YORBA LINDA : School Hall of Fame Inductees Honored

About 100 people honored Olympic gold medalist Janet Evans and State Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) as the first inductees into the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District Hall of Fame on Friday night.

The Hall of Fame, created by Supt. James O. Fleming, is to recognize the achievements of district alumni and to provide role models for the district’s 22,000 students.

“There has been a lot of bashing of public education,” Fleming said. “We hope to counter that by identifying some of our graduates who have done well.”

Life-size portraits of the two inductees will hang in the district’s new boardroom in Yorba Linda.

Evans was honored for her Olympic swimming victories in Seoul in 1988 and in Barcelona in 1992.

Evans, a 1989 graduate of El Dorado High School, said her senior year at the school was one of the greatest experiences of her life. “I could have never inspired other people to achieve things if not for my teachers at El Dorado,” Evans said.

Lewis, a 1972 graduate of Valencia High School, was recognized for his political success. He was first elected to the state Assembly in 1980 and has been reelected five times.

In 1991, he won a state Senate seat in a special election and was reelected last November.

Fleming praised Lewis’ assistance in the merger of the Placentia and Yorba Linda school districts in 1989, as well as his role last year in transferring Yorba Linda students in a Fullerton high school to the district’s three high schools.

District officials expect to add at least one graduate each year to the Hall of Fame.

Inductees will be nominated by teachers and staff from El Dorado, Valencia and Esperanza high schools.