Junior Achievement

Junior Achievement Inc. will relocate its national headquarters from Stamford to Colorado Springs, Colo.

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been portrayed by his opponent as a spoiled son of privilege, a silver-spooner who rode the preferential treatment of name recognition to the world middleweight title. Lost in that theory is the burden of living up to the reputation of his father, one of Mexico's national heroes, bearing close witness to that icon's steep fall into alcohol and drugs, and finding the fortitude to stand as his own man. Saturday night, the 26-year-old Chavez (46-0-1, 32 knockouts)

Your story on the lower high-school dropout rate in the Antelope, San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys (May 26) was good news. The dedicated teachers, school officials and parents who helped make this possible deserve a lot of credit. Junior Achievement of Southern California and local businesses have worked in partnership with educators to encourage at-risk students to stay in school. More than 400 Junior Achievement volunteers serve some 12,000 students in this area by teaching them about our free-enterprise system through classes like "The Economics of Staying in School," which show the downside of dropping out of school.

Resources Junior Achievement of Southern California : Entrepreneur programs for middle school and high school classrooms. (323) 957-1818 After-School All-Stars : A Los Angeles-based nonprofit that is launching an entrepreneurship program for middle school students. (310) 275-3232 Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship : Los Angeles office of the New York nonprofit provides entrepreneurship education programs and runs student business competitions. (213) 241-9011 Source: L.A. Times research

Geoff Wilson wants to reach all those future businesspeople who are sitting today in Orange County classrooms. As executive director of Junior Achievement in Orange County and the Inland Empire, Wilson is pursuing the nonprofit organization's aggressive plan to grow rapidly and prepare youngsters for living and working in a complex economy. Founded in 1919, the national group for years ran after-school programs that focused on helping students create products and start businesses.

Loara High School juniors Rebecca Montano and Urjita Parekh and sophomore John Chao (have been selected for a Junior Achievement of Southern California exchange program in Mexico. They will learn business practices in a cross-cultural setting. The exchange will start July 3 with an orientation in Cocoyoc, Mexico. After a weeklong conference in Mexico City, the Anaheim students will live with a host family for the completion of their five-week visit.

It is time again for Stais Boseman to drag out the scrapbook. Another accolade has come his way. The two-sport standout from Morningside High has been selected the top junior football player in the state by Cal-Hi Sports newswire. Boseman, a quarterback/defensive back who led Morningside to its first-ever Southern Section title, was the only non-senior named to the 32-player all-state team.

As the chief executive of her own bank, Marisol Pineda became well-versed in the intricacies of saving and investing as well as evaluating loan requests. It was a good bank, but it went out of business--not because of a restructuring of the financial marketplace or a merger offer from an expansion-minded competitor. The institution, called Marisol's Bank, closed because the semester ended, explained Marisol, 9, a fourth-grader at Allesandro Elementary School near downtown Los Angeles.

Those who predict the United States can never recover its dominance in the global economy might be less pessimistic after spending a Wednesday morning with North Hollywood High School teacher Brian York's senior class in applied economics. For all but one school day each week, it's business as usual: pie charts, supply and demand curves, traditional and command economies.

The promotional label on Saturday night's boxing card at Staples Center is, for the moment, mostly wishful thinking. Bob Arum's company, Top Rank, is calling it "The Son Also Rises. " Assume that the first time they typed that phrase, they did so with fingers crossed. The son is Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. He will attempt to take away Sebastian Zbik's World Boxing Council middleweight title. Zbik is described by many as a solid, tactical fighter. Arum, Chavez Jr.'s promoter, calls Zbik a "decent, technical European boxer.

French-Canadian director-writer-actor Xavier Dolan, who turns 22 later this month, already has had two films play ? and win prizes ? at the Cannes Film Festival, the prestigious international venue that some filmmakers can toil a lifetime to never get near. He dropped out of college to make the first, "I Killed My Mother," actually financing the micro-budget film about coming out and learning to live with an overbearing parent partly with savings from his childhood acting work. The second, "Heartbeats," which opened Friday in Los Angeles and is also available on video-on-demand, tells the story of two friends vying for the affection of the same young man. Dolan starred in both films, and in the case of "Heartbeats," he also edited the film, designed the costumes and handled the art direction.

Matt Barkley, a guitar-playing, spiral-throwing quar- terback from Santa Ana Mater Dei, was selected Wednesday as the Gatorade male high school athlete of the year during a celebrity-filled ceremony at the Sofitel Hotel in Los Angeles. Barkley, who has committed to USC and is preparing for his senior year of high school, is the first junior to win the award. Past recipients include LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Greg Oden and Kevin Love. "I'm amazed," Barkley said. "It's awesome."

Caught in the throes of their longest losing streak in four seasons and owners of the worst record in the NHL, the Kings' front office is looking down the road -- all the way to the World Junior Championships in the Czech Republic. General Manager Dean Lombardi is at the world's premier junior tournament, which runs Dec. 26 through Jan. 5, evaluating some of the Kings' top young prospects, Coach Marc Crawford said. So far, Lombardi must like what he has seen.

In our contemporary golfing world, where such players as Greg Norman and Tiger Woods have become multinational corporations, it is easy to assume that large-scale commercialism began with those first great stars of the television era, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. More informed observers may point to Walter Hagen, while the truly knowledgeable will recall that Harry Vardon was heavily compensated for his many non-tournament endeavors.

While the rest of the Kings' traveling party is in Edmonton today, General Manager Dave Taylor and Coach Andy Murray will spend the day off in and around Salmon Arm, Canada, where Murray is co-owner of a junior team. Murray's lifelong friend, Garry Davidson, won $1 million Canadian, tax free, in the British Columbia lottery two years ago. He and Murray then partnered with a Salmon Arm businessman, Don Gervais, and paid $150,000 for an expansion team in the British Columbia Hockey League.

For the third year in a row, Jason Kapono will watch his senior teammates honored in a pregame ceremony at the last UCLA home game. They will accept bouquets of flowers, hug their teary-eyed parents and even the most jaded fans will cheer. And for the third year in a row, Kapono will wonder if it, too, is his last game at Pauley Pavilion. The high-scoring junior forward seriously considered jumping to the NBA each of the last two seasons and will do so again. But he isn't tipping his hand.