La Cañada History: 2 Oxy alumni from La Cañada share a moment during 1998 commencement exercises

Ten Years Ago

Within days of the closing of the Palm Crest Elementary School campus for the summer of 2008, demolition crews were at the site toppling the aging multipurpose room there to replace it with a space that was 30% larger. The project was funded by 2004 school bond money.

Twenty Years Ago

It was a meeting of two like minds when, during the commencement exercises at Occidental College Andy Beattie, then president of the private college’s alumni association, presented an Alumni Award to fellow La Cañadan Will Moffitt. Moffitt, chairman of the Community Prevention Council since late 1994, and a member of the La Cañada school board from 1993 to 2001, was recognized for his accomplishments as an award-winning educational and commercial filmmaker. (Beattie, a longtime community volunteer and public safety commissioner who was past president of both the school board and the La Cañada High School Spartan Boosters, passed away in July 2014.)

Thirty Years Ago

Joining a statewide effort to conserve water in face of a third consecutive dry winter, the La Cañada Flintridge City Council went on record urging La Cañada property owners to voluntarily cut water consumption by 10%.

Forty Years Ago

For the first time in its 46-year history, Flintridge Preparatory School would become coeducational in the fall of 1979, reported L. Boyd Higgins, then chairman of the school’s board of trustees. It was further announced that grades four through six would be phased out and that 30 girls would be admitted that first year, 10 each in grades nine, 10 and 11. At the time the decision was made, Prep had 290 males students in grades four through 12.

Fifty Years Ago

A large home on a 1-acre parcel on Dover Road in the heart of Flintridge was on the market for $49,500.

Sixty Years Ago

Although the effort bore no fruit, La Cañada Chamber of Commerce directors voted to push for sealing off Cornishon Avenue to through traffic between Foothill Boulevard and Descanso Drive to protect youngsters who needed to cross Cornishon to get from one side of the La Cañada Junior High campus to the other.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.