Swing for education

Estancia High School’s Principal Phil D’Agostino was too busy with work to spend the day golfing at the Kiwanis Club’s charity golf tournament Monday, so he was forced to send Assistant Principal Lee Gaeta to play the event benefiting his school and two other Costa Mesa schools.

“I’m saddened when I have to give my assistant principal tough assignments like that,” D’Agostino said, tongue firmly in cheek, at the post-tournament dinner at Newport Rib Co.

Gaeta and his foursome joined 11 other groups at Costa Mesa’s Mesa Linda Golf Course to support the two foundations that fund Costa Mesa High School, Estancia High School and TeWinkle Middle School. Kiwanis’ choice to support the foundations with their proceeds this year was a timely one, because the slow economy and low property tax revenues have made it tougher on Newport-Mesa schools, said Jeff Dimsdale, president of the Costa Mesa chapter of the club.

D’Agostino, a Kiwanian himself, says foundation money allows him to help students across the spectrum increase their chances of getting into good colleges by providing them with things like SAT training classes.

“There are a lot of enrichment activities and intervention programs that we couldn’t support without the foundation,” D’Agostino said.

The foundations, which were established by twin $1 million grants from the city, can only spend the interest they earn by investing the million, which makes for hard times during an economic slump. For this reason, the foundations’ leadership is trying to become less dependent on the million-dollar grants and move more toward other donations they can spend instantly.

“Events like this help us do that,” said Bruce Krochman, the Costa Mesa High School Foundation’s president.

But as much as the tournament’s contestants might be concerned about financing public education, their goal on the course was to shoot the lowest score and win.

The last foursome on the course came in with a combined self-reported score of 59, and asked former Costa Mesa Mayor Ed McFarland, who was collecting the cards, if they had won.

When McFarland told them he thought another group beat them by a couple of strokes, they immediately cried foul.

“We might’ve lost, but at least we counted all our strokes,” Chris Calacci said, laughing. “We should have cheated like the team that won.”

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].