Yorba Linda
Star
Serving Yorba Linda since 1917
AN EDITION OF
THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 20 1 3
A LOOK AT
LIBRARY TURNS
100
OCREGISTER.COM/YORBALINDA
LIBRARY HISTORY
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF YORBA LINDA PUBLIC LIBRARY
1 9 1 3: The library starts in a closet at the Yorba Linda School.
1 9 1 0: Gertrude Welsh, Yorba Linda’s first librarian, sits on an ostrich named President Taft at the Cawston Ostrich Farm in Pasadena on Dec. 25, 1 9 1 0.
A nearly yearlong celebration will kick off next week. BY DANIEL LANGHORNE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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You feel the sense of duty to history and your predecessors and their hard work.” MELINDA STEEP LIBRARY DIRECTOR
T
he Yorba Linda Public Library started in the closet of the Yorba Linda School – and 100 years later it is still growing. “That’s such an amazing milestone,” library director Melinda Steep said. “It stops and makes you think where the community is now, where it’s been and where it’s going.” Library staffers and volunteers are hosting a slate of activities to celebrate the anniversary through March 2014, to remember those who sustained the library and to prove that libraries aren’t an endangered species. A $10,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts is helping to pay for the celebration. The library opened as a volunteer organization on May 2, 1913, with help from the Yorba Linda Women’s Club, which made a $5 donation that probably went to purchasing books. S E E L I B R A RY ● PA G E 3
1 9 1 5: The Yorba Linda Women’s Club, a group that is instrumental in starting the Yorba Linda Public Library
1 9 1 7: A building is designated for the library.
1 959: The first section of the current Yorba Linda Public Library
1 970: The second addition to the library
1 992: The third addition to current library building
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O.C. musicians wow JFK Center BY DANIEL LANGHORNE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A string orchestra of local elementary students will return next year to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. They will have big shoes to fill – their own. Last week, more than 1,000 Kennedy Center patrons gave a standing ovation after 15 students from Yorba Linda’s Heritage Oak Private Education performed at the Festival of Gold Encore Concert. The students, 8 to 10 years old, were competing against high school musicians. “They’re still developing their little pinkies, so I never thought we’d be invited back,” said Orchestra Di-
Movie’s director sues, claims church didn’t pay for his work Friends Church in Yorba Linda says filming was part of the man’s job as the church’s media director. BY DANIEL LANGHORNE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
COURTESY OF HERITAGE OAK
From left, Rohan Ghaisas, Malek Yehya, Matthew Teng, Ramsey Tawfik, Jason Galantine, Chelsea Go, Tammy Yi, Ellen Hwang, Sarah Liu, Zhiar’a-nais Abegunde, Kyra Juan, Cassidy Chen, Audrey Kartika, Brianna Roesler, Hannah Ragasa, Kristina Abyad and Christian Byun of Heritage Oak Private Education celebrate their performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts.
rector Tammy Yi, 29. It was a long day for the young musicians, with a clinic with a strings specialist in the morning and their performance of Mozart’s String Quartet No. 15 in D minor at 9:30 p.m. The long day paid off
when three judges announced that Heritage Oak had tied for first with a Georgia high school. “One of the judges actually said in one of the comments, ‘I close my eyes and I hear 20-year-olds playing,’ ” Yi said.
The writer and director of the film “Not Today” is suing Friends Media, a production company set up by Friends Church in Yorba Linda, and DVD distributor Lions Gate Entertainment in federal court, accusing the church of refusing to fully pay him. Mathew Cork, the lead pastor of Friends Church, counters that Jon Van Dyke’s work as the film’s director was part of his job as the church’s media director, for which he was paid.
In his 23 years working in Hollywood, Van Dyke said he had not been treated as he had by Cork and the church. “Not Today,” which opened in limited theaters across the country this month, tells the story of a privileged American youth who travels to India with his buddies on a whim and meets a young girl who later is sold into prostitution. Van Dyke had worked as an animal trainer on the sets of movies, TV shows and commercials. “Not To-
day” was the first feature film he had directed. He and the film’s producer, Brent Martz, brought the idea for the film to Friends Church’s leadership in 2008 to help raise money to build schools for poor children in India. After returning to the United States from shooting much of the film in India, Van Dyke was told that the film’s budget had increased from $650,000 to $1.8 million, according to court documents. Van Dyke S E E L AW S U I T ● PA G E 4