AHS Class of 1963 – 55th Reunion, Saturday, October 27, 2018.
More information to follow or email John Samson at auhs1963.55@gmail.com
Saldivar is Anaheim’s First Alumnus Principal
May 19, 2018 by
2017 – Robert Saldivar – Class of 1996
Roberto Saldivar, a Class of ’96 graduate is now serving as Anaheim High’s newest principal and the first alumnus to serve in that position. He previously was at Orange View Junior High as principal.
Saldivar began his teaching career at Anaheim in 2001, after earning his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology with a minor in health from Cal State Fullerton. He later earned his master’s in education from Azusa Pacific University.
At Anaheim High he taught AVID, health science and coached baseball, football, and basketball. He began his administrative career as an assistant principal at Ball Junior High, then returned to Anaheim as an AP before becoming the principal of Orangeview Junior High, also an AUHSD school.
Saldivar with his family of junior Colonists
Saldivar, whose wife Liliana Hernandez is also an AHS graduate from Class of 1999, said he is grateful for the opportunity to lead his alma mater. “The saying really does ring true in my case: ‘Once a Colonist, always a Colonist.’ ”
Anaheim High Hosts Visit from UC President Napolitano
April 27, 2018 by
The Anaheim Union Educational “The Pledge” program collaborative was celebrated today at Anaheim High School with a visit from UC President Janet Napolitano and UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman.
The celebration included an inspiring speech by AHS Class of 2016 graduate Kimberly Escalante, a AHS Alumni Association Spirit Award winner who is in second year at UCI.
AHS Princial and alumni Robert Saldivar welcomed all the attendees, including students who have taken The Pledge. Enjoy these photos from the event:
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- AHS welcomes UC President Janet Napolitano
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- UC President Napolitano and UCI Chancellor Gillman visited Anaheim High to celebrate the AUHSD Pledge Program
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- AHS Principal and alumnus Robert Saldivar
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- AUHSD Pledge Program
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- Pledge program provides pathway to college
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- AHS Class of 2016 Kimberly Escalante spoke an audience of students and dignitaries about her education pathway that’s taken her two UCI.
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- UC President Napolitano
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- AHS grad and UCI student Kimberly Excalante was a recipient of the AHSAA Spirit Award
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- The AHS Jazz Band played for a full crowd in Cook Auditorium
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- AHS students are taking the pledge to complete their college and career goals.
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- ASB President Karina Moreno with her father Jose Moreno, an Anaheim City Councilman
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- Keynote speaker Class of ’16 Kimberly Escalante and UCI Chancellor Gillman
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- The Main Building corridor received special attention for the visit, including adding new memorabilia to the cabinets.
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- Kimberly with UC President Napolitano
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- Kimberly took time to visit her track coach Mr. Storm.
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- Kimberly surprised Coach Storm with a visit
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- Kimberly speaking to students in her former teacher, Mrs. Majewsk’s classroom.
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- Members of the Anaheim Collaborative who all help uphold the Pledge Progam
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- Mrs. Majewski is a UCI grad who mentored Kimberly.
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- Kimberly in Mrs. Majewski’s classroom
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- Kimberly and Principal Saldivar
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- Anaheim – Home of the Colonists!
9th Annual Golf Classic A Fan Favorite
February 26, 2018 by
Despite chilly winter weather, Colonist fans fared well at the AHS Alumni Association 9th Annual Golf Classic & Auction. Funds raised bolster the AHSAA scholarship fund for seniors who plan on furthering their educations.
