Motorcade

Like characters from the pages of a history book, alumni from nearly every decade of Burbank High School’s 100-year span paraded down Third Street on Saturday as part of the campus’ centennial celebration. Prom queens of the 1940s resurrected their hand waves while perched atop classic convertibles, former cheerleaders brought back their synchronized pompom drills, and ex-sports stars — some of them in their 60s and 70s — ran down the street as they likely did when coming onto the field in their youth.

Burbank police recruit Robert Jacobson wanted to get up and out from behind his desk job and make a difference in someone’s life. Jacobson made the decision to alter his life forever, so he quit his job as a computer programmer and joined the police academy, he said. “I wanted to make a change,” the 28-year-old Granada Hills resident said. “I wanted something different.” Jacobson’s new life as a police officer will soon be realized.

The city was abuzz with enthusiasm Thursday as President Barack Obama swooped in for a taping of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” becoming the first sitting president to visit the set in “Beautiful Downtown Burbank.” Locals mixed with audience members and protesters outside NBC-TV Studios on West Alameda Avenue, all eager to catch a glimpse of the 44th president — or at least get a look at his motorcade. Burbank resident Cherri Michailov, despite protest from Emerson Elementary School officials, pulled her adopted son from class to be there.

Media from across the world packed into tents Thursday facing the entrance of Glendale Forest Lawn Memorial Park, beaming reports to Russia, Brazil and Japan in an effort to sate the voracious appetite for information about the slain pop star. ?For me it?s a mixed experience,? said Jessica Maldonado, a reporter whose Univision dispatches on the life and times of Michael Jackson have informed the Spanish-language audience for years. ?It doesn?t matter where you are in the world, to the smallest town in Mexico, he was the king of pop. With him, the language never mattered.

Hordes of spectators surrounded the perimeter of Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in the Hollywood Hills on Tuesday morning as they strained to catch a glimpse of Michael Jackson’s coffin and private funeral caravan. Fans engulfed a grassy area across the Los Angeles River as the late pop star’s motorcade — a chain of 30 cars led by five Rolls-Royces followed by more than two dozen California Highway Patrol vehicles — entered into the tightly controlled cemetery.

Ten members of the Burbank Road Kings took a road trip of a charitable kind the Sunday before Christmas. They played Santa Claus, but instead of arriving by sleigh, they delivered a special gift to a woman in need via classic vehicles. The car club wanted to help a family this holiday season and heard about Sarah Haynes through local businessman Charlie Cusumano, who supports projects to help the military. Haynes served four years as a Marine and is now in the reserves while she cares for her mother and sister who have health issues.