Bobby Konoske (left) and Austin Doan (right).

Orange County has found some of its top high school debaters.

El Modena High School qualified four of the 18 students on its speech-and-debate team for the state tournament of champions in Bakersfield in April.

Seniors Bobby Konoske and Austin Doan will also go to the national tournament of champions in Kansas City, Mo. in June.

The four found out that they qualified for the state championship after their last debate on Sunday.

“The kids are as competitive with each other as they are with others,” said Molly Chertock, ElMo’s speech and debate coach. “They truly are like a small family and really support each other.”

ElMo placed first in Orange County in parliamentary debate and second in Orange County in public-forum debate.

This will be the fourth time ElMo will go to the nationals and the fifth time it will go to state since the team’s inception in 2004.

Konoske will visit the national championship for the second time.

“The best part about [speech and debate] is the competition. All of the kids have an extreme amount of respect for one another,” he said. “Most of us are pretty intelligent, so it’s nice to find a forum to talk about.”

This is the first year Doan will go to the nationals. He did not join the team until his junior year and regrets not joining sooner.

“It’s sad it’s coming to a close,” he said. “I wanted to at least have something to show before graduation.”

Chertock and her students pay for the competition fees — $10 per individual per event — and airfare out of their pockets. ASB helps by giving the team between $200 and $300.

– Caroline Stegner

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Elementary-school students get a chance to alter their futures for the better.

Handy and California Elementary schools welcomed the GRIP program, Gang Reduction and Intervention Partnership, which targets elementary students at risk for joining a gang.

It provides resources to steer them away from such activity, said Sandra Schaffer, principal at Handy Elementary.

GRIP was introduced to both schools because they are in high-density crime neighborhoods.

The program is a partnership between Orange police, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the Orange Unified School District, Orange County Social Services and community-service programs.

“It’s great for the kids to see [the police] here more and realize that they are here to help,” said Schaffer. “The parents also see the police in a different light and realize that they want to help their children be safe at school and at home.”

Handy Elementary has 20 staff members mentoring identified at-risk students through the GRIP program, said Teri Harman, office manager at Handy.

Each student is paired with a teacher; they meet once a week to once a month. The pair will attend an Angels baseball game at the end of the year.

The children go through a four-week curriculum, in which officials from OPD and the Orange County Probation Department visit the classrooms to talk about gangs, said Tracy Rinauro, a deputy district attorney.

Orange GRIP has intervened with 10 children so far between Handy and California Elementary, Rinauro said.

“What we’re trying to do is spend resources early on before [children] get arrested,” she said.

Handy Elementary receives funding for the program through grants. The school plans to continue the program next year if given another grant.

– Caroline Stegner

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Beauty pageants aren’t just for women anymore.

Six male students from El Modena High School showcased their skills at Mr. Vanguard, a beauty pageant and fundraiser.

The show consisted of swimsuit wear, formal wear, questions and a talent portion.

Any student was allowed to sign up for the event, which took place Feb. 18, as long as he was in good standing with the school, meaning he did not have any detentions or D’s.

Ten students signed up, but four were ineligible because they did not meet the criteria, said Mike Finn, El Modena High School’s activities director.

“It’s just for some fun. It’s a tongue-and-cheek, almost parody of your female beauty pageant,” Finn said.

Two students from Villa Park High School and one from Canyon High School judged the show. They announced senior Chris Lawrence as Mr. Vanguard 2010.

Lawrence performed a figure skating routine in roller skates to Miley Cyrus’ song “The Climb” in full costume.

“It was hysterical seeing my six-foot, bearded son up on the stage wearing a leotard and tights,” said Kathy Lawrence, Chris Lawrence’s mother.

Originality and the ability to relate to the audience were what Chris Lawrence believed won him the title, he said.

“Everyone refers to me as Mr. Vanguard now,” said Chris Lawrence. “It’s kind of funny.”

All money raised from the show goes towards the ASB account for campus activities. Money was earned from ticket sales, which cost $5 with an ASB card, and $8 without.