Thanks to all of our sponsors, including Visit Anaheim, Miller Toyota of Anaheim, ARCO AM/PM, the City of Anaheim, and our many Colonist supporters, including Ron Davini from Class of ’65, members of the AHSAA Board of Directors and all the attendees and silent auction donors. Enjoy these photos from the day:
2018 AHSAA Golf Classic Gallery
February 26, 2018 by
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- Sponsors
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- Boys Baseball Coaches
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- Boys Baseball
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- Tee-signs
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- Club House
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- Boys Baseball
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- Boys Baseball
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- Boys Baseball
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- Baseball Coach Barrera
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- Speed talking with Boys Baseball
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- D. Vidana
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- Geri Bumpass ’58, Speed Castillo and Micky Flynn ’57
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- Jim Fackiner ’62 and Tom Bateman ’89
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- Hole in One
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- Cynthia Roybal ’73
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- Alfonso Rodriquez ’94
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- Dixon Golf
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- Anaheim HS Alumni Association – Golf Classic
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- Anaheim Baseball
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- Larry Larson ’64
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- Michael Fawver, Dan Miller, Albert Rodriquez
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- Albert Rodriquez
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- Armand Contreras ’73
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- Armand Contreras ’73
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- Bill Archer-Burton ’72
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- Bill Archer-Burton ’72
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- Michael La Torre ’65
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- Michael La Torre ’65
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- Michael La Torre ’65, Bill Archer-Burton ’72, Armand Contreras ’73 and George Fraser ’70
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- Tee-signs
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- Mr. Saldivar
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- Phil Anton – Calton
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- J & M Promotions
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- Tee-sign El Cholo
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- Speed Castillo
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- Larry Larson and Cynthia Roybal
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- Bonne Stevens, Dee Dee Carter and Mary Okamoto
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- AHSAA Board Members Jim Oregel ’72, Barbara Vary ’60 and Reon Howard ’74
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- AHSAA President Gerald Woodward ’59, AHSAA Board Members Geri Bumpass ’58 and Bill Archer-Burton ’72
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- Rodriguez Family
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- AHSAA
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- Cynthia Roybal ’73 and Mickey Flynn ’57
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- Sponsors
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- Sponsors
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- Sponsors
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- Boys Baseball
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- AHS Boys Baseball
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- Louie and Edith Luna Andrade ’00
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- Silent Auction item -Paver
Another Colonist Olympian Identified! 1968 Grad Completed in Speed Skating in ’72 & ’76 Olympics
February 11, 2018 by
The AHS Alumni Association recently learned of another Anaheim High graduate who competed as an Olympic athlete, increasing the Colonist Olympian count to six.
Thanks to research by CIF historian John Dahlem, a former AUHSD coach and principal, the AHSAA is now able to share information about Olympic speed skater Charles Andrew Gilmore, a Class of 1968 graduate.
Gilmore honed his skills as a speed skater at Glacier Falls Ice Arena as a member of the Anaheim High Skating Club.
In 1967 he won the US Junior Championship. In 1969, at the US-Canada meet, he won the 1,500, and placed second in the 3,000 and all-around.
He competed in the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, placing 20th out of 28 positions in the 5000 meter. In 1976, he competed in the 10,000 meter at the Winter Olympics held at Innsbruck, Austria.
Anaheim High Celebrates Its Olympic Athletes
February 3, 2018 by
With USA athletes earning a record number of medals in the 2016 Summer Olympics, the AHSAA thought it was time to highlight Anaheim High’s own Olympic athletes.
Anaheim High’s legendary swim and water polo coach Jon Urbanchek, himself an Olympic swimmer, is in Rio now as a special assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team, a position he also held in 2012.
He was head coach to the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympic teams. In total, Urbanchek has coached 44 USA Olympians with 11 Gold medals including four world record holders.
Inducted into the Anaheim Hall of Fame in 2011, Urbanchek served as Anaheim High’s swim and 
water polo coach between 1963 and 1978, an era when his Colonist teams achieved CIF championships and All American honors.
After leaving
his native country of Hungary following his participation in the 1956 Olympic Games, Jon received a scholarship to the University of Michigan where he contributed to three NCAA Championships in 1958, 1959 and 1961.
A true legend among swimming coaches, Urbanchek was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame on July 6, 2008.
Barbara Ellen (McAlister) Talmage on the cover of a 1962 Sports Illustrated
Barbara Ellen (McAlister) Talmage from AUHS Class of 1959 became a championship diver who won seven Senior National Titles, took a gold medal in springboard diving at the 1963 Pan American Games and represented the U.S.A. as a diver in the 1964 and 1968 Olympics. Her image has graced the covers of both Sports Illustration and Life magazines.
Sid Sowder Freudenstein from the Class of 1963 carried the flag in the 1968 Olympics as co-captain of the Men’s Gymnastics Team in Mexico City. As a UC Berkeley student, Freudenstein won many invitationals, PAC 8, regional titles and national and international awards. In his senior year in 1968, he tied for first on floor exercise, and his team won the NCAA Championship.
At Anaheim High, he won many competitions, mostly on tumbling, floor and vault. In his senior year, he was the High Point Man (closest to All-Around) at the Southern California State Championships.
After ending his competitive career, Freudenstein returned to school at the University of Colorado (CU), earning a PhD in physics. While finishing his degree and raising a young family, he became head gymnastics coach at CU in the fall of 1976. Later he became chairman of the physics department at Metropolitan State University in Denver.
Track and field athlete Rick Sloan from Class of 1964 competed in the 1968 Olympics, placing 7th in the decathlon and becoming the fourth American in the sport to exceed 8,000 points. 
