El Cerrito High School Museum Showcases Gaucho History
Just a few steps from the main office in the main building of El Cerrito High School stands a dedicated museum space featuring artifacts from the school’s existence from its opening on January 6, 1941, until the summer of 2005, when the old structures were demolished to make way for the today’s modern campus.
In the 1940s and ‘50s, girls used dance cards to keep track of their partners. Photo by Jon Bashor.
Dance cards from the 1950s. A 20-inch long wooden paddle wielded by the dean of boys. The first football schedule. A makeup case from the drama department. A blackboard with a wooden chalk tray filled with chalk dust. Decorative tiles of historical scenes made by California Art Tiles in Richmond. A poster telling the story of Clara Mabuchi, a Japanese-American student who, as a freshman in the school’s first year, was forced to leave the school and relocate to an internment camp in April 1942.
One display tells the story of Clara Mabuchi, whose family was forcibly sent to an internment camp in 1941 for the duration of World War II. Photo by Jon Bashor.
The roots of the project go back to 2003 when Lu Tipping, mother of three ECHS graduates, was a member of the West Contra Costa Unified School District committee reviewing which schools needed to be upgraded for seismic safety and which ones needed to be demolished and rebuilt. El Cerrito High fell into the second group.
“I approached then-Principal Vincent Rhea because I was concerned about the preservation of a lot of artifacts at the school,” said Tipping, who was also chair of the ECHS Site Council at the time. “The school was really an important part of this community—generations of students had gone there.”
Joann Steck-Bayat was the PTA parliamentarian in 2005 when Principal Rhea mentioned to her that the school was going to be torn down and parents should try to save what they could.
“We had carte blanche to go through everything and every space in the school,” Steck-Bayat recalls. “Volunteers, teachers and janitors went through the basement, crawl spaces and rooms, some of which hadn’t been opened in decades.”
The high school’s first football schedule was found behind a desk as the school was cleared for demolition. Photo by Jon Bashor.
A coach found the first football schedule, the size of a poster, behind his desk. The basement yielded two remaining bentwood chairs from the original library; the chairs were stashed away when a new librarian in the 1950s replaced them with modern plastic seating and gradually disappeared until only two were left.
News about the quest for items spread via Bay Area newspapers, television stations and word of mouth. Parents, alumni and the community responded.
“We got tremendous support from the community and many keepsakes were donated by former students,” Steck-Bayat said.
The old school went out with a bang – a three-day reunion/tribute dubbed “Before the wrecking ball hits the wall” and included a Saturday night dance in the gym, with a banner reading “Eve of Destruction” on the wall and one of the largest parades ever held in the city. Not long afterward, the ECHS Archiving Project was formed to coordinate and document the collection of old-school relics.
One of their first actions was to begin lobbying for a dedicated museum space to be incorporated into the new school design. Driven by Tipping and Steck-Bayat, that effort was successful and the result is believed by the group to be the only operating museum housed in an American high school.
“We worked hand-in-hand to get this done and couldn’t have done this without community support,” Tipping said. “It was an inter-generational effort by thousands of people.”
Sorting, labeling, documenting
At the same time volunteers began meeting every Saturday to go through the found items as well as donations from the community, coming from as far away as Fairfax and San Jose. Volunteers, went through each item and labeled it according to date, department, who donated it and added a description. Every item was given a catalog number and recorded in a database.
The cataloging work was led by Sandi Genser-Maack and Lynn Maack, who were instrumental in helping catalog materials for the Richmond History Museum, Tipping said, adding “people came to us with all of these talents to offer.
Many of the donations were family heirlooms. Risa Elkind Nye’s father, Sam Elkind, taught drama and stagecraft at the high school and her family donated a well-used makeup case as well as the fabric back of his director’s chair, imprinted with the words “DIRECTOR DR. SAM.” They found the items in a shack behind their house that her dad had used as his office. Nye said her father had earned his doctor of education degree from Columbia University and was known as Dr. Sam. He taught at ECHS for 15 years and went on to teach at San Francisco State.
The family of Dr. Sam Elkind, who taught drama and stagecraft at the high school, donate his jacket, makeup kit and back of his director’s chair. Photo by Jon Bashor.
“He started the theater program and they would put on one drama and one musical each year,” Nye said. “My sister and I used to go to rehearsals and the students would babysit us. Several of my dad’s students went on to careers in theater or taught drama themselves.”
Elkind had attended Lowell High School and one of his classmates was Carol Channing, who became famous as an actress, comedian, singer and dancer. She would make occasional appearances in Elkind’s classes to speak with students. I think “achieved success” is downplaying it; she became legendary
The collection now stands at more than 500 items and more continue to come in.
“The other day someone sent me an original playbook from the 1964 football team, which was given to each player to learn the plays” said Roddy Lee, who graduated from El Cerrito High in 1967, studied at UC Berkeley and returned to the school district as a teacher. After 10 years at Kennedy High in Richmond, Lee joined the El Cerrito faculty and taught everything from computer science to physical education and coached girls’ volleyball and track. His son and daughter both attended ECHS and his daughter now teaches at Kensington Hilltop School.
