In his book Echoes of Anaheim – Memories of a Once-Upon-A-Time Small Town, Danny Dunton provides an oral history in published form of Anaheim in the 1940s. Published in 2010, the book is endorsed by the Anaheim Historical Society as “relevant to the preservation of local history.”
Born and raised in Anaheim in the 1940s, he lived at 610 South Clementine Street and attended all Anaheim schools. He now resides Meadows Place, Texas, located 18 miles south of Houston.
One of the nation’s most renowned Western Frontier artists, Larry Zabel’s work has been displayed in many prestigious venues, including the White House, the Smithsonian and the Pentagon. His art also appears in his self-published book Trails Less Traveled.
He has won numerous regional and national awards and has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. After leaving Anaheim High, he attended Long Beach State and worked as a commercial artist for more than 30 years before moving to Montana and beginning his career in Frontier artistry.
Gustavo Arellano is the publisher and editor of Orange County’s alternative weekly OC Weekly, and the author of the nationally syndicated column “Ask a Mexican,” which won the 2006 Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for the best column in a large circulation weekly (2 million readers in 36 markets).
The columns were collected in book form in 2008 as “Ask a Mexican!” Arellano has published two further books: “Orange County: A Personal History” and “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.” He also writes for the new Fox TV show Bordertown.
Arellano also is a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times and has appeared on such programs as “Today,” “Nightline,” NPR’s “On the Media,” “The Situation With Tucker Carlson” and “The Colbert Report.” He received the President’s Award from the Los Angeles Press Club, an Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition and a 2008 Latino Spirit Award from the California state Legislature for his “exceptional vision, creativity and work ethic.”
1997 yearbook photo
While at Anaheim High, Gustavo was an honor students and a member of the yearbook and school newspaper staff. He once wrote an article about his alma mater for OC Weekly, which is included here.
For more information about this Colonist author, visit: www.askamexican.net.
Daniel Edwin “Dan” Barker, born June 25, 1949, is an atheist activist who served as a Christian preacher and musician for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984. He has written numerous articles for Freethought Today, an American freethought newspaper, and is the author of several books including Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist and his latest, GOD: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction.
Barker received a degree in religion from Azusa Pacific University and was ordained to the ministry by the Standard Community Church, California, in 1975. He served as associate pastor at a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) church, an Assembly of God, and an independent Charismatic church. To this day, he receives royalties from his popular children’s Christian musicals, Mary Had a Little Lamb (1977) and His Fleece Was White as Snow (1978), both published by Manna Music. A successful musician, Barker has composed over 200 songs that have been published or recorded.
In 1984 he announced to his friends that he was an atheist, and appeared on AM Chicago (hosted by Oprah Winfrey) later that year on a show about “kicking the religion habit.” Barker met his wife when both were guests on the show. They began dating six months later and married in 1987. They have a daughter, Sabrina Delata.
He is a member of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware Indian) Tribe of Native Americans, and in 1991 edited and published Paradise Remembered, a collection of his grandfather’s stories as a Lenape boy in Indian Territory.
He is the current co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an American Freethought organization that promotes the separation of church and state. He is also co-founder and a board member of The Clergy Project.
Barker, along with his wife, host a weekly one hour radio program Freethought Radio that is nationally broadcast. He 
has appeared on dozens of national television and radio programs to discuss and debate issues related to atheism and the separation of state and church. He has discussed nativity scenes on government property, the campaign against a Mother Teresa stamp, prayer in public schools, and has appeared on Phil Donahue, Hannity & Colmes, Maury Povich, Good Morning America, Sally Jessy Raphael, among other shows. He was featured in a New York Times article about the growing of atheism in Southern states, has given addresses on his own de-conversion across the United States, and has participated in more than 120 debates around the world.
Books
Maybe Yes, Maybe No: A Guide for Young Skeptics. (1990)
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist. (1992)
Just Pretend (2002)
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists (2008)
The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God (2011)
Life Driven Purpose: How an Atheist Finds Meaning (2015)
Music
Mary Had a Little Lamb (1977)
His Fleece Was White as Snow (1978)
Music Albums
Night at Nakoma (2008)
Friendly Neighborhood Atheist (2002)
Beware of Dogma (2004)
Adrift On A Star (2013)
Longtime Anaheim Union High School District educator and noted author Louise Hitt Booth left a legacy of literature upon her passing at age 95 in 2012.
