Happy 100th to Colonist Centurion Jeanette VanDelden

Anaheim grads joined with Jeannie’s family to celebrate her 100th birthday!

Born Dec. 21, 1918, in Shelton, Nebraska, Jeanette (Jennie) Rose Campbell Van Delden’s was 6-years-old when she moved to Anaheim with her family in 1924.

Called Jennie by her family and friends, she attended Citron Elementary School and Fremont Junior High. She graduated in 1936 from Anaheim Union High School.

In 1937, she married Henry Van Delden. They had twin daughters, Bonne Mae and Bette Lou.

One of the many memories she shares about growing up in Anaheim is being rescued by boat, along with her husband and baby daughters, from the roof of their home on Wilhelmina Street during the 1938 flood.

Jeanette and Henry were married for 61 years, until he passed away in 1998.

Jennie worked for Anaheim Laundry from 1947 to 1952. In 1952, she went to work for Northrop Aircraft in Anaheim for 19 years, retiring in 1970.

Her community activities include serving as a volunteer for 26 years with the Friends of Anaheim Library. She retired as the group’s treasurer in 2014. She is also an active member of the Anaheim High School Alumni Association and rarely misses a meeting of the month Alumni Breakfast Club.

Jeanette is an avid card player and often wins games of Rummy against her daughter, Bonne Stevens, and Bonne’s group of friends, who are 1955 Anaheim High graduates. Jeanette also keeps busy by reading novels and regularly playing solitaire on her IPad.

Jeanette said her secret to a long life is having a good sense of humor and a nightly cocktail.

Please join the AHS Alumni Association in toasting to the continued health and long life of this lovely lady, who is the quintessence of grace and elegance. May she continue to touch the lives around her with her kind spirit and gentle manners.

Everything’s Coming Up Roses for AHS Student Selected to Ride Parade Float

Anaheim High sophomore Evelyn Maldonado, 15, said she’s been practicing her wave for the millions of viewers who will be watching the 129th Rose Parade.  

Along with her love for music and singing, Evelyn was selected to be part of this year’s Rose Parade festivities because she’s a role model who inspires others.  A “Student of the Month” who’s on Anaheim High’s honor roll, Evelyn  was  18 months old when she was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, an eye cancer that claimed her vision.

Evelyn said she discovered her love of music around age 3, when she started singing along to a CD of Disney princess songs her mother brought her to listen to during her treatments.

By age 7, Evelyn started classes at the Anaheim Braille Institute. For the past nine years, she has been thriving in the school’s performing arts program, singing lead in her school musical and in the Johnny Mercer Youth Choir.

Evelyn will be joined by two other Braille Institute students on the Lions Club International  float, which celebrates the Club’s “Rocking the Vest” rap video, which Lions International  created so younger potential members can view Lions in a new and fun way. The rap lyrics focus on what wearing the yellow Lions Club vest means: “Whenever a Lions Club gets together, problems get smaller and communities get better.”

The Lions Club has been supporting the Braille Institute since 1925, when Helen Keller named the Lions “Knights of the Blind” for their good work to prevent blindness and help those with vision loss. For the Braille Institute’s students, riding on a float that’s in keeping with the Rose Parade theme, “The Melody of Life,” is also symbolic of their journey.

Braille Institute President Peter Mindich points out in an article on the Institute’s website (www.brailleinstitute.org/anaheim) that for these young students, vision loss doesn’t mean loss of doing what you love, adding that his three students inspire others through their “positivity and confidence through their musical and singing talents.”

The Rose Parade appearance of these young ambassadors is also serving as a special kick off for the Braille Institute’s centennial celebration.  The Los Angeles-based nonprofit was founded in 1919 and began offering free programs and services to blind and vision-impaired Orange County residents in 1934. 

Other activities marking the 100th anniversary will take place throughout the year, including the Feb. 28 grand opening of a completely made over Anaheim Center at 527 North Dale Ave. The new 14,000-square-foot center will support more than 37,000 people with vision loss through 300 classes and programs.

Evelyn’s mother and older sister plan to be among the thousands of parade-goers cheering for all the Lion’s Club float, as it proceeds down Colorado Boulevard. The Colonist community will also be applauding Evelyn for her courage and Anaheim High spirit and pride as she rides with her head held high in the 2019 Rose Parade.

(Photo courtesy of the Braille Institute)

 

Class of 1963 – 55th Reunion

Fun time, hope to see you in 4 years (2023).

                                     

          

 

2018 AHS Reunions

2018 Reunions

Questions may directed to anaheimalumni@yahoo.com

                 Visit www.anaheimcolonists.com

Past

Class of 1988 – Anaheim High School Multi-year Class Reunion (’86, ’87, ’88, ’89) – August 11

Class of 1955 – 63rd – September 8

Homecoming Game –  September 14

All-Class Reunion – September 15 – 10A-2P (On AHS Campus)

Class of 1973 – 45th – September 22

Class of 1956 – September 28-30 – Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Class of 1978 – 40th – October 6 – P.M.

Class of 1964 – Birthday – October 11

Class of 1958 – 60th  – October 20 – 11A-4P

Class of 1968  –50th – October 20 -6:00 P.M.

Class of 2008 – 10th – October 20 – 7:00 P.M.

Class of 1950 – October 21 – 11:00A.M.

Class of 1963 – 55th – October 27 – P.M. 

Class of 1972 – Mixer – November 4 – 4P.M. (All Classes Welcome)

Class of 1948 – 70th – November 10 – 2:30 P.M.

Class of 1952 (1951 & 1953) – November 18 – 11A.M.

 

 

Class of 1956 Reunion – September 2018

Homecoming 2018 Celebrated in Colonist Style!