At UCLA, he became the first Bruin to exceed 7-feet in the high jump when he vaulted 7-1. An injury prevented him from competing in the high jump and vault in the Olympics, but his fate was sealed when a coach talked him into competing in the decathlon. Afraid to high jump on his bad leg, Sloan had only one practice jump before the Olympic tryouts, but he somehow cleared 6-11 ¾ to set a world record decathlon high jump record and make the U.S. team.
Kit Salness-Howser – Class of 1972
He parlayed his experience as a decathlete into a life-long career as a track and field coach. His career culminated as the men’s and women’s track and field head coach and the dean of Washington State University’s coaches. He retired from WSU in 2014 but said he had more coaching in him.
While he never returned to the Olympics as an athlete, Sloan is well known internationally in the multi-events circuits because of his 14 years as coach for four-time world decathlon champion, Olympic champion and former world record-holder Dan O’Brien and because of his mentoring of Olympic heptathlete Diana Pickler. He’s also coached the late Gabriel Tiacoh, the quarter-miler from Ivory Coast who won an Olympic silver medal in 1984.
Kit Salness-Howser from Class of 1972 was a nationally ranked platform diver and a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic diving team that was supposed to go to Moscow in 1980, but didn’t because of the U.S. boycott. Kit was inducted into the Anaheim Hall of Fame in 2004.Do you know of any other Anaheim High alumni who have participated in the Olympics? Let us know by emailing anaheimalumni@yahoo.com.
Once A Colonist, Always A Colonist!
Happy Birthday to Centenniel Colonist Martin Geissler
December 23, 2017 by
Happy 100th birthday to Martin Geissler from Class of 1936. He will become a Centennial Colonist on Dec. 24, 2017.
He lives in Temple, Texas, now but lived most of his life in California. Martin graduated from Anaheim Union High School in 1936. He held odd jobs until he was drafted in the Army in March 1941. He was discharged in Jan. 1946.
In December 1945 he married Aline Schroeder who graduated from AUHS in 1938. They were married for 66 years and have four children, 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
For 20 years he owned his own orange juice business. In retirement, Martin and Aline spent time with family, traveled and volunteered their time and talents with Mobile Missionary Assistance Program (MAPP).
A History of Clayes Stadium – 1927-2017
December 22, 2017 by
Anaheim High’s Clayes Stadium served as more than just a place to sit and watch Colonist football, soccer games, track meets, graduations, band performances and other events.
Under the steps of the 1000-seat concrete grandstand built in November 1927 for $13,000, were dressing and storage rooms, lockers, a heating plant for showers and offices for the coaches. More recent additions included a batting cage.
Named after Anaheim’s longest serving principal, Joseph A. Clayes, the stadium evolved into an iconic structure. Along with a training facility below and above (generations of Anaheim athletics ran the stadium steps) and a place from which Colonist fans cheered on their teams, the grandstand also served as a vehicle for expressing class pride.
At some point during the stadium’s 90-year history, the tradition of painting the stadium surfaced. An upper classman privilege, painting the stadium became so much a part of becoming a senior that it was looked upon as a small infraction (provided of course that it is done in good taste) to NOT paint your class numbers in blue and gold on the stadium steps. Being a part of the paint crew for these secret evening sessions is a favorite memory of many Anaheim grads.
Construction of the stadium in 1927 on the west side of school’s newly laid out athletic field rounded out what the local newspaper called “the most completely equipped athletic plant,” and the stadium “one of the few of its kind in use on a Southern California school campus.”
Principal Clayes began his tenure at Anaheim High as a teacher of art and commerce in 1914. He became Anaheim High’s principal in the fall of 1919 and remained in that position for 22 years until his death on July 1, 1941. He son and grandsons became some of Anaheim’s most accomplished leaders and athletes.
During his 22-year tenure, Principal Clayes oversaw the complete reconstruction of the school after being destroyed by the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. Along with the main building, auditorium, gymnasium, athletic fields and stadium, a new swimming pool was constructed in the 1920s and later replaced in the 1940s.
The stadium was condemned in recent years and the pool was emptied more than 10 years ago, both due to structural damage. With community support, including that of Anaheim alumni, the District is undertaking a major renovation of the school’s athletic facilities, including the construction of a new aquatics center and improvements to the gymnasium and fields.
Construction plans require the demolition of Clayes stadium, the oldest existing structure on the campus. Ground breaking for the new center will take place March 1, 2018, with construction expected to be complete by March 21, 2019.
If you would like to serve on a planning committee for the grand opening and an effort to raise funds for the athletic fields upgrade, or if you would like to make a tax-deductible donation toward the project, please contact the AHSAA at anaheimalumni@yahoo.com.
Click this link to view a gallery of photos and articles about historic Clayes Stadium.