Mrs. Booth taught English, history, drama and speech at Anaheim High between 1949 and 1969. She then joined the AUHS District to develop and teach advanced placement classes and a highly successful team teaching program. Mrs. Booth retired from the District in 1977 to begin a second career writing on a variety of historical topics. A graduate of Indiana State University and the University of Southern California, Louise established herself as an author with many documentary works, including One To Twenty-Eight, an in depth history of the AUHS District from 1898 through 1980.
In addition to this chronicle, Louise published six historical monographs, three of them on the Civil War. In 2001, Fulfilling A Dream – The History of Chapman University, was published. Louise devoted many months to the research and writing of the book. A remarkable document, it continues to serve as the most comprehensive, as well as the most interesting story of Chapman’s history. The book won the 61st Annual Western Book Exhibition (2002) Award sponsored annually by the L.A.-based Rounce and Coffin Club. This award was for books judged to be the best examples of printing, design, and publishing in the western United States.
But her first love was teaching, which tremendously benefitted the children of Anaheim. She inspired many of her students to pursue higher educations and to achieve all that they could be, always instilling in them a love of the English language, literature and poetry. As the school’s drama teacher, she wrote and directed many of the plays.
Louise returned to Anaheim High in 1998 to serve on the school’s Centennial Committee, working tirelessly to create displays of photographs and facts on the founding, construction and operation of the school’s 100-year history. Louise also chaired the Orange County Historical Society Centennial Committee, working four years in planning a large array of public events. The profits funded publication of The Centennial Bibliography of Orange County, California. As managing editor, Louise received the Donald F. Pflueger Award for distinguished research and writing on local history of Southern California.
Louise was a complete and vital partner to her husband Don, a longtime professor of economics at Chapman University. The couple hosted Chapman’s famous Artist-Lecture Series. She also served for a number of years on the archives committee of the Leatherby Libraries.
For her dedication as an Anaheim High teacher and her literary legacy, Louise Booth was inducted into the Anaheim High School Hall of Fame March 4, 2016.
Lois Battle is a New York Times best-selling author of seven novels including: Season of Change, War Brides, Southern Women, A Habit of Blood, The Past Is Another Country, Storyville Bed & Breakfast, The Florabama Ladies Auxiliary and Sewing Circle.
She died at age 74, on June 17, 2014, at her home in Beaufort, South Carolina.
Before she began writing, Battle pursued an acting career in New York City. She landed several small roles in theater and film, including a speaking part in the 1964 film adaptation of the musical My Fair Lady. She also appeared in Something Evil (1972) and Louis Armstrong – Chicago Style (1976).
Battle began writing novels in the 1980s. She discovered Beaufort while researching “Southern Women,” a novel set in Savannah, and moved to town in 1993. Her novel “Bed and Breakfast” is set in Beaufort.
Known to many in Beaufort as a fiery, passionate woman and champion of the arts, Lois Battle is also remembered for her loyalty, generosity and fragility, according to her obituary in the Beaufor
t Gazette. Battle’s sister, Colleen Battle of Cleveland, described her as a creative spirit who was her mentor in the arts, introducing her to ballet, opera and literature. She was also a woman known for her strong stances. Colleen Battle said her sister didn’t believe in credit cards, cellphones or the Internet.
“She thought they inhibited communication,” Coleen Battle said. “She felt like when people actually wrote a language, they communicated more fully.” As a result, Lois Battle corresponded with friends and family through painted postcards and handwritten letters.
Anaheim High Class of ’64 Virnell Bruce is the author of “Shells: A Cameo of Anne Morrow Lindbergh.” She is also a playwright and wrote a one-woman, two-act play based on Anne Morrow Lindbergh, one of the most accomplished women of the 20th century.
Her book won a Special Citation Awarded from The Colonial Dames of America, an organization that recognizes non-fiction books of merit that focus on American life—past, present, or future—that broaden the understanding of American history, politics, or culture.
Virnell, whose career in the aerospace industry spanned 36 years, teaches at the Christopher Wren Association, an educational program affiliated with the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Virnell has a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Southern California and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English.
