,

Seal Beach

A decade ago, Hargrave couldn’t join the Rotary Club. Now she’s president.

A member of the 11-year-old Seal Beach Cities Rotary Club since 1991, Hargrave, the first woman elected to the local chapter’s top office, said she has always felt welcome, despite the club’s long history as an all-male organization. Four of the Seal Beach chapter’s 18 members are women.

The club, one of 55 chapters in Orange County, already had female members when she joined, said Hargrave, who is director of volunteer services at UCI Medical Center in Orange. “I felt immediately accepted.”

Said past President Fred Middaugh: “It is striking, the number of women who have become involved in Rotary during the past 10 years.”

Hargrave first joined Rotary in Dallas in 1988, less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that membership in service clubs must be open to both sexes.

“There was some resistance in that situation,” Hargrave recalled. “It had always been a men’s organization, and it’s still somewhat unusual for a woman to be in a leadership role.”

Hargrave encourages other women to get involved in the group, though.

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Justin A. Sarlese and Kenneth Steven De Gon

Eagle Scouts

Two 16-year-olds, one of whom saved the lives of his companions by guiding them from an encounter with bears, have earned the Eagle Scout award, the highest rank given by the Boy Scouts of America.

Only 2% of Boy Scouts in the nation attain Eagle rank, officials said. Among those who have achieved the honor are former President Gerald Ford, astronaut Neil A. Armstrong and film director Steven Spielberg.

Justin A. Sarlese and his troop were confronted by two bears while camping in the San Bernardino Mountains in 1993. One boy was seriously injured, but the others escaped harm under Sarlese’s leadership, Scout officials said.

Sarlese (top), who attends Servite High School in Anaheim, earned 41 merit badges and, as part of his achievement, led his troop, No. 1201 of Fullerton, in an environmental project to build 33 wooden duck houses that were hung along the Pacific Flyway.

Kenneth Steven De Gon (bottom), a student at Troy High School in Fullerton, also earned scouting’s highest honor and was cited for a number of volunteer projects, among them spending more than 150 hours to refurbish pews at a local church.

COMPILED BY RUSS LOAR AND MIMI KO.