School Starts Ball Rolling for 50th Birthday

The golden anniversary celebration for Notre Dame High School kicked off this month when about 150 former varsity football lettermen, representing each year since 1947, appeared at the last regular season home game of the year on Nov. 14. Among the notable alumni who marched out on the field at halftime were former Oakland Raiders tackle John Vella (class of ‘68) and recent Fernando Award-winner Phillip “Flip” Smith (‘64). School officials look forward to the culminating 50th anniversary event scheduled for spring, when Cardinal Roger Mahony will celebrate Mass at the Sherman Oaks campus.

KUDOS

Anything but Routine: The San Fernando High School Band and Drill Team are marching to a celebratory tune after their big win in the small band division of the Los Angeles Unified School District Band and Drill Team competition held earlier this month at Woodrow Wilson High School.

The 11-time champs were led to victory by husband-and-wife teaching team Richard Gigger and Ellen Kaminer-Gigger.

Other Valley schools that took home trophies were North Hollywood High School in the Division 3A (50 to 80 band members) competition, and Granada Hills High School in the 4A Division (large bands).

Service With a Smile: After logging more than 4,000 volunteer hours assisting staff at local libraries, recent Taft High School graduate Geoffrey Gast, 18, was named a 1997 National Service Scholar by the Corporation for National Service, for which he received a $500 college scholarship.

The Reseda resident, who is now enrolled at Pierce College, also accepted a matching local scholarship from the Los Angeles Sertoma Club.

Gast and the other winners were announced in a recent radio address by President Clinton, who launched the service scholars program a year ago.

PROGRAM NOTES

Learning Tolerance: If the medium is the message, students at Independence High School have sent it out loud and clear in a 10-minute video project they produced about the Holocaust for a special social studies seminar.

Researched and assembled by five students at the Panorama City continuation school, the video is the result of a multimedia effort that included Internet sources, photographs, compact discs and a movie clip.

“It’s very, very powerful,” said school Principal Cynthia Gladstone. “I was thrilled to see what students who were once considered dropouts could achieve.”

The monthlong seminar, whose theme was intolerance, culminated in a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.

Job Readiness: The West Valley Occupational Center in Woodland Hills has launched a new series of classes that include vocational English--designed to help students improve their written and oral communication skills--and a job readiness class, in which students prepare resumes, practice interviewing and meet with representatives from business and industry. Enrollment is still open for all classes.

Spirit of Giving: Two community service clubs at Chatsworth’s Lawrence Middle School have embraced the spirit of the season by organizing charitable drives that will benefit the Ronald McDonald House and MEND (Meet Each Need with Dignity), an agency that provides food and clothing for needy families.

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