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Fairfax High School
Alumni News
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5-23-99
Volunteers Needed
for 75th Anniversary


Join the
Alumni Association


Be a Sponsor or
Place an Ad


Alumni & Friends Officers
FareFac Fairfax Nostalgia

A New Book
by Bonnie J. Morris, Ph.D.


A Poem
by Anne Marple


Alumni Newsletter
Volunteers Needed for Fairfax High School's
75th "Diamond Jubilee" Anniversary
The Alumni and Friends of Fairfax High School are working on the
Fairfax Diamond Jubilee to be held on May 22, 1999. WindShell Productions, a professional event planing firm is overseeing the event, but all the committee chairs and members are volunteers. We need your help! Diamond75 If you have some time and would like to be involved - please contact Wendy Anderson at (626) 683-8243 or Gloria Drexler at (310) 828-2700.

Please help support Fairfax High. And don' forget to SAVE THE DATE! It's going to be the BIGGEST L.A. PARTY OF THE MILLENNIUM!

Click here for: more information on volunteer opportunities
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Diamond Jubilee Sponsorship
& Advertising Opportunities
Would you like to be a sponsor or donor for the Fairfax High School 75th Anniversary Celebration?
Click here for:
more information on sponsorship opportunities

CLASSES: Pay your tribute to Fairfax! Get in your ads for the Souvenir Progam Book. ALUMNI: Not able to make the reunion and want to let classmates know how to reach you? Place an ad in the Program Book. Deadline is May 13th. Call Wendy at (626) 683-8243 or
email: wendy@windshell.com. There is also space available for placing personal or business advertisements.
Click here for:
more information on advertising in the Souvenir Program Book
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Alumni & Friends Officers
Honorary Advisory Council Directors Executive Board
Larry Gelbart, '45
Television Writer & Producer

George Green, '49
Former Manager of
KABC Radio


Jack Kemp, '53,
Former Congressman and
Cabinet Secretary


Frank Rothman, '44
Attorney, Former President,
MGM Studios
Don Selten, '44
President

Jack Gorman, '44
Former Manager of
Treasurer


Gloria Drexler, '44,
Former Congressman and
Secretary


vinyl record
Jim O'Donnell, '44

Cliff Dektar, '44
lindyhop
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Fairfax Nostalgia--- Anecdotes from the 60th Anniversary Reunion book
FAIRFAX MOTTO: "NEVER SAY DIE, SAY DO"
The Fairfax motto, "fare fac", was the subject of a 1930 contest for the best slogan and motto depicting its meaning. More than 150 entries were submitted. The winning motto: "Noble in speech, honorable in deed." The winning slogan: "Never say die, say do." For posters: "Let your words be wise and your actions likewise."

FAIRFAX REBUILDING CAMPUS
In 1967, the historic Fairfax campus of the sunken gardens, Senior Quadrangle, fountains, Cloisters and other halllowed landmarks, were painfully torn down and rebuilt to ensure earthquake safety. Only the rotunda and the auditorium survived the wrecking crews by being reinforced. Without disruption to the ongoing teaching, new additions included a four-story administration and classroom facility, a physical education plant, an industrial arts complex, cafeteria, etc. The new facilities were dedicated on October 26, 1969.


Oldsmobile
FAIRFAX HAILED FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE In both 1947 and 1948, Fairfax earned awards for academic excellence. UCLA honored the school in 1947 for the third time as Division I winner. In 1948, the University of California cited Fairfax Div. I winner for Southern California. Gazette writer Gerald Leve wrote "the Cameron class has the highest percentage of brains per square head in Fairfax history. The fact that this writer is a member of said class has nothing to do with it."

AGRICULTURE WAS EARLY OBJECTIVE
Fairfax was initially designed to be an Agricultural and Mechanical school emphasizing "practical" skills. With 28 acres of campus, school programs included landscape gardening, forestry, architecture, agronomy and arboretum. The Domestic Science unit supervised the cafeteria so that the "girls would learn the practices as well as the theory of cooking and serving food."

ZSA ZSA GABOR SHOWS
--NO EXAMS!

In 1954, Latin teacher Dave McGrath promised that if Zsa Zsa Gabor sat in his class there would be no final exam. Zsa Zsa showed up, and he kept his word.
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Alumni Newsletter Be a Partner in Education
Do you have some interesting news to tell your fellow alumni? Don't wait for a reunion. Just drop a note to our editor:
Principal Paul Hamel
Fairfax Adult School
7850 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Let us know what you or another alumnus is doing or was honored for. We have some pretty famous graduates (see Hall of Fame), but even if you're not famous, that doesn't mean that your old friends don't care. We do care! Tell us and we will print it (well, if it's fit to print).
What do you have that we need? Many of you donate your used clothing and household appliances to various organized charities. You might also have business items such as computers, printers, copy machines, plain paper, etc.

If you do, please consider the Alumni and Friends of Fairfax when you make your donation to a tax-deductible organization. We expect to have an office at the school or in another location nearby and we are getting ready to staff and equip it. Don't forget us!
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Join the Fairfax HS Alumni Association
FaxLion What has Fairfax High School contributed to your life?

Please tell us by enrolling in the Alumni Association.

Click here for:
more information and an enrollment form
A Poem
. At a Loss
by Anne Marple


They lost Abraham Lincoln
when they tore down Fairfax High--
all stone and eight feet tall of him
with the curled fingers of the left
hand where some grandstanding senior
often left a lighted cigarette in the days
when tobacco was the big no on campus. OldFairfax
They mislaid the silk service flag
from WWII, red bordered with uncounted
blue stars crowding the white field
and the comprehensible
five gold stars at dead center,
one of which was all I had left

of Rusty Givens,* freckled, seventeen,
a box boy at Carl's Ranch Market
who might have been my first love
instead of my first death
if he had not met
a bullet on a beach in the Solomon Islands.

*Warren L. Givens
Anne Marple, S'44, has published poems in Poetry/LA, Blue Unicorn, Gramercy Review, Sculpture Garden Review, prose in GQ, New Republic, Teen, and Fantasy & Science Fiction. She has won awards from Vogue, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Blue Unicorn, and Writer's Digest. Her work has appeared in three anthologies.
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The High School Scene in the Fifties: Voice From West L.A.
by Bonnie J. Morris, Ph.D.
George Washington University
Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997
ISBN #0-89789-494-4
order by calling (800) 225-5800


My parents attended Fairfax and L.A. High in the 1950s. As a child growing up in Los Angeles and, later, the East Coast, I relished hearing the story of how they met on the beach and fell in love in the summer of 1955. I understood that their Jewish-Gentile intermarriage was opposed by many people, but it was not until 1993 that I had the idea to write a book about their lives.

By 1993 I was a women's history professor and fascinated by the gender roles assigned to men and women in any area. I began a series of informal interviews with my parents and their friends, and soon learned that the teen social scene at Fairfax and L.A. High in the 1950s was ruled by the "clubs" - the Cardinals, Hi-Y, the Tantras and Barons...And that these clubs were very much segregated, keeping Jews and Gentiles (as well as boys and girls) in separate worlds. The clubs prepared young people to mingle with their own kind. Yet my own parents had certainly resisted this.

The book therefore is a collection of oral histories: stories from the high school years in L.A., memories and re-memories. I focus on my parents and five of their friends, and the book includes many photographs from the old club dance programs. I recently won a very favorable review in the October 12, 1997 (Sunday) Los Angeles Times , and hope my book continues to raise both fond memories and important questions about coming of age in the 1950s.
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