CORONA DEL MAR : School to Celebrate Its 40th Birthday

To celebrate Harbor View Elementary School’s 40th birthday, parents, faculty and students from past and present will throw a party on the school’s playground Sunday.

The 4 p.m. picnic will feature magicians, mimes and the All-American Boys Choir.

Event organizers are searching through old yearbooks and photos to depict the school’s history.

One of the picnickers will be Audrey Niday, who taught first- and second-grade classes for 35 years at the school until her retirement in June.

When Niday was hired in 1958, the principal was John Dean, who is now the superintendent of schools for Orange County.

“I arrived in bobby sox and saddle shoes,” Niday said of her first day at the school. “He must have wondered, ‘Who is this kid?’ I was straight out of college.”

Niday said the school at that time was alone on the hill that overlooks East Coast Highway and MacArthur Boulevard.

“There were no houses around at all,” she said. “There was cattle up there, and we used to have visits from skunks and wild cats.”

Admission is $5 per person at the door, or advance tickets may be picked up at the school, the OASIS Senior Center or the Corona del Mar Chamber of Commerce.