Cub Scoutmaster Leads the Pack in Volunteer Effort

For 10 years before Mark Wright came on the scene, there were no Cub Scouts in Beverly Hills. The program was the victim of declining elementary school enrollment and a lack of volunteer parents.

So when Wright’s son, Darrin, wanted to join the Scouts a few years ago, he had nowhere to go.

“Well, some of the other parents and I got together and decided we wanted our kids to be in Cub Scouts,” said Wright, 42, who was a Cub Scout as a boy in Merced.

In 1986, the parents re-established Beverly Hills’ Pack 100 and chose Wright to be its first Cubmaster.

But the Scouts again ran into the problems of 10 years ago, and during the first year the pack was really only a den of six Cubs. Then Wright came up with an inspired idea.

“Normally, a Cub pack is usually for one school,” said Wright, who by day is the director of Packard Bell Financial Services. “What I did was combine all four (Beverly Hills elementary schools) into one Cub pack. That way we were able to draw support from the entire community.”

As word spread about the re-emergence of Cub Scouting in the city, Pack 100 grew from six boys to 30 the next year, to 50 the next, and today boasts about 100 Scouts, he said.

For his work, Wright was recently named “Cubmaster of the Year” by the Scouts’ Crescent Bay District, which includes most of the Cub packs in the Westside.

“I think (Scouting) is extremely important in this day and age,” said Wright, whose pack is involved in everything from food drives for the needy to planting trees in Maltz Park. “It gives the kids a sense of camaraderie . . . and it brings back a grass-roots involvement in the community that they don’t get in any other activity.”

The Culver City Unified School District has named Laura Plasse as the new principal at Culver City High School. Plasse, the principal of Beaumont High School in Riverside County, will succeed Principal Glenn Cook, who will retire at the end of this school year.

Dr. Malcolm D. Cosgrove, a West Los Angeles physician, was reelected for a second one-year term as president of Sinai Temple.

Also elected were six vice presidents: Judy Galperson, education; Dr. Paul Herman, ritual; Milton Hyman, membership; Jules Porter, community relations; Victor Sabah, finance, and Dorothy Salkin, administration.

Basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar received the UCLA Alumni Assn.’s highest honor, the Edward A. Dickson “Alumnus of the Year” award at the group’s 45th Annual Alumni Awards for Excellence ceremony.

Abdul-Jabbar, who retired last year after 20 years in the National Basketball Assn., led UCLA basketball teams to three national championships from 1966-69.

Also honored at the ceremony was U.S. Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles), who received an “Honorary Alumnus” award for his efforts to promote federal support of research programs and facilities at the university.

The UCLA Alumni Assn. honored five UCLA graduates with Professional Achievement Awards. They are: Diane Freis, a fashion designer and founder of clothing manufacturer Diane Freis Enterprises; attorney Geraldine Hemmerling, the first woman president of the American College of Probate Counsel; Kenneth Karst, UCLA law professor; Army Gen. Louis Menetrey, commander-in-chief of the U.N. Command in South Korea, and James F. Montgomery, chairman and chief executive officer of Great Western Financial Corp.

Loyola Marymount University has named Joseph G. Jabbra, academic and research vice president at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as its new academic vice president. He succeeds Albert Koppes, who, after a sabbatical, will return as professor of education.

The university also announced the hiring of Gerald S. Jakubowski, interim dean of engineering at Memphis State University, as the new dean of the College of Science and Engineering.

Ruth Grebler Sinaiko of Beverly Hills received the Eleanor Roosevelt Medallion from the American Friends of Tel Aviv University at its annual Benefactors’ Ball at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

The award was in recognition of Sinaiko’s record of humanitarian service, which includes work with United Jewish Appeal, the Golda Meir Group of State of Israel Bonds and the Temple Israel Sisterhood.