Thomas J. Cashman Sr. served his country in the US Air Force and became a Morse Code instructor.
He continued his education at CSU Los Angeles, where he majored in Education and Computer Science, paving his way to becoming a teacher and renowned author in the computer field.
He established one of the first business data processing programs in the nation at Long Beach City College, where he taught computer science for 33 years and served as department head. His first book on computer science was published by his own company. He later wrote for Thompson International Publishing of Toronto, Boston and London.
In 1969, he began collaborating with now best-selling author, Gary Shelly, to write more t
han 100 books on computer science that have sold over 20 million copies. His topics included Microsoft products, web design, business data communications, computer fundamentals and more.
Mike Gerber with the 25th anniversary edition of his book.
Michael E. Gerber is the author of the mega-bestseller “The E-Myth Revisited” and five other E-Myth books concerning small business and entrepreneurship. Additionally, Mr. Gerber has written 14 industry-specific E-Myth Vertical books co-authored by industry experts. These books are written for: Attorneys, Accountants, Optometrists, Chiropractors, Landscape Contractors, Financial Advisors, Architects, Real Estate Brokerages, Insurance Stores, Dentists, Nutritionists, Bookkeepers, Veterinarians, Real Estate Investors and soon to be HVAC Contractors.
Hans Otto Storm (1895–1941) was a German-American writer, novelist and radio engineer. His reputation quickly faded into obscurity after his early death, but in the 1940s received some positive praise from the legendary literary critic Edmund Wilson. Storm also holds the distinction of being the first person in the U.S. to die in WWII.
Storm was born in Bloomington, CA, to German parents who were refugees fleeing anti-socialist fervor in Germany following the failed Revolutions of 1848. His family made their way to Anaheim, taking up residence at 907 W. Broadway, one block north of Anaheim Union High School.
Storm graduated from AUHS in 1913. His senior quote in the school’s annual was certainly a self-fulfilling prophecy: “Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, he raves, recites and maddens round the land.”
A top scholar, Storm studied engineering at Stanford University while supporting himself in the electrician’s trade. His education was interrupted in 1917 when the U.S. entered WWI and Storm was drafted into the Army. A biography on his life in Twentieth Century Authors states that he contracted various illnesses and was held two years in various hospitals as a patient and attendant.
Storm earned his bachelor’s from Stanford in 1920, and as a radio-telegraph engineer with Globe Wireless of San Francisco, he constructed radio stations in New York, Nicaragua and Peru.
His experience in South and Central America resulted in Pity the Poor Tyrant (1937). The novel about an American engineer who becomes involved in a Peruvian revolution is considered his best work. The book made his reputation but so enraged Peruvian authorities that he was order out of the country in 1939 when he was there to install a communication system for the international “Good Neighbor” Conference in Lima.
Storm worked full time at his profession and was frequently ill, but still managed to write four novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays and articles. A collection of his works is housed at Berkeley’s Bancroft Library.
His first novel, Full Measure (1929), a book about industrial expansion strongest on the subject of radio engineering and its equipment, received mildly positive reviews but sold little over a 1,000 copies.
His third novel, Made in the USA (1939), is a “social fable” about a tramp steamer full of passengers that becomes stuck on a sand-bar in the South Pacific. Civilized behavior deteriorates and the passengers break into two warring camps. 
In the forward of “Of Good Family,” a collection of Storm’s writings on Spanish America published in 1948, he is described by editor David Greenhood as “an astonishing and brilliant man . . . one of our finest engineers” and “the author of some of the most penetrating novels and prose about Spanish America ever written by a North American.”
A curious combination of artist and practical scientist, Storm was described as possessing
“a dry wit and bubbling humor that didn’t often emerge in print.” He is reported to have said that he disliked “meetings, folding chairs and mimeographed leaflets.” A man who studied Chinese for fun, Storm built a boat in the backyard of his home in Palo Alto, where he lived with his wife Grace Cleone Camp. The couple sailed the boat along the Pacific Coast.
Storm met an untimely death when, on Dec. 11, 1941, three days after Congress declared war on Japan, he was accidentally electrocuted while rushing to complete a giant radio transformer for the Army Signal Corps in a laboratory in San Francisco.
