Gallery • 20 Photos

First Homecoming Freshmen float

CAMPUS BEGINNINGS

Campolindo was established in 1962, and by 1963 it was home to 150 students whose pictures fit in a 50 page yearbook mostly occupied by advertisements. The administration consisted of the principal, a Dean of Boys, and a Dean of Girls. In addition to administrative duties, the Deans functioned as school counselors.

The first sports available included Football, Track, Cross Country, Basketball, Swimming, Baseball, and Tennis.

P.E. classes were not co-educational, but instead separated into boys’ and girls’ classes.

The first extra-curricular activities included Rhythmistics (gymnastics with music), Checkmate (Chess club), International Club, Health Careers Club, Drama Club, Girls’ Athletic Association, Ski Club, Pep Club (a forerunner to cheerleaders), and Newspaper (which was officially named La Puma in 1964). Cheerleaders and Pom Pom Girls were also first introduced in 1964 along with the first musical: Swinging High.

In 1965 there were quite a few music programs for students. Programs included Advanced Band, Folk Singing, Rhythmistics, A Capella, Orchestra, Dance Band, Girls Glee, and Mixed Chorus.

1967 brought the first Homecoming and what is now a long lost tradition of Homecoming floats. Each graduating class had its own float that was paraded around the track during the Homecoming football game. There were Homecoming Princesses, and, of course, a Homecoming Queen. In addition to Cheerleaders, baton twirling Majorettes danced at half time, and the first mascot, known as “Fang”, rallied the crowd.

The senior portraits section of the yearbook didn’t include student quotes until 1972. At first there was only a list of activities in which the student participated in, then in 1967 things like Pet Peeves and Likes were included next to a short quote.

FROM GRADUATES TO FACULTY

Due to declining enrollment in the district, Del Valle high school in Walnut Creek was closed in 1980. All students from Del Valle were transferred to Campolindo, including current PE teacher Alison Adams, who transferred during her senior year. Adams recalls her first semester as a Cougar as “not a lot of fun.”

“Campolindo people would be on one side of the Quad, and Del Valle high school kids that transferred over were on the other [side], and we were not welcomed for the first half of the school year. There was a clear division of students,” said Adams.

Adams said, “The second semester was better. People were friendlier, and realized that we were all one student body now.”

Adams was on the girls basketball team and ran track while at Campolindo. She still holds 2 of the track team school records. Her name can be seen listed on the record board hanging in the big gym.

It was 1986 when English teacher Tom Duffy became a graduate. According to Duffy, these were the years when “muscle cars, like late 60’s Mustangs, Camaros, and Firebirds, with super-loud sound-systems, were huge.”

The student body was small, about “800-900”.

“I felt like I knew every kid in my class,” said Duffy. “Everyone, of all grades, ate in the quad. People didn’t eat lunch or brunch, or hang out, in the smaller courtyards near the classrooms,” he added.

One of the notable changes between now and the 80’s is the type of food available to students on campus. “We could buy Coca-Cola and sausage zombies at the cafeteria at brunch,” he said.

Another difference was the fixation with independent transportation. Duffy said, “Getting your license as soon as you turned 16 was absolutely required. For everyone!”

In the 1980’s students didn’t have to wait a year to be able to transport their friends in a car. “You got your license, then immediately piled your 5 closest friends into the car and drove to Berkeley, with the tunes blasting the entire way,” Duffy recalled.

Other memorable moments of the past included a Mock-Rock dance that was, according to Duffy, “a huge thing.”

“Groups of friends would audition for a spot, then dress up as musicians and lip-sync, dance, and fake playing instruments to the songs we loved.  This was one of the more popular dances of the year,” Duffy explained.

Looking back, Duffy sees some irony now that he teaches on the same campus. “I never thought I’d be a teacher at Campo while I was a student here,” said Duffy. “We mostly felt trapped and confined in ‘Bore-raga,’ and only wanted to escape.”

Like Duffy, current English and Drama teacher Jamie Donohoe, who graduated from Campolindo in 1987, has positive high school memories.

“As a high school kid, I liked football. That’s what I liked about Campo,” he said.

Football was played on a real grass field that “wasn’t kept up really well,” said Donohoe. “We definitely didn’t have the football program that we do now, as far as what [Coach] Macy has built. He’s built this whole culture which is amazing, and the success of his program is because of that. We just had a bunch of guys that went out, and knocked heads against each other, and just played,” said Donohoe.

