[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 132 (Monday, September 30, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1401-E1402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN RECOGNITION OF EDMUND REGALIA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 30, 2013

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and 
thank Edmund L. Regalia for his many years of service as Founding 
Director of the Kennedy-King Memorial Scholarship Fund.
  Established in 1968 in memory of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and 
Senator Robert F. Kennedy the Kennedy-King Memorial Scholarship Fund 
provides financial aid to graduating community college students from 
minority groups under-represented at California's four-year colleges 
and universities. Many award winning students have excelled 
academically but are faced with financial hardships.
  Since its creation forty-five years ago, the Kennedy-King Memorial 
Scholarship Fund has raised well over $3.5 million to help send more 
than 600 community college students from Contra Costa to four-year 
universities. None of this would be possible without Ed Regalia's

[[Page E1402]]

dynamic leadership in the community and his unwavering commitment to 
students.
  Recently Ed was named a ``Hometown Hero'' by our own Bay Area News 
Group-East Bay in partnership with Comcast Corporation specifically 
recognizing his work with Kennedy-King Memorial Scholarship Fund. For 
those of us who have known and worked with Ed these many years, the 
term Hometown Hero is certainly fitting. He and his wife, Gwen, have 
made a decided difference not only in the lives of the deserving 
students but through their community service and philanthropic work. 
Truly, they have touched the lives of all of us in Contra Costa County.
  Please join me in congratulating Ed and Gwen Regalia for their 
dedication to our students and our community, and I commend my 
colleagues to read the following article recognizing their work:

              [From the Contra Costa Times, Sept. 3, 2013]

Hometown Hero: Walnut Creek Attorney's 40 years of Handing Out Minority 
                          College Scholarships

                          (By Matthias Gafni)

       Shortly after Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968 
     and months after Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed, a 
     young Ed Regalia met with his Democratic Club in a friend's 
     Walnut Creek backyard.
       The idealistic young attorney, along with wife Gwen and 
     others, thought of how they could honor the two men's 
     contributions to society. They decided to create a 
     scholarship fund for low-income, minority students in Contra 
     Costa County. They consulted a black professor at Diablo 
     Valley College, Regalia said.
       ``He set up a program that he recommended, and we followed 
     his rules,'' Regalia said in a recent interview from his 
     Walnut Creek home.
       More than four decades later, the Kennedy-King Memorial 
     College Scholarship Fund has helped send more than 600 Contra 
     Costa community college students to four-year universities, 
     raising more than $3.5 million.
       ``We're very grateful,'' said Regalia, now 82, retired and 
     recovering from a stroke five years ago.
       The well-known attorney, whose wife served as Walnut 
     Creek's mayor for many years, still sits on the fund's board. 
     His work with minority students began even earlier, when he 
     was a 16-year-old El Cerrito High student leading the Del Mar 
     Hi-Y club. A district official wrote a letter to the teenage 
     Regalia in 1948 about a recital, saying, ``The spirit of your 
     organization in being willing to agree to sponsor a colored 
     boy before the public was, to me, far more important.'' It 
     was a year after Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier 
     in baseball, his wife pointed out.
       Regalia was born in El Cerrito; his father laid bricks for 
     a living. Regalia attended nearby UC Berkeley while earning a 
     scholarship from the Navy. He served three years during the 
     latter part of the Korean War, leaving the military as a 
     lieutenant before returning to Cal and graduating from Boalt 
     Law School.
       By 1964, Regalia joined Boalt classmates Harry Miller and 
     Marvin Starr to form the Miller Starr Regalia law firm. 
     Dealing almost exclusively in civil litigation, Regalia led 
     the firm in real estate and business issues, representing 
     title companies, banks, savings and loans, and other 
     companies.
       The father of four was involved in many major cases, 
     litigating once for a woman whose house was damaged from a 
     landslide. That case wound its way to the state Supreme Court 
     and led to requirements to provide disclosures for 
     homebuyers.
       His work with the scholarship fund raised some eyebrows, 
     with most thinking it would quickly fizzle out.
       At the inaugural dinner, held June 14, 1969, in Concord, 
     Regalia's group awarded $2,000 scholarships each to the first 
     two recipients. The organization spent months personally 
     collecting pledges from various politicians and Contra Costa 
     movers and shakers. U.S. Rep. George Miller's father, then a 
     state senator, pulled a $100 bill from his money clip when 
     the couple approached him, Gwen Regalia said. The younger 
     George Miller continues to raise $8,000 each year to fund a 
     scholarship, she added.
       The fund has always reached across the political aisle. At 
     the first dinner, the speakers included former Democratic 
     U.S. Reps. Pete Stark and Jerome Waldie, and Republican State 
     Sen. John Nejedly.
       Over the years, more and more of the fundraising came from 
     corporations, enabling more students to get help. The fund 
     requires low-income minority students to have spent two years 
     at one of Contra Costa's three community colleges, and the 
     scholarships help pay for their junior and senior years at 
     four-year universities. Graduate school scholarships also are 
     available.
       Alameda County deputy district attorney Mark Jackson, who 
     is black, received an undergraduate scholarship in 1988 as a 
     Contra Costa College undergraduate, and it allowed him to 
     finish his degree at San Francisco State. He won the 
     scholarship again in 1991 as he tackled his law degree at 
     Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
       As a college student, Jackson struggled to earn enough 
     money to attend college.
       ``The scholarship was very helpful in enabling me, in 
     conjunction with working two jobs and with my family's help, 
     in graduating college without any student loan debt,'' 
     Jackson said. ``These students need every dollar they can get 
     from this program.''
       Jackson, now 45, has since served on the scholarship's 
     board and started a pre-law program at Contra Costa College.
       ``Whenever they finished and got a job, they were expected 
     to devote their time in the community,'' said Gwen Regalia, 
     who has served on the scholarship fund board, as well as 21 
     years on the Walnut Creek City Council and nine years on the 
     Walnut Creek school district board.
       In May, Ed Regalia's organization awarded scholarships to 
     another 20 students who will attend undergraduate and 
     graduate schools, including San Francisco State, UC Berkeley, 
     Mills College, University of Alaska, Cal Poly San Luis 
     Obispo, Cal State East Bay, Holy Names University and Samuel 
     Merritt University.

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