Nonagenarian MARIAN LUPU, founder of the Pima Council on Aging, was honored with the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona 2016 Buddy Amos Founders Award at the foundation’s annual event April 27 at Hacienda del Sol. The agency, which Lupu began with a group of volunteers, got its start in 1965 as the Tucson Council on Aging. It was designated the area agency for Pima County in 1973. PCOA’s achievements include the first case management system to coordinate in-home supportive services for older adults; creation of the Pima County Ombudsman Program; development of the first home repair program; provision of respite services for family caregivers; and development of a Medicare insurance counseling program.
ESTER LEUTENBERG was inducted into the Cleveland Heights High School Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame at a ceremony on April 28. Leutenberg is the co-author of some 90 psychology workbooks on topics such as grief, conflict management and coping with anxiety. She is a board member of SOS (Survivors of Suicide) in Tucson and an advocate of the Coyote Task Force, a local agency to support individuals recovering from persistent, chronic mental illnesses and help them reintegrate into the community.
HADAR GRANT recently completed officer’s training and is now a second lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces. Grant is the granddaughter of Arlene Tuller, a Tucson resident for the last 49 years. Tuller’s son Marshall Grant made Aliyah in 1983 and spent almost 23 years in the IDF before retiring in 2009 at the rank of lieutenant colonel.
“My Father’s Daughter,” a prose memoir by local poet ESTHER SCHNUR-BERLOT, appears in the spring edition of Poetica Magazine, which is devoted to contemporary Jewish writers. Schnur-Berlot worked behind the scenes in TV commercials in New York, taught wearable art and designed jewelry and sculptures for homes and gardens under the name Esther Street before moving to Tucson. Her poetry has been published in the California State Poetry Quarterly, the Sonoma Collective, Desert Voices, The Blue Guitar Magazine online and Poetica Magazine.