Donohoe doesn’t see much of a change in students today from students then, except with regard to social media.

“You don’t have to just worry about how you present yourself to your peers, but you also have to then be online and text, and hold up that other layer. I mean, the way that we texted when I was growing up was writing notes in class, and then pass ‘em,” said Donohoe. “Keeping up with that [online image], that looks very tiring.”

Donohoe also noted that the pressures on students have increased, the academic climate has changed on campus, and that college admission requirements have continued to rise.

“I got into UC Santa Barbara with a 3.4 [GPA]. That ain’t gonna happen today. It was assumed that everybody was going to some sort of college, but people weren’t looking to get into an Ivy League school or UC. That competition wasn’t there,” said Donohoe.

The 1980’s were not without campus hijinks. “Between the Admin building, and B Hall, I guess, there used to be this grass, and they called it the Senior lawn. There was like a drainage grate there, and the Seniors would sometimes pull off of that grate, and would stick a Freshmen down it, and then put the grate back on,” said Donohoe.

Donohoe is happy with how the campus has changed since his time as a student. “Campo’s the safest place where kids can explore, intellectually and emotionally. They can stretch themselves. Looking around, just the quality of teachers is astronomical. So, the people I get to work with are the best,” he said.

THE NEXT GENERATION

There was a new section added to the yearbook in 1997 called World Beat that covered new trends, happenings, and inventions in different fields.

Along with Pope John Paul II’s appendix surgery and Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s divorce,  social science teacher Lindsay Webb-People graduated from Campolindo.

Webb-Peploe said the campus of her high school years was “fairly similar to what it is now”.

Webb-Peploe was on the Girls Varsity Tennis team and was a senior class officer.

“I was very involved. I was one of those like Suzy dorks who did all the activities, and played sports, and did leadership, and participated, so I sort of went full hog,” said Webb-Peploe. 

In the same year as the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal and Halliwell announcing her departure from Spice Girls, science teacher Stephanie Verbanszky graduated with Campolindo’s class of 1998.

Verbanszky said that school dances “were much more popular” when she was a student. “For example, Homecoming and Sadie Hawkins dances were date-dances and we dressed up really nice. MORP, Prom spelled backwards, was in December, and we dressed crazy,” said Verbanszky.

School activities were also more popular then. Verbanszky said, “Homecoming was huge, with flower parties for weeks ahead of time to create the thousands of paper flowers we would need to decorate the floats. The entire week of Homecoming was filled with activities and float building. School spirit was really fun at the time.”

While Verbanszky was in high school the first aqua-blue iMac personal computer was released, Wireless Web access become a reality, and teen fashion was obsessed with the vest.

TURN OF CENTURY TEACHERS

In 1999, at the conclusion of the millennium, current Math teacher Petro Petreas graduated from Campolindo.  Current social studies teacher Tom Renno graduated just a year later.

Today Petreas has posters of The Beatles on his classroom walls, but what some students don’t know is that, during his high school years, Petreas was part of the Liverpudlian Club, dedicated to The Beatles.

“It was a music appreciation club, but let’s be honest, it was a college resume booster,” Petreas admitted.

”So, basically what Mr. Petreas is saying is that kids were still sucking up to colleges, trying to get in,” added Renno.

Renno was on the football team and the wrestling team. While Petreas described the football team as being “terrible at the time,” Renno said that it was “just beginning its glory”.

Like in Verbaszky’s high school days, the Sadie Hawkins dance was still a big deal, but the current popularity of asking your date in some unique, public way, was not. “It wasn’t such a big deal to have a dance proposal. Like, you didn’t go through a big ordeal when asking somebody to a dance,” said Renno.

Choral teacher Mark Roberts graduated from Campolindo in 2003. When he was a Freshmen the G wing was just being constructed, and a year after he graduated the current theater was built.

Roberts used to play soccer and tennis, but doesn’t remember athletics being as good as they are today. “Girls volleyball was as good then as it is now, and same with girls basketball, but other than that, the sports were nothing too special. Maybe one good season here and there, whereas now every sports wins everything every year,” he said.

Roberts sees school spirit as being “more inclusive now.” “Kids love Campo, and seem to be prideful in their school in a way that I think is more over than when I was a student,” he said.

