Paul Egly

Elnora Crowder liked to ease into her Saturdays after a week of teaching school. But on this particular day in 1963 she got up early and headed for Watts, a journey that would leave a lasting mark on the public schools of Los Angeles. When Crowder approached some teen-agers in a park, "They actually recoiled from me saying, 'Blacks go to a white school?' " she recalls. "It was like I was asking them to go to the moon."

Elnora Crowder liked to ease into her Saturdays after a week of teaching school. But on this particular day in 1963 she got up early and headed for Watts, a journey that would leave a lasting mark on the public schools of Los Angeles. When Crowder approached some teen-agers in a park, "They actually recoiled from me saying, 'Blacks go to a white school?' " she recalls. "It was like I was asking them to go to the moon."

Contrary to the text of Patt Morrison's column about Paul Egly ("Bitter Memories of the Busing Years," SoCal P.O.V., Sept. 28), it was the judge's second wife, not the first, whose health deteriorated during the stress of the busing hearings and who died afterward. I was his first wife, for 15 years, and it was I who helped him get through school and save enough money for his first trip to Europe. Marion de la Fontaine Egly Glendora

The UCLA School of Law held its 35th graduation ceremonies Sunday in the Architecture Quadrangle. Malcolm Lucas, chief justice of California, was the keynote speaker. He said . . . Prof. Eric Zolt, chosen 1987 Professor of the Year by the graduating class, also spoke. Degrees: 295 juris doctorate and 10 master of laws degrees awarded. Other Graduations: Mount St. Mary's College, in the Circle and Chapel Terrace on the Chalon Campus.

Richard Francis Cavanaugh Hayden, a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who co-created the "Bench Book" of procedure used by all California criminal court judges, has died. He was 73. Hayden, who retired in 1981 after 20 years on the bench, died April 3 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of cancer. As a judge, Hayden was known for his innovative sentencing, such as ordering two pickpockets to wear heavy mittens as a condition of probation.

From childbirth to murder, certain human events can create their own anodynes, protectively wiping the memory clean of a pain or horror too wrenching for recall. Cities are like that, too. Los Angeles, which can chattily revisit its earthquakes and riots as if it were leafing through family albums, has allowed to disappear from its civic memory the crisis that, 20 years ago, pulled this place apart like so much saltwater taffy. The courts, mildly, called it "desegregation."

A skirmish in the battle for control of Freedom Communications Inc. shifted Friday to probate court, where a judge was asked to determine whether a trustee holding a key block of the company's common stock has the authority to vote the shares. Orange County Superior Court Judge Marjorie Laird Carter set a hearing on the matter for Nov.

Three Freedom Communications Inc. heirs lost a round Monday in their court battle to stop a trustee from voting a key block of Freedom shares this fall, when stockholders are scheduled to decide whether to sell the family-owned empire that includes the Orange County Register. The shares once belonged to James H. Hoiles, who died in 1964 and left assets including 3.8% of Freedom's stock in a trust with the income going to his widow, Patricia G. Hoiles.

The recent account in your newspaper and other news media of the threatened recall of Judge Nancy Wieben Stock focuses upon the misconception of the function of the judge in our society and the broad use of the recall petition. We ask our judges that they provide the stability of our society in applying the laws. We cannot ask for more because we have assigned to the legislature and to the people the function of passing the laws, and have restricted the judiciary to the rules to be used in interpreting and applying these laws.

The battle among the families that control Santa Ana-based Freedom Newspapers erupted anew Monday as one side of the Hoiles family claimed that another is mishandling a trust, the major asset of which is company stock. The three daughters of Clarence Hoiles, who died in 1981, alleged in an Orange County Superior Court suit that his brother, Harry, misused his role as trustee to their detriment. They seek $1.5 million in general damages plus unspecified punitive damages from Harry Hoiles.

A law student who was expelled after allegedly cheating on an exam has failed in her first effort to win a court-ordered reinstatement. Diana Kazolis, an Alhambra resident, is suing the University of La Verne, its college of law, a law professor and others over her December dismissal, which stemmed from allegations that she used prepared notes during an exam. The practice is forbidden by the law school.