Sharon Bernstein - 1967

SHARON (BERNSTEIN) PERLMUTER grew up in Orange County and had the honor of serving as her city's official hostess as "Miss Anaheim" in 1967.  Sharon worked at Disneyland as a VIP hostess during her 5 years of college at Cal State Fullerton, where she received her B.A. in Communications and in 1972 was honored as "Public Relations Student of the Year".  When her children reached school age Sharon returned to college at UCI for her California Teaching Credential. In 1983 Sharon joined Temple Bat Yahm (TBY), where her children received their religious school education and had a B'nai Mitzvah in 1990. During her 27 years of membership, she taught religious school for 12 years, served on the temple board as publicity chairperson, ritual committee chairperson, publicity coordinator, and editor of the fundraising yearbook. She also served one term as corresponding secretary for WTBY. This month, Sharon will assume the position of Social Action chairperson at TBY. For the past seven years Sharon has been volunteering with the Jeremiah Society, an organization of developmentally disabled Jewish adults who meet once a month at TBY for social interaction, spiritual connections, discussions, dancing, singing, and holiday celebrations. Sharon assists in the planning of programs and teaches a Judaic lesson each month to the members. Together with all these activities, Sharon has also been a volunteer docent at John Wayne Airport since 1990, and was named "Tour Guide of the Year" in 2006. Sharon was an elementary school teacher in the Saddleback Valley Unified District for 22 years. At Olivewood Elementary School she was honored as "Teacher of the Year" in 2005.  Aside from her teaching responsibilities, Sharon has volunteered for the past 12 years to teach an after school performing arts class at her school, where many of the students are English Language Learners. Sharon has been married to Joel for the past 14 years, and has two married children - Bill and Rhonda and two grandchildren. Sharon’s feelings about her profession could be summed up by two of her favorite t-shirt messages: "Every day I teach I learn something new" - and -  "Teachers Touch the Future". The future we touch is the community of tomorrow.