Roberts was also an active member of the choir, and was in several musicals. The last musical he participated in, Bye Bye Birdie, was performed in the Multi Use Room, which used to have a stage up until the renovation that took place in 2013.

Like Donohoe, Roberts remembers his own high school experience being less stressful and less fixated on college acceptance than he sees it now. “I didn’t experience any of the stress that the students here talk about on a daily basis. I’ve told my students before that I didn’t even know where my best friend applied to college. It just wasn’t a conversation we had, whereas it just seems to just predominate the discussion,” said Roberts.

While at the time, Roberts didn’t appreciate his high school years, he now looks back on them fondly.

“I grew up in Moraga my whole life. So, not really knowing any differently, there were things I did and didn’t like about this area, and it mostly just had to do with that I hadn’t really been anywhere else. I lacked perspective. I lacked worldliness,” said Roberts. “When I was in high school I didn’t like high school, but then when I look back on high school, it was pretty good.”

Special education teacher Kingsley Frazier graduated from Campolindo in 2005. Back then she was still Kingsley Graft. Her class was the first to graduate in a completely renovated stadium, which for the first time included artificial turf. Frazier recalls that being a “big deal” then.

That year was the last year of Homecoming floats. “We didn’t have the traditional floats for our Homecoming Senior year because they were redoing the track at the time,” Frazier said.

Some of Frazier’s former teachers are now her colleagues, and she says that working with them is “really special.”

“I think that those of us who have gone here, and now teach here, have a unique perspective on Campo. Sort of the stress that the students feel because we’ve been in their shoes,” said Frazier. “So, I think that, you know, for them to see that we went through it, too and we all came out just fine gives them a new perspective on things.”

Campo is a big part of Frazier’s family. Both her aunt and her mom also attended the school. “We’re definitely very connected to the Campolindo community, and we love it here,” said Frazier. Her husband is also a former Cougar, and they were engaged in special education teacher Michelle Alessandria’s classroom.

“Campo definitely holds a special place in our family’s heart,” said Frazier.

WAS THIS THE PLAN?

Having so many alumni teaching at the school begs the question, did they plan to teach when they were seniors?

Adams was sure of what she wanted to when she was a Senior. “I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. Even when I was babysitting when I was little. Working with little kids, coaching little kids, I knew I wanted to go into the teaching field,” she said.

In contrast, Duffy’s plans did not originally include becoming a teacher. “My future plans were to go to a really fun college and figure out the career stuff later. Once in college, I thought about becoming a lawyer, because I liked to argue, liked Hollywood versions of the courtroom, and wanted to eventually drive a Porsche,” he explained. “After taking a few law classes as an undergrad at UCSB, I thought: ‘These classes suck. I don’t want to go to law school and take more classes like this.’”

Donohoe’s consideration of the longterm was not nearly as concrete. “I wanted to go to the next party, play football, and that was about the extent of what I had in mind. That kid had no clue what he was doing,” he admitted.

“I always wanted to be an air traffic controller,” Petreas said.

“I was going to be a lobbyist. I was going to get paid lots of money to push corporate influence,” said Renno.

Like Adams, Roberts knew early on that he wanted to be a teacher. “I wanted to do what I’m doing now. I wanted to be a music teacher. I wanted to teach choirs. I pretty much knew by my sophomore year in high school what I wanted to do. I had good experiences with my teacher when I was here, and it made me really love this art form, and it made me want to pursue it,” said Roberts.

While her current position at the school doesn’t match up with the plans she had when she graduated, it seems Frazier’s classmates understood her enough to predict at least one aspect of her current life. “When I was graduating Campo I thought that I was going to be a magazine editor or something. I was the yearbook editor, and I did all of that,” said Frazier. “My senior superlative was most likely to be a Moraga mom, so now I am.”

WISDOM FOR THE WORRIERS

This year’s seniors are now considering their own next big steps, some with more than just mild trepidation.  Yet, if these former Campolindo students turned teachers are any indication, regardless of whether the soon-to-be-graduates have a specific vision of their future, or if they have literally no clue, it really isn’t something to fear.

“I think things turned out better than I could’ve imagined back when I was a senior,” said Frazier. “We end up where we’re supposed to be. We just don’t always get there the way we wanted to.”