No lack of honorees

The Patriots Day Parade Assn. had no trouble finding worthy individuals to honor at the annual March event: Indeed, the well runs deep in Laguna.

Since 1967, the parade has honored heroes that defended their country in dire times, paid homage to residents who made outstanding contributions to the community and recognized members of the younger generations who followed in their footsteps.

It will be no different Saturday when the 44th annual parade wends its way down Park Avenue to Glenneyre Street and onto Forest Avenue past the reviewing stand in front of City Hall, celebrating “Freedom’s Legacy.”

This year’s honorees are Patriot of the Year David Connell, Citizens of the Year Korey Jorgensen and Thomas Bent, junior Citizens of 2010 Hannah Glass and Austin Giangeruso, patriotic essay contest winner Lorenzo Gomez and parade program cover artist Devin Altieri.

Pageant of the Masters Director Diane Challis Davy will lead the parade as grand marshal. Known locally as Dee Dee or just Dee, she is the daughter of ceramist Carlene Clark and Richard Challis, who opened the town’s first commercial art gallery. Their daughter grew up surrounded by the art and artists.

Challis Davy attended local schools and was active in the Laguna Beach High School performing arts programs as well as acting in Laguna Playhouse productions. She began volunteering as a cast member of the Pageant of the Masters in 1976, but found her true niche behind the scenes, designing costumes and scenes and painting the backgrounds for the live models in the living pictures — working her way up to director, a position she has held for 13 years.

She married violin maker Steve Davy in 1987. Their son, Tommy, is a jazz guitarist, who attended his mother’s alma mater.

Challis Davy is no stranger to the parade. Under her guidance, the pageant has an entry most years, but this year will be special.

Patriot of the Year

Arthur David Connell is a familiar sight, patrolling the streets of Laguna in the uniform of a police department volunteer. But it is the time he spent in U.S. Navy blues and wearing the hat of Commander of Laguna Beach American Legion Post 222 for which the parade committee honors him this year.

“I can’t say enough about he has done for the veterans in Laguna Beach and around Southern California,” Quilter said.

Accompanied by his wife, Diane, who is president of the post Auxiliary, Connell has been a leader in the promotion of veteran’s welfare, ranging from hospital visits, to helping arrange for convalescing veterans visits to Laguna, to the successful transition of the Veteran’s Memorial Building on Legion Street to a performing arts center and offices for the Laguna Canyon Foundation.

“I want to thank the committee on behalf of the American Legion and veterans,” Connell said. “What I did, I did not do alone.”

He also thanked his family and particularly his wife.

“I could not have done it without her,” Connell said. “I am not a combat veteran. I am not a hero, but I like to think I did what may country needed.

“I do not accept this [honor] for myself. I accept it for the thousands of others who did what they had to do, without complaining — well maybe a little complaining.”

Citizens of the Year

This year’s co-honorees Jorgensen and Bent are bound by their dedication to providing medical care at the Laguna Beach Community Clinic, which contrary to the perception of much of Laguna as a city of fat cats, is desperately needed for the less fortunate.

Jorgensen earned his medical degree in 1970. After residency in Ohio, he served in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, and was stationed at U.S. Marine Corps Air Base I El Toro from 1971-73. Like many others stationed there, Jorgensen lived in Laguna Beach where he raised his son, Garth.

After his military service Jorgensen joined the emergency room staff at South Coast Medical Center and began a family practice.

Jorgensen began treating patients in the early 1980s at the clinic for a retrovirus, later identified as AIDS, which was devastating the city’s gay population. He was named California Family Physician of the Year in 2004. He married his partner of 38 years, Stuart Wilson, in 2008.

Bent, who was born in Pasadena, began visiting his aunt’s home in Laguna as a child. During the summers he worked at the old Stottlemeyer’ Bakery and Deli on Glenneyre Street. He also worked as a nursing assistant at a convalescent hospital, which inspired him to pursue a medical career.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences at UC Irvine and a medical degree from the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, where he worked in remote village clinics.

He returned to Guadalajara years later as a UCI clinical professor, proficient in Spanish, and conducted studies in Jalisco of a life-threatening disease that was cropping up in Hispanic patients in Santa Ana.

His research revealed the cause as genetically transmitted excessive blood iron, which led to an effective treatment.

Like Jorgensen, Bent was first associated with the clinic as a volunteer. In 2002, Jorgensen asked Bent to take over as clinic director, a position he still holds.

Beside his duties at the clinic, Bent is serving as president of the California Academy of Family Physicians, which honored him in 2009 as the Family Physician of the Year.

His wife, Carolyn, is also active in the clinic.

The clinic is one of only two county centers that treat HIV/AIDS, using drug therapies — some pioneered there — that keep afflicted patients otherwise healthy, Quilter said.

“The association therefore honors [Jorgensen and Bent] for not only fulfilling the clinic’s mission to take care of those in need in our community, but also as humanitarians of the highest order,” Quilter said.

Junior Citizens

Junior citizens are selected by the faculty and staff of Laguna Beach High School, based on their service to the community, and achievements as leaders, scholars and athletes.

Glass has been a scholar athlete for the past two years, taking honors classes in science, math and Spanish, while leading the cheerleading team.

She plays the violin, viola and piano, and composed music for the school’s youth orchestra, of which she is a founding member. She also plays in the jazz band and has performed around the world as a member of the Four Seasons Youth Orchestra.

Glass teaches intermediate tap dancing at the Susi Q and will sing and dance in the high school production of “Anything Goes,” from Thursday to March 28.

She hopes to study music at Brown or UC Berkeley.

Glass is active in the Laguna Beach United Methodist Church youth group and went on work teams to rebuild homes in Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and build a school in Tanzania.

Giangeruso is an academic all-star with a grade-point average of 4.5 in advanced-placement classes.

He is the president of the local chapter of the National Honor Society.

He puts his talents to use as a tutor for elementary and middle school students and as a counselor at Special Camp for Special Kids.

Beside academics, Giangeruso excels in dance. He has been a member of the high school dance company for four years, with award-winning performances to his credit, and he is a four-year veteran in the Park Avenue Players. He will appear as Moonface Martin in “Anything Goes.”

Giangeruso will continue to study performing arts in college.

Essayist and artist

Lorenzo is a Thurston Middle School student. His winning essay on the parade theme of Freedom’s Legacy is printed in full in the parade program.

Devin is a junior in Kerry Pellow’s computer art class

“I want to thank the parade for choosing my design for the cover of the program and my mom, who helped me get into graphic design in the first place,” Devin said at the brunch.

Both received $100 savings bonds from Citizens Business and Union banks.