La Cañada High’s First Graduating Class was a Unique Experience

One of the most pleasurable smells in life is the one that comes from the interior of a new car. It is the odor of something fresh, something that is so new that it has never been used before.

The La Cañada High Class of 1965 experienced something even better than a new car. That class not only had the unusual distinction of being the first graduating class at the high school, but as juniors were among the first students to attend the new facility.

“It was different. Everything smelled so clean,’’ remembers Harlan Updegraff, who now lives in Concord, near the city of San Francisco. “We watched them build the school while we attended John Muir in Pasadena. When the school opened, they still had some loose ends to finish. I remember we had to walk in mud from the street to the buildings the first few months,” Updegraff said.

Amazingly, Updegraff wasn’t the only person in his family to have that unique experience. His grandparents had moved to what is now La Cañada Flintridge in 1915 and his grandfather purchased some 500 aces to start a farm. Later, Up-degraff’s father was in the first graduating class at Muir. “My father, who was also the first class president, told me the same thing. ‘No musty smell,’” he said.

Updegraff, who was the second oldest person in his graduating class, said there was something else that was out of the ordinary about the Class of 1965. “It was different for us because we were the senior class at the school two years in a row,” he said.

While there is a natural progression for most students from elementary, to junior high school to high school, that first graduating class found itself getting an education at different locations.

For instance, Catherine Hewson DuPont, who now lives in Sherman Oaks, went to elementary school in LCF and attended La Cañada Junior High, which no longer exists. “My older sisters graduated from John Muir. I went to John Muir for my freshman and sophomore years and then transferred to La Cañada High. There were so few kids that didn’t go on to La Cañada High from Muir,” she said.

Others like Updegraff went to LCF schools, but then spent their first couple of high school years away from Muir. “I attended a private school in San Marino with three of my friends. When La Cañada High opened, our parents took us out of that school and put us all in La Cañada,” said Updegraff.

“It was wonderful being at La Cañada High. It was such an honor and it was so much fun,” said DuPont. One of the legacies that DuPont remembers that her class left behind for future students was their signatures.

“The entire class signed its name in the cement in the large walkway between the old library and the gym. I wonder if it’s still there?,” she said.

While La Cañada High was providing a wealth of pleasant memories for the Class of 1965, something that wasn’t so pleasant was lurking just outside the LCF boundaries and would soon make its presence known to many of the seniors following graduation.

The conflict in Vietnam, which had been raging since the early 1960s, would escalate from a police action into a full scale war by the latter part of the decade. As more Americans were being sent to Southeast Asia, just as many of their contemporaries were protesting U.S. involvement.

“La Cañada High was a conservative school then. And because it was a conservative school, we were kept away from things like that,” DuPont said. “We didn’t have to grow up as quickly as kids did in other places. We led pretty sheltered lives. There were parties and there was drinking at these parties, but I don’t think that there was any drug activity. We respected authority and we respected our teachers,” she said.

Updegraff had joined a high school Naval Air Reserve program and less than two months after graduation found himself onboard a U.S. aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam. “I was a structural aircraft technician. I repaired holes in aircraft,” he said.

As any veteran will tell you about the irony of war, Updegraff ran into a few of his classmates both at sea and on the land during his tour of duty in Vietnam. And in one case, he was probably the last person to see one local man alive.

Updegraff said he was serving on the launch crew on the deck of the USS Coral Sea one night in September 1966 and was pretty sure he saw James R. Bauder, a 25-year-old La Cañada resident, roar off into the night sky in his F4B Phantom jet fighter. Bauder and his crewman were shot down over North Vietnam and were never seen again.

“I ran into one guy who was a control tower person in Da Nang who was being shot at on a daily basis. I ran into another one who was serving on a riverboat in the Mekong Delta. I never saw him again. I don’t know what happened to him, but I didn’t see his name on that wall of the dead in Washington, D.C.,” said Updegraff.

But not everyone from the Class of 1965 found themselves in uniform after graduation. “A lot of people went on to do wonderful things and become successful,” said DuPont, who like many graduates, got married and raised children while balancing family life and a career.

While many members of the Class of 1965 have moved away to other areas, and some cases, other countries, Updegraff said there is still a bond between those graduates and LCF. “I am glad that I came from La Cañada Flintridge. I couldn’t have found a better place to grow up in,” he said.

The Class of 1965 has held reunions every 10 years since graduation. The 40th Class Reunion is coming up next year and a few graduates like Mike Sandford are trying to locate as many of their classmates as possible for the big event.

Sandford is helping to coordinate the reunion and is seeking help in locating a number of “missing” graduates.

He can be reached by telephone at (805) 532-2485 or by e-mail at Pacific333@att.net.

