A Glimpse in their Lives
2001 Honorees
William Alhouse was perplexed when informed he was a 2001 Lifetimes of Achievement honoree -- he didn't think he had done anything worthy of such recognition.
But his many hundreds of friends -- spanning demographic, social, sports and business lines over a half-century -- recognize his distinguished and continuous service to his profession of real estate, his sport of baseball and to his community. Family, business, baseball and music constitute the core interests and commitment of Alhouse's enthusiastic, positive approach to life. Alhouse cites his good fortune to have been married to his wife, Barbara, for 50 years as of September, 2001. Their two daughters, Ginger and Jane, have each given them two grandchildren. |
Building 202 on the SRI International campus in Menlo Park is an unlikely site for a revolution. Once part of a military hospital, the drab, brown building currently serves as headquarters for AgileTV, which Paul Cook -- the company's founder and chairman -- believes will forever alter your relationship with television.
Cook's own office is barely large enough for his desk and a couple of chairs. Yet, the humble surroundings do not conceal Cook's monumental achievements. A member of the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame, he's received the National Medal of Technology from the President of the United States. Paul Cook was a founder and chairman of Raychem Corp., DIVA Systems Corp., and -- currently -- AgileTV. For five years, he was also chairman of SRI International. Of the |
Scientist, businesswoman, venture capitalist, philanthropist -- by any account, Helen Leong has achieved much in life. However, she briefly considered careers that would have take her down quite different paths: missionary and nightclub singer.
As a high-school student in Oakland in the early 1940s, she would go with a friend to the Merritt Hotel and listen to such big band greats as Stan Kenton. On occasion, when the lead singer didn't show, Leong would take over the mike. The offer of a job singing in a Chinese nightclub in San Francisco followed, but was quickly abandoned since it incurred her father's wrath and a threat of disinheritance. As for missionary, "I didn't have the temperament," she laughed. "I was too headstrong and impatient." |
Mary Wright Shaw grew up in Warren, Pennsylvania - by the Allegheny River - and has been a resident of Palo Alto since 1948. Two watch words govern her approach to life: passion and action. She has both qualities in abundance.
Faced with the prospect of rearing five young children alone after her husband died in 1960, she went back to college. Then, for two decades, she brought passion and action to her job as a school nurse. In the early '90s, her spirit and drive helped shape a home-visiting and nurturing program in East Palo Alto that improved children's lives. Over the last seven years, she's devoted thousands of hours to literacy programs for disadvantaged children, including the YES Reading program, which she helped found. |
Only a handful of visitors know of the vast difference between Avenidas today and the small room in Palo Alto's Downtown Library where Diana Steeples in 1971 established the first services for older adults in the Palo Alto area."My title, 'Senior Adult Community Resources Coordinator,' was longer than the room was wide," Steeples says of her quarters of three decades ago.
Until her retirement in 1997, Diana was a catalyst for the development of programs that now serve more than 6,000 older adults annually. "Truly, if anyone deserves credit for the breadth, depth and vitality of Avenidas' services, Diana does," Kathleen Gwynn, former president and CEO of Avenidas, said of Steeples' contributions. |
Sam Webster's personal connection to Palo Alto began with a chance meeting with a young woman three days before he was to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1940.
"She was dating another cadet," Webster recalled of his meeting with Mary, then a student at Simmons College in Boston and now his wife of 60 years. She was a Palo Alto native who was attending college on a 1938 scholarship from Miss Elizabeth Gamble, a Palo Alto benefactress whose home, the Gamble House and Garden, is now a city landmark. Webster's ebullient interest and athletic style quickly shut out the rival cadet and the pair soon became serious and began discussing marriage. |