Lee, who represented the Republic of China (Taiwan) at the 1972 Olympics in Munich and competed in the high hurdles, intermediate hurdles and four person 100-meter relay, is one of 23 students recognized for their post-ECHS athletic achievements (Lee also won two silver medals at the 1970 Asian Games). Others include Elijah “Pumpsie” Green, class of 1952, who in 1959 became the first Black player for the Boston Red Sox, the last team in major league baseball to integrate its roster, NBA star Drew Gooden, and 13 young men drafted by NFL teams.
Other students highlighted in the displays include:
● Kenneth Tavalara, the only ECHS student killed in World War II; Roy Rufus and J.L. Woods, both of whom died in the Korean War; and John V. Williams, David Middlekauff, Esmond E. Snell, Jr., Andy Garnica and Ronald E. James, who were all killed in Vietnam.
● Maria Remenyi, whose family emigrated from Hungary. She graduated from ECHS and went on to become an astrophysicist. In 1965, she was selected as Miss Oakland and went on to be chosen Miss California, then Miss USA 1966 and was a semifinalist in the Miss Universe contest. She served as grand marshal for the school’s farewell parade.
● Doug Clifford, Stu Cook and John Fogerty, all members of the class of 1963, who formed a band with John’s older brother Tom and went on to worldwide fame as Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Expanding the project’s reach
To better showcase the collection, which exceeds the capacity of the main museum, a large Athletics Hall of Fame display was built in the hallway outside the new school gym. In addition to trophies, sports uniforms, team photos and the like is a white sweater, testimony to Rose Aguilar, the first female student to earn a letter in three sports: tennis, softball and basketball. When a local sporting goods store refused to sell her a letterman’s sweater, she had to settle for a sweater, with her mother doing all the embroidery and sewing on the coveted block “C” and sports symbols. Aguilar graduated in 1975. In 2014, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame, the now-married Rose Aguilar McHone donated her sweater for the display.
The El Cerrito High School Athletics Hall of Fame. Photo courtesy Roddy Lee.
In addition to the main museum, smaller display areas are scattered around the school, highlighting the history of Math (with a giant slide rule), Forensics, English and Science departments. Even the cafeteria is included, with two vintage trays and menus. Inside the gym, championship banners won over the decades hang from the rafters while the opposite wall features a wooden gaucho astride his horse standing 10 feet tall; a handmade gift to the school from former coach and athletic director John Nules, who made it in his home workshop in the early 1960s. A large architectural drawing of the original Art Deco school building hangs in the main office and other artifacts are displayed around the school. In all, there are 20 identified points of historic interest around the campus.
A true group effort
The Archiving Project board meets every other month at the Juku meeting space on Stockton Avenue, hosted by owner Gregg Mayer, himself an ECHS grad. At the September 2023 meeting, President Jackie Fleming Fonken, ECHS class of 1956, presides, with about two dozen attendees participating. Minutes are approved, finances reviewed and activities reported on. There’s a new donation of items from KECG, the campus radio station, and plans are made to meet with the new principal and school librarian.
They also discuss new fundraising ideas to support their scholarship program, with Mayer having met with the PTA leadership. One option would be to change the focus to be more of an alumni organization, but the group is unsure that they can provide the time and effort to greatly expand their focus.
“I think the group is at a crossroads,” said Nye, who graduated in 1969. “I think we need to think about what we want to do and how to get more people involved.”
Since 2006, the organization has provided three scholarships to graduating ECHS seniors “who have demonstrated the desire and ability to continue higher education pursuits and embody the Gaucho spirit.”
Lee has seen how the Gaucho spirit has changed. During his student days, the school held weekly spirit rallies before games, with all students filing to the football field to take part. But in the 1980s and ‘90s, there were fewer school-wide activities, such as rallies and plays. When rallies were moved to after school, many students opted to go home.
“There was a greater sense of belonging back in the day,” Lee said. “Nowadays there seems to be very little of that.”
As an example, as a coach Lee said he taught the girls on the volleyball team the song “Down the Field,” which his teams sang on the bus rides to their games. “That was the tradition, that was our school song,” he said. Lee also drilled into his students the importance of continuing their education beyond high school.
“For many people, high school is remembered as one of the best times of their lives,” Lee said. “I think every school needs an archiving project. When we started saving all these artifacts, we were a bunch of old school folks. We realized that history is important – and it helps you remember the good times.”
Tipping added “Young people today need to know about the paste so they can understand where they stand today; seeing that history is much better than just getting it from a textbook or a lecture.”
Written by Jon Bashor, this article appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of The Forge.
The Archiving Project museum is open during regular El Cerrito High School hours, 8:15 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The school phone number is 510-231-1437. To donate to the museum, contact Joan Steck-Bayat at 510-524-9468. To donate to the scholarship fund, send a check made out to ECHS Archiving Scholarship Fund to Dianne Chambers, 2234 Lupine Rd. Hercules, CA 94547.
