La Cañada History: Korean American Outreach Committee makes large gift to public schools

Ten Years Ago

During a meeting held at La Cañada Elementary School, the La Cañada Flintridge Korean American Outreach Committee presented a check in the amount of $51,079.73 to the La Cañada Flintridge Educational Foundation. According to Sonia Chung, then president of the outreach committee, the gift had been made possible by the success of a fundraising dinner held in support of the local public schools.

Twenty Years Ago

Two 15-year-old La Cañada residents were returned safely to their families after being lost for several hours in the Angeles National Forest. The teens were found in good condition on the Edison Short Cut Road in the San Gabriel Mountains by a member of the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team.

Thirty Years Ago

Donald Hingst was named principal of the soon-to-be reopened Palm Crest Elementary School, which had been out of use as a public school site for several years due to a decline in enrollment. C.T. Holman, then principal of Paradise Canyon Elementary School, would replace Hingst as principal at La Cañada Elementary.

Forty Years Ago

A home in the 5200 block of Vista Miguel Drive was destroyed by a fire that broke out during early morning hours. It was believed the blaze had been started by a piece of cardboard box that the night before had been tossed onto a fire burning in the fireplace, then carried up the chimney and onto the wood shake roof.

Fifty Years Ago

First scared away from robbing the La Cañada Citizens Bank when they realized they’d been seen by a passerby, four armed bandits instead held up the Bank of America branch then located at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Oakwood Avenue. The suspects forced employees and patrons of the bank down on the floor while the crime — which netted them $6,127 — took place. The witness who had first seen the suspects back their late-model Mustang up to the rear of Citizens Bank and begin to don stocking masks, wrote down the car’s license plate and later shared it with the FBI.

Sixty Years Ago

William Godbey, partner in Godbey Development Co., (which a few years later developed the La Cañada Country Club), reported a large sign he had installed advertising Godbey’s Enchanted Hills housing tract in the Mesa section of town had been torn down by people he called vigilantes. “It would have taken eight to 10 men about three hours to do this,” Godbey told the Valley Sun.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.