Stars

Trenton Irwin's exploits on the football field have taken him from the Santa Clarita Valley all the way to Texas in the past year, but the recent youth-league champion and national all-star game most valuable player began his journey right here in the Jewel City. Irwin, a promising wide receiver and safety, honed his skills within the Glendale Bears youth program for seven years, starting at age 5. Still a Glendale resident and currently an eighth-grader at Rosemont Middle School, Irwin joined up with the Santa Clarita Indians of the Pacific Youth Football League two years ago and led the Indians to the PYFL Senior Super Bowl championship this past November.

What made the Crescenta Valley Chamber monthly mixer a little out of the ordinary this week was its host — the Armenian Relief Society, which is often thought of as more concerned with community outreach and humanitarian issues than business. Relief society members networked with area business owners as it played host to some 75 chamber members and their guests at the Crescenta Valley Armenian Community Center in Montrose on Wednesday. Relief Society Chairwoman Aline Habeshian was honored with a certificate of appreciation from two chamber heavy hitters.

The News-Press and Leader visited with students at Balboa Elementary School and asked: Would you like to go into outer space? Why? "Yes, because I want to see the planets and how they look in real life." AMBER SOLIS, 8 "Yes, I want to see the planets, like Jupiter, and I want to see the Earth from way up. And I want to land on the moon." PAULIE KARAMANOUKIAN, 8 "Yes, because it would be fun. I would get to see a lot of stuff, like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, Mars and the constell- ations."

A world-class event, CaDance Festival, will take center stage in Laguna Beach from Oct. 1 to Oct. 9, offering a full menu of top dance performances, master workshops and classes, an Oscar-nominated dance documentary with two of its stars in a attendance, and a gala event with Patrick Swayze. An esteemed dance professional for more than 20 years, Jodie Gates, the festival's artistic director, is bringing internationally recognized dancers and premier dance companies for the nine-day event.

Griffith J. Griffith, a Welsh immigrant, made his first million in silver mining. He came to Los Angeles and invested in land, purchasing thousands of acres of the Los Feliz rancho. Believing that a great city deserved a great public park, he left most of his land to the City of Los Angeles for the creation of a free, city park that would be named for him ? Griffith Park. Late in life, Griffth was invited to see the telescope on top of Mount Wilson. It was the largest telescope of its kind at the time.

While most coaches bring their top athletes to world-class gyms stocked with the latest work-out equipment, all Glendale resident Bill Bennett needs to train his prized competitors is a tank full of gas and the 210 Freeway. "I like to exercise them a bit," Bennett said of his classic Ford car collection. "Driving them around is fun because you get a lot of people waving at you. I try to take each car out for a spin about once a month." Bennett, president of a general export company, will take his 1932 Ford three-window coupe out of the garage this month to meet nearly 400 other owners for a drive down Brand Boulevard from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. this Saturday at Glendale's 14th annual Cruise Night Car Show and Street Party.

GLENDALE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT Glendale's 2,569 ninth-grade students' Standardized Testing and Reporting scores Tables below represent: Subject / # of students taking the test / % of ninth grade students enrolled in each subject / % testing at proficient -- ALGEBRA I 1,255 48.9% 29% GEOMETRY 543 21.1% 48% ALGEBRA II 122 4.7% 44% BIOLOGY/ LIFE SCIENCES 1,510 58.8% 28% CHEMISTRY 25...

Darleene Barrientos An ornery duck with close ties to Glendale will get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on his 70th birthday Monday. Glendale resident Lucy Taliaferro Yarick, whose late first husband, Alfred Taliaferro, drew and inked Donald Duck's first daily comic strip, said she's delighted with the honor, but is amused about who's getting the spotlight. "People always said, '[Alfred] should have a star on the boulevard.' Instead, the duck gets it," she said, laughing.