[Ccarc] AR newsline: class on amateur radio in Los Angeles

[Phil Snider]

Representatives of the City of Calabasas, the Los Angeles County 
Sheriff's Department, the American Radio Relay League and other agencies 
were on hand recently to congratulate 47 eighth-graders at A.C. Stelle 
Middle School. This, after they completed a class that lead to their 
getting the Amateur Radio licenses as a part of the American Radio Relay 
League's educational incentive known better as The Big Project.

The adoption of the Big Project into the Las Virgenes Unified School 
District as an Amateur Radio educational program was the brain child of 
school Principal, Mary Sistrunk, and science chairman, Karl Beutel. 
Beutel, who is KE6MAO, kicked off the project in all six of his science 
classes some time ago with a presentation and demonstrations of radio, 
including communication with other amateur operators using the schools 
own radio station. He then offered the students the opportunity to take 
an Amateur Service exam on-campus.

Meantime, emergency services groups are supporting this project with 
hopes that it will provide a source of communications volunteers. 
Sheriff's Department Reserve Captain, Tom Fakehany, N6FDR, says that 
these students are likely the next generation of emergency volunteers 
who will provide communications when all else fails. County Disaster 
Communications Service member Norm Goodkin, K6YXH, says that the plan is 
to help organize these new hams into a youth group. One with the ability 
to provide emergency communications services to the school and to the 
community in the the City of Calabasas.

Next semester, the 47 students plan to start an amateur radio club at 
Calabasas High School, along with the 17 new hams already there from 
last year's project. According to Beutel, his school nearly tripled the 
number of students who earned their licenses from the program's 
inception last year.

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Jeff Reinhardt, AA6JR, in Los Angeles.