La Cañada History: Sophomore Spartans three-peat at JPL Invention Challenge

Ten Years Ago

For the third year in a row, La Cañada High School sophomores Tomas Kanholm, Grant Scholler, Chris Omae, Douglas Chen and Alex Kanholm won first place in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Invention Challenge. Six JPL adult teams and 27 middle- and high-school teams competed in the event.

Twenty Years Ago

La Cañada Flintridge City Council members Carol Liu and Dave Spence announced they would seek reelection to their seats in the March 1997 race.

Thirty Years Ago

During its meeting in the first week of December 1986, held at Descanso Gardens, the City Council marked the young city’s first decade with a celebration called “Tribute to La Cañada Flintridge, a 10th Anniversary.”

Forty Years Ago

It was reported that at approximately 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 8, 1976, La Canada Flintridge officially became a city with the recording of the incorporation certificate of completion with the county. With this recording, LCF became the 79th city in Los Angeles County and the 413th municipality in the state.

Fifty Years Ago

Four La Cañada High School students, a junior male and three freshmen girls, were suspended from school in the fall of 1966, following their admitted involvement in marijuana activity on campus. It was reported to be the first narcotics case in the history of the then-5-year-old La Cañada Unified School District. The suspensions came just as Pasadena police swarmed down on narcotics suspects in that city’s high schools.

Sixty Years Ago

La Cañada resident Tom Twaite, then 88, was featured in a story about his past as a Bengal Lancer in the British army’s 17th Lancer Cavalry regiment. In addition to having faced giant badgers in India, he also rode hundreds of miles on a tiny Basuto pony in South Africa.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.