GRANADA HILLS : This Senior Guards High School With Love and Iron

At a time of life when most of her contemporaries are spending their days spoiling their grandchildren, gardening or knitting, Lillian Lewis is up before dawn taking the school bus from her home in South Central Los Angeles to Granada Hills High School.

Most anyone who has attended, visited or worked at Granada Hills High knows her affectionately as Granny--and few get in or out of the school without an interrogation by her.

“She is a formidable lady, a tower of strength to the school insofar as no one gets by Granny,” said Dr. Anne Falotico, principal. “And she is democratic in the fullest extreme . . . parents, school board members, students, anyone who enters Granny’s hall is treated equally.”

On a recent school day, the gatekeeper was living up to her image.

“Y’all think y’all slick,” said Lewis. “If you come one more day without your ID, Granny’s gonna have to hurt you. When you have your ID, you don’t have to hear Granny’s mouth. I don’t wanna see your old ugly picture. I wanna see your name on your ID card,” she scolded.

Granny, who turned 80 earlier this month, began her guard duty at Granada more than 14 years ago. She’d retired from her job at the Veterans Administration Hospital, where she’d met Lee, her husband of 44 years.

When her granddaughter enrolled, Granny wanted to ensure that she stayed in school and out of trouble. So she’d drive to Granada Hills High and, armed with her sewing and a bottle of water, she’d spend the day in the parking lot.

Allen Donen, the assistant principal at the time, saw her and asked her if she’d like a job. She’s been at Granada ever since, putting in 10-hour days, seven of those hours as a volunteer. Three hours a day she is paid to supervise the front gate and help out at the school.

“We’ve got school nurses, psychologists and counselors but some of our kids just need a grandma,” said Joan Lewis, director of the school’s Impact program and no relation to Granny.

Lewis is mother to four, grandmother to nineteen, great-grandmother to 31 and great-great-grandmother to an even dozen.

She even has four great-great-great-grandchildren but, as Falotico said, “Granny belongs to everyone at Granada.”

She has attended 13 proms, many times in a limousine, and often has students return after graduation to visit.