Memories and Dreams

The Anaheim couple, high-school sweethearts, walk the school’s halls as though they still belong there, softly brushing arms with teenagers bustling to class, holding old books by their sides and scanning faded lockers in wonderment at all the time that’s passed.

And in a way, the two do belong; not one student at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana seems to notice them there. From a distance, the two look like schoolkids looking for homeroom instead of a couple who graduated about 50 years ago.

But then, suddenly, the two are old again, a couple with 26 grandchildren, when a young man asks, “Did you ever play sports here?” and Dan Padilla, 66, answers, “I threw the very first pitch ever thrown in a game here. A long, long time ago.”

Virginia Padilla, 64, says, “It really isn’t that much of a shock until you think about how it was 1954 when I graduated. Then it sends you back.”

The couple, who never left the Los Angeles area after they graduated from Mater Dei, visited the school as part of its 50th anniversary observance this year. The celebration culminates this weekend in a reunion of former students from as long ago as 1953, the year of the first graduating class, who will gather at the school for the homecoming football game.

The school, built in 1950 as part of Southern California’s postwar boom in Catholic education and now the largest Catholic high school in the Western United States, has been celebrating all year.

But homecoming weekend is the high point, a time for students to consider the school’s legacy, for alumni to take one last look before its grounds are revamped, and for officials to raise more money for improvements.

The school is undergoing a $28-million redevelopment to update the campus with new buildings, and classrooms with multimedia equipment and laptop computers. It also is modernizing its teaching techniques “to stay competitive with . . . public schools,” said Patrick Murphy, Mater Dei’s principal of almost 11 years.

This weekend, thousands of alumni from across the country, including at least 42 from the first two graduating classes in 1953 and 1954 (when tuition was about $60 a year), are expected to attend the homecoming game against St. John Bosco. Sports have long been a major facet of the school’s identity.

The Padillas are taking a few last looks before the school is transformed. One of the few elements that will remain the same is the statue of the Virgin Mary that has stood on campus since the school opened.

“Everything is going to change here,” said Dan Padilla.

The daytime home of 2,100 students, one-third of whom are housed in portable classrooms, Mater Dei has planned to coordinate its refurbishment with the anniversary and to encourage its traditionally generous alumni to make donations.

It costs about $6,000 a year to attend Mater Dei, significantly less than most other private high schools.

In recent years, the school found itself drifting slowly out of date: Buildings were aging, and the student body was bursting the seams of the 18-acre campus, which was built to accommodate 1,200 students.

But beginning last year, things started to change.

Last month, all teachers received laptop computers; within the next two years, officials said, all students should have them. In September 1999, the school built a 400-space parking lot so students didn’t have to park in surrounding neighborhoods. A new chapel that seats 200 is being built.

“We have to keep up . . . in a digital age. We draw students from all over Orange County,” said Father Steve Sallot, school rector. “We have a fine tradition of athletics, but we’re proud that we’re taking care of religion and academics first.”