“I know where about 77 percent of the Class of 1965 is,” said Sandford, who puts out a periodic newsletter telling what’s going on with fellow classmates and with reunion plans. Sometimes, he relays the sad news that a classmate has died.

“There were about 345 graduates in that class. As far as I know, about 15 have died. I think I got started doing this for the 20th reunion. I got involved in tracking people down. Most people have e-mail and after I began to contact them about the reunion, they started coming out of the woodwork,” he said.

If he loses track of someone, he will spend hours trying to relocate them. “I have cross references now. I will call up their friends and ask what happened to so-and-so. There are always sisters, brothers, parents who still live in the area and I will call them too,” Sanford said.

There are two things that stand out in Sandford’s mind about his two years at the new La Cañada High - mud and helicopters.

“The thing that amazes me when we started school there was that there were planks and boards everywhere covering the mud. It was an (school district) attorney’s nightmare. Nothing ever happened to us, but they would never allow that to happen today. I am in construction, so I know that today everything has be cordoned off until the work is fully done.

“The other thing I remember is that JPL was pretty hot then. In those years they were making preparations for the Moon landing. JPL had two helicopters that were constantly going back and forth to LAX with dignitaries; all that air activity,” he said.

As a member of the school’s yearbook staff, Sandford said there was only money enough to do a black and white yearbook. “I went out to the local businesses and sold ads. We had a color yearbook that year,” said Sandford.

That good deed later took an ironic twist for Sandford. “What irked me the most (about my high school days) is that I lost my senior yearbook and I have never been able to find it. There were some pictures in that book, especially of classmates who are gone, that I wish I still had,” Sandford said.

Even though Sandford has lost his yearbook he can still take consolation in the fact that he is still able to find lost classmates from 1965.

LCHS Class of ’65 “Missing” Alumni

As the first graduating class of La Cañada High School prepares to hold a reunion next year, organizers have released a list of 97 “missing” classmates they would like to contact. If you know the whereabouts of any of the following Spartans, Class of 1965, contact Michael Sandford at 805-532-2485, or via e-mail at Pacific333@att.net.

Abell, Ken R.

Baird, Terrence L.

Balbuena, Maria R.

Benedict, Stephen

Benjamin, Brian

Berry, Greg R.

Bollinger, Eric “Rick”

Bollinger, Steve

Boothby, Vicky L.

Brown, Bill H.

Burch, Julie

Burnett, Nancy C.

Clifford, Wayne

Collado, Marsha M.

Collins, Kathy “Mary”

Conway, Marty

Curtis, Bill C.

Dakan, Don C.

Davidson, Donna D.

Doty, Robert W.

Duryea, Judy

Earley, Brian S.

Edwards, Loren J.

Elenes, Audrey

Engquist, Christine A.

Farley, Leslie L.

Fasana, Janice D.

Fogel, Jon C.

Forbes-Robinson, Stuart

Funk, Georgia C.

Gettys, William J.

Giberson, Frank E.

Goodman, Katherine M.

Gray, Greg

Greco, Dolores

Greenlea, Jill E.

Hatch, Ruth

Havey, Kathy

Herndon, John B.

Hilton, Virginia G.

Horton, Linda

Howard, Helen G.

Jensen, Susan L.

Johnston, Janet C.

Kistler, Jan

Kutta, Barbara A.

Lang, Kristy M.

Latta, Cindy A.

Le Vier, Marylynn

Le Vine, Wendy K.

Lepper, Dale K.

Mack, Sheila M.

Mazur, Ed

McCall, Steve G.

McDonald, Mara A.

McGuire, Bruce M.

McNamara, Mike K.

Mercer, Kathy

Miller, Linda L.

Miller, Ronald E.

Morris, Lynn A.

Neal, Cindy

Nisotis, Kathy E.

Oechsle, Anne C.

Oliver, Don

Partridge, Dianne

Peterson, Robert S.

Pipkin, Jill V.

Riddle, Kathleen A.

Riley, Mike

Robertson, Kathy S.

Roe, Janey L.

Scott, Susan G.

Sewall, Jack M.

Simerly, Richard

Simonsen, Donald L.

Stancato, Joe

Stockstill, Stephen W.

Strong, Davis D.

Struble, Robert G.

Stryker, Lynn F.

Sullivan, Sharon A.

Taft, Julie

Taylor, Clair

Thompson, Sharla A.

Tramutolo, Dave

Urabec, John

Van Dyke, Paula J.

Waldo, Alice A.

Webb, Karen K.

Weil, Barbara J.

Weinberg, Molly B.

Williams, Cheryl A.

Williams, Margaret J.

Wilson, Ronald F.

Young, Hal A.

Zielske, John