APPLE VALLEY • Hirokazu Kanazawa reminds you of Mr. Miyagi, the fictional karate master in the 1984 movie “Karate Kid.”

As masters of the traditional Japanese martial art, they both teach young students about life, spreading words full of humor and wisdom.

A big difference? Mr. Miyagi told his apprentice, Daniel LaRusso, that the belt he has is canvas from JCPenney. But Kanazawa holds a 10th degree black belt, which only two out of two million Shotokan Karate members from more than 100 countries do.

Kanazawa, who turned 79 years old last month, traveled across the Pacific to visit an Apple Valley karate gym Thursday, giving lessons to more than 70 local students. American karate masters from around the country gathered at James Woody Community Center to greet him.

“He’s basically a living legend,” said Paul Walker, the chief instructor at Seishin Shotokan Karate in Apple Valley, who studied under Kanazawa. “Everywhere in the world, he’s big. He has a huge following.”

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BIG BEAR LAKE • Jordan Romero blushed with a smile on his face as he entered a Big Bear Middle School gym where nearly 400 students chanted his name to greet him.

The lanky 13-year-old dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, wearing his baseball cap backwards, looked just like any other teenager.

But Romero accomplished something no other kid his age has ever done: He reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 22, becoming the youngest person to climb the tallest mountain in the world.

The Big Bear community celebrated the return of its homegrown hero Wednesday, holding a surprise school assembly and welcome back fair at the Big Bear Middle School, where Romero’s an eighth-grade student.

“It takes so much preparation and you really got to put so much hard work into it,” Romero said about his Mount Everest hike in a press conference on top of Snow Summit. “It does get serious up there. Our motto for the whole trip was no mistakes. ... Although I don’t recommend it to other young kids, I do encourage them to find their own Everest and work hard toward their goals that they set to do and to live there dreams and go for it.”

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