Page 8 - Dinuba Sentinel 5-3-18 E-edition

A8| Thursday, May 3, 2018 Back Page
The Dinuba Sentinel
High.
An advisory board, made up
of local experts, will decide on the next design at the end of this month.
One board member, local engineer Joe Garcia, is excited about the opportunities and benefits the program offers.
“I’m really excited about the whole concept,” said Garcia. “There was a young man who came into the program with a 0.6 grade point average... This kid is still there. He found something he liked. By the end of his freshman year his GPA was over 3.0. Here’s a kid that was failing... If you can touch one kid like that a year, who knows how many kids you’re touching?”
Recently, Garcia received the Outstanding Engineer in Community Service award by the Fresno branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers, San Francisco Section, for his work in the program.
“The award was essentially for helping the kids,” said Garcia. “If I hadn’t done this I wouldn’t have gotten the award.”
For more information on the house, call the district office at 595-7390.
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Wall dedication ceremony celebrates paid debt
House Continued from Page A1
Photos by Jackson Moore | The Sentinel
Above: Gary Barsoom plays "Taps" during the ceremony. Right: Lorenzo Rios speaks to the audience.
By Jackson Moore News@thedinubasentinel.com
The 2018 Western Regional Vietnam Memorial Wall Dedication Ceremony held a special meaning, as it also marked a celebration of the $177,000 monument in Dinuba being paid off.
Speaker Joe Rocha, Alta Post 19 Commander, said, “We are here today to celebrate a defining moment in our timeline of the Vietnam Wall here in the city of Dinuba. Although many in the community thought that our mission was unattainable, or that we were incapable of achieving our goal, we have proven them all incorrect.”
Rocha was one of six speakers, including Vietnam Veterans of America Commander Ricky Brown, retired Lieutenant Colonel and CEO of Clovis Veterans Memorial District Lorenzo Rios, Dinuba Mayor Scott Harness and Vice Mayor Kuldip Thusu, and past District Commander of American Legion Alta Post 14 Mildred Wright-Pearson.
Rios told the committee
responsible for bringing the memorial to Dinuba, “You chose to model what great patriotism is all about, the love of country... with this remarkable memorial, that I’ll be honest with you, most people would say it’s not possible to have in the Central Valley. But you do, it’s in the Central Valley. It’s absolutely appropriate that we have something like this in the Central Valley... It’s unlike anywhere else in the country.”
Rios also emphasized the importance of the wall itself, placed outside the Dinuba Memorial Hall.
Rios said, “Veterans have two deaths. The first one is when they take their last breath. The second is when their name is no longer mentioned. Because of you, Dinuba, these names will not be forgotten.
“AsIwasdrivinginIsawa sign... that Dinuba’s population is around 24,000,” Rios added. “58,000 are the names on the wall. Those are 58,000 souls. That’s Dinuba twice, every citizen in Dinuba twice over, lost in defense of this great nation. We must not forget what we fought for. Their sacrifice, we must make it matter.”
Many thanks and recognitions were given to the wall committee members and key contributors, including: Romelia Castillo, Moses Ibarra, Joe Rivera, Ruth Padilla, Frank Nunez, Ray Quintana, Jacob Huerta, Al Gonzales the late Ronnie Castillo Sr., Ernie Rubalcaba, Bob Refuerzo, Joe Martinez, Julio Rojas, and Sandora Richardson Watson, Tamzin Wheatley and Emily Burnias.
Fundraising will continue as the next mission is to beautify the wall with landscaping, lighting, a 24-inch-tall cement base, an extended cement walkway and more.
Top, Contributed: Joe Garcia is presented with the Outstanding Engineer in Community Service Award.
Above, Rick Curiel | The Sentinel: The home, filled with Dinuba High School project manager Mike Emmersen and students, is pictured on the DHS campus. The school is hoping to sell the finished product for $110,000.
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remodel their parents' home. The house should be completed within the next two weeks and is currently on the market. According to Sanchez, the school is hoping to get around $110,000 for the unit, which is a steal for today’s current market. Sanchez said the price of the unit reflects the added cost needed to relocate it. And according to Sanchez, after the house was shown at the recent Relay For Life event, the unit may soon find a new home as there were at least of couple
of interested parties.
In the past, the high school
has constructed houses through similar projects. Those houses, found on the corner of Crawford Avenue and Olive Way, and near Ed Dena’s, were funded mainly through redevelopment funds
provided through the city. Over the years a total of seven homes have been built by Dinuba High School students.
However, when those funds exhausted a few years back, so went the program, or at least the construction project.
But the district decided to revive the program using funds of their own, seeing that the project has shown the potential in the past to recoup the finances, and then some, allowing the program to basically fund itself.
Next year’s project has already been designed. There are eight finalists from the Construction Management class vying to have their design used for the project. This year’s design was by the team of Jose Perez and Elias Cuellar, both seniors at Dinuba
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