Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on October 26, 2012

Local Heroes Program culminates with 15th Annual Awards celebration.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) October 23, 2012

The 2012 Local Heroes honorees are: Shirlee Smith and Dr. Samella Lewis (Black History Month); Bea Cohen and Billie P. Weiss (Womens History Month); Stewart Kwoh and Bill Yoshiyuki Watanabe (Asian Pacific American Heritage Month); Abner D. and Roslyn Goldstine and Annette Shapiro (Jewish American Heritage Month); Ivy Bottini and Steven Michael Llanusa (LGBT Pride Month); Joel G. Leal and Carlos H. Vaquerno (Hispanic Heritage Month).

We are excited to celebrate the 2012 Local Heroes honorees who bring leadership, dedication and creativity to their work and communities, said Union Bank Senior Executive Vice President Pierre Habis, head of Community Banking. We are proud of our expanded partnership with KCET and look forward to celebrating the achievements of many more heroes as part of our

15-year tradition in Los Angeles.

KCET joins Union Bank as we recognize thirteen incredible individuals for their remarkable achievements in their respective communities, said KCET President and CEO Al Jerome. We are pleased to introduce them to our viewers through the video profiles currently airing on KCET and we are delighted to announce that the Local Heroes Awards will be broadcast for the first time next month on our station.

The 2012 Local Heroes honorees are:

Black History Month

Shirlee Smith is the president and CEO of Talk About Parenting with Shirlee Smith, Inc. The Pasadena-based nonprofit organization specializes in parenting issues. Smith provides parenting workshops including sessions for mothers who are for incarcerated, is a popular public speaker, writes an award-winning newspaper column and is host of the cable television show, Talk About Parenting LIVE" with Shirlee Smith. She is the author of Theyre Your Kids Not Your Friends, and the Spanish version, Son tus Hijos, no tus Amigos. Smith received the 2006 Angel in Adoption Congressional Award and was recently named chair of the Pacific Clinics Family Programs advisory board. She is a graduate of UCLA.

Dr. Samella Lewis is professor emeritus of art history at Scripps College of The Claremont Colleges, where she became the first tenured African American professor in art history and has worked for more than 40 years. Named a Distinguished Scholar by the Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities, she founded the Los Angeles Museum of African American Art in 1976 and was its curator until 1986. She also founded and edited landmark publications that helped increase recognition of African American art and artists, including The International Review of African American Art. Dr. Lewis earned her doctorate degrees in art and art history from Ohio State University.

Read more:
Union Bank and KCET Honor 2012 Local Heroes

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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