Orange Coast College

When she dons her broadcloth fancy shawl and dances to the rapid pounding of the drums, Liz Whipple wants people to learn about her American Indian history. Her beaded hairpieces and moccasins reveal her distinct style. Her fancy shawl with its intricate pattern indicates the influences of her tribe. And the dance is a way for her to share a part of her Navajo and Sioux heritage with others.

The Costa Mesa community college that was given a craggy British Columbia island has sold it for $2.19 million to two men and a woman from a suburb near Calgary, officials said Tuesday. The buyers plan to use it as a vacation retreat, school officials said. Henry Wheeler, a yachtsman from Downey, donated the island 50 miles north of Vancouver to the college in December 2002 after using it for nearly a decade as a family vacation retreat.

Orange Coast College President Donald R. Bronsard resigned his post in a letter to district board members Tuesday, and requested a one-year leave of absence "to break out of the bureaucracy" and test his entrepreneurial skills. Bronsard, 50, was named president in 1985. He is credited with reversing a decline and building enrollment to 26,419 students, making the Costa Mesa college the largest single-campus community college in the nation.

In a program entitled "Five Hundred Years of Song" Saturday night, the Scholars of London expanded their reputation as a cappella interpreters solely of Renaissance vocal literature. But, for both positive and negative reasons, 16th-Century repertory still provided the artistic highlights. On the positive side was the quartet's wonderful clarity--transparent textures, cleanly enunciated, finely balanced and offered with impeccable intonation. During the concert in Robert B.

Orange Coast College machine technology students Garth Larwin of Laguna Hills, Ross Tucker of Laguna Beach and Sam Ranca of Garden Grove swept the field in the recent California Skill Olympics in Sacramento. The performances saw the three students win the gold, silver and bronze medals in the precision machining contest sponsored annually by the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America. Larwin staged a strong rally on the final day of the three-day competition to win the gold medal.

Virgil D. Sessions, longtime dean of Orange Coast College's literature and languages department, has died after a brief illness, college officials said Wednesday. Sessions, 64, died Oct. 15 in Spring City, Utah, where he moved after his retirement in 1984, college spokesman Jim Carnett said. Sessions, a native of Utah, joined Orange Coast College in 1958 as a speech and English professor. He was elevated to dean in 1964, a position he held until his retirement.

Memorial services were held Thursday at St. Joachim Church in Costa Mesa for retired Orange Coast College dean Samuel R. Peterson. Peterson, 69, of Costa Mesa, died Saturday of a heart attack. Peterson was a professor and administrator at Orange Coast College from 1961 until his retirement in 1980. He served the community college as a professor of engineering and mathematics, dean of the technology division, director of special projects and associate dean of institutional research.