Homecoming 2018 brought hundreds of Colonist alumni to the Friday night Varsity football game and Saturday’s All-Class Reunion on the AHS campus. Enjoy the photos from the events and be sure to subscribe to the website using this LINK to receive information on future alumni gatherings and reunions.

Anaheim High Football Gallery

History of Anaheim High School Band and Pageantry

Click on the link below for an historic timeline on the AHS Band. Scroll down to see a gallery of photos (more to come!) and there’s also a link to hear the AHS Band.

History

Click here to hear the band!

AHS Connection to the Japanese-American WWII Experience Comes Full-Circle

Sharing Her Family’s Unique History Becomes Life Work for AHS Alumna

George Hirahara’s softball seen at Smithsonian during AHSAA visit.

Anaheim High Class of 1973 graduate Patti Hirahara, whose family came to Anaheim as part of the Japanese-American resettlement after WWII,  is carrying her family’s story forward by sharing an acclaimed photo collection and other ephemerae preserved from their incarceration in a WWII Japanese relocation camp.

Her work is also helping illuminate Anaheim High’s connection to the Japanese-American WWII experience.

Patti’s father, grandparents and great-grandparents were moved from Yakima, Washington, to Wyoming’s Heart Mountain Relocation Center. From a secret darkroom underneath a camp barracks, Patti’s father, Frank, and grandfather, George, developed and printed 2000 photographs that chronicled the lives of the 10,000-population Heart Mountain camp.

(There were nine other camps built under the direction of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which authorized the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese-Americans, including infants and children. Over two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens. Signed Feb. 19, 1942, the order was later called America’s “worst wartime mistake.”)

As a citizen of Japan, her grandfather George was not allowed to possess camera equipment. But Patti’s father Frank C. Hirahara, then a high school teenager, was a U.S. citizen and allowed to take photos with the family camera purchased from the Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs.

While Frank was incarcerated, he played trumpet in the famous Heart Mountain George Igawa Dance Band and was photo editor of the Heart Mountain High School “Tempo” annual during his senior year in 1944.

When Frank passed away in 2006, he could not have imagined that his family’s history would allow historians and museums to create photographic collections and exhibits across the U.S. that would tell the tale of the Japanese immigration into the United States, their history in America, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII.

Thanks to Patti’s diligence, her ancestors’ experience became the subject of an Emmy-award winning documentary, “The Legacy of Heart Mountain,” and used as background historical material for the world premiere of the musical “Allegiance” at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego.

In addition, the family’s photo collection has been displayed in numerous exhibits, including  being shown at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.

After he was released from the camp in 1945, he continued his education at Washington State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1948.

In 2010, Patti donated the original negatives and photos to WSU. Funding from the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program allowed the University to preserve, clean and digitize the negatives for future generations. Click this link to access the collection.

Patti Hirahara named honorary WSU alumna

For her work, Patti has received numerous awards and recognitions, including being named a WSU honorary alumna. Receiving the award was especially significant for her, as this year marks the 75th anniversary of when her father began taking photos in the camp.

“WSU’s history is unknown to many people, especially the fact that the university allowed Japanese-American students to continue their education during WWII,” she said. “It is an extreme honor to be recognized by my father’s alma mater and it has been a wonderful partnership with WSU over the last eight years.” She is the first Japanese American to receive the award since 1966.

Patti has worked more than six years locating many of the people in the photos. By sharing them with family descendants, she offered them a piece of history that they never knew existed. In addition, she’s spearheaded workshops, films and presentations during which she shared her family’s story and photo collection with hundreds of students and community members, as well as being a featured speaker at the FDR Presidential Library.

In 2009, the Anaheim Library’s Heritage Center  held its first museum without walls  exhibit documenting the Hirahara family’s legacy to the City.

Most recently, Patti’s has joined efforts with the  Anaheim Library Heritage Center to identify and interview the 50 students of Japanese descent whose educations at Anaheim High were interruped when their families were forced to relocate to camps.

A particularly poignant part of the Anaheim High story is that the principal at this time, Dr. Paul Demaree, was born in Japan to missionary parents. He was especially vocal in speaking out against discrimination toward Japanese-Americans, a courageous position to take considering the war fervor at the time. Principal Demaree, who also served as the District’s superintendent, kept in touch with his Japanese-American students and encouraged them to continue their studies.

Ironically, the parents of today’s AUHSD Superintendent, Mike Matsuda, were both incarcerated in the same internment camp; his mother, Ruth Ikeda, was one of the students who had to leave Anaheim High during her freshman year.

 

Colonist Luau Launches Membership Drive Kick-Off

The AHS Alumni Association celebrated its 10th anniversary at a June 22nd “Anaheim Aloha” Membership Mixer at the home of Barry and Cathi (Soden) Hoffstetter (’67).

Guests, dressed in their favorite luau garb, enjoyed dinner and dessert, music, a silent auction, no-host bar, and a grand-prize drawing of Colonist memorabilia provided by the AHS Football Booster Club and the AHSAA.

The mixer was open to all alumni, family and friends who renewed their annual membership at the $25 level or above. 

Membership incentives, including a Colonist tote bag, are available. Click here to view the membership levels, which range from a $10 student fee to a $1000 life-time membership.

You can join online using the link above or click here for a downloadable form that can be printed and mailed in along with your donation.

The AHSAA encourages yearly donations to continue its important work of awarding annual scholarships; supporting academic, athletic and performing arts programs; and preserving AHS history and advancing Colonist Spirit, Pride & Tradition. In keeping with this mission, the AHSAA has donated more than $250,000 in scholarships and financial support.

Thank you for supporting Anaheim High School and its students!