Finn predicted that $800 to $1,000 was raised.

– Caroline Stegner

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An Orange couple who removed their front lawn to save water, the environment and money have earned the ire of city officials – who are taking the couple to Superior Court over the lack of green on the yard.

Quan Ha said his dispute with city officials dates back to 2008, when Ha and his wife, Angelina, decided to remove all of the grass from in front of their Orange home.

“Our water bill was $180 every two months,” said Ha, 36, an IT manager. “We wanted to save money, and we didn’t want to spend $125 a month on our gardener, and we really didn’t want to use fertilizer or water.”

Angelina Ha said the couple spent approximately $3,000 to have the grass professionally removed. She said when she and her husband discovered she was pregnant, their perspective on the environment changed.

“We wanted to be more earth-friendly,” Angelina Ha said. “It wasn’t a money-saving thing; it was a water-saving thing.”

Wayne Winthers, an assistant city attorney, said the city’s code-enforcement department received a complaint about the Ha family’s front yard, which at the time was just dirt. The yard violated a city law requiring residents to have at least 40 percent of their front property landscaped, Winthers said.

Quan Ha said when he received a violation notice about the yard in 2008, four months after taking out the lawn, he spread wood chips over the yard.

“Wood chips, in our eyes, is landscaping, especially if we don’t want grass,” Ha said. “I don’t see why wood chips are not acceptable as landscaping.”

Winthers said wood chips do not qualify as landscape, according to the city code.

“It’s not landscape material, which has to be live, living plant material,” Winthers said. “The wood chips or mulch doesn’t qualify as living material.”

In June 2009, the city sent the Ha family a draft complaint – a letter stating the city’s intent to file a complaint in court.

Angelina Ha said she and her husband then spent $1,600 to build an ornate fence that borders the property and plant some drought-tolerant plants.

“We’ve been saving for a tree, but that’s thousands of dollars,” Angelina Ha said. “We’re not putting in grass, because our daughter will be crawling around.”

Quan Ha said it was always his family’s intention to plant drought-tolerant plants.

“It’s always been a money issue,” Ha said. “We’re both fortunate to have jobs, but we also have a newborn.”

Winthers said the Ha family missed an October deadline to file a site plan for how they would bring their yard up to code and the city filed court papers.

“They won’t comply, I think, without being forced to,” Winthers said. “We’ve ended up at a crossroads, so we’ll go to court.”

There is a March 2 court date.

Angelina Ha said she mailed photos of the yard with the fence and drought-resistant plants to the city’s code-enforcement department in November but never heard back.

“Because we didn’t get a response, we thought it was fine,” she said. “We’d rather not go to court.”

Quan Ha said his family’s water bill has dropped to $48 every two months, and Ha said his family is helping the environment by not using fertilizer.

“It goes against everything some cities are saying by asking people not to water their lawns,” Ha said of the lawsuit. “California is still a desert.”

Winthers said the goal of taking the Ha family to court is to get them to come into compliance with city law. The maximum penalty, if the Ha family is found guilty of a misdemeanor, is up to six months in jail and up to a $1,000 fine.

“We’re not looking to send anyone to prison, we want compliance,” Winthers said. “This is a last-resort type of thing, because we’ve worked with these people for a long time.”

Contact the writer: 714-704-3704 or efields@ocregister.com

To go to OrangeCityWatch.com, the Register’s blog on the city of Orange, click here.

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Orange Republican Women, Federated will host a luncheon Tuesday at the Orange County Mining Co.

The event will begin at 10:30 a.m. with registration and a social. The meeting will begin at 11 a.m. and the speaker will follow the noon luncheon.

The guest speaker will be Steve Baric, a member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the California Republican Party. A resident of Orange County, Baric is the president of the California Republican Lawyers Association, a former Orange County gang prosecutor and a member of the elite TARGET Gang Task Force.

The Orange County Mining Co. is at 1000 Crawford Canyon Road.

Required reservations are $24 per person. To reserve a spot, call 717-731-2460.

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