AHS Loses Hall of Famer Dave Bourne – Class of 1957

D. BourneDave Bourne comes by his musical talents naturally. His father Ted Bourne was the instrumental music instructor for 27 years for the Anaheim City School District which at that time included Fremont Junior High and five elementary schools. Dave started piano lessons at 6 years of age and his father taught him trumpet, trombone, baritone, and string bass.

Dave was in the last freshman class at AUHS and while there he encountered former vaudevillian Red Hamilton who introduced him to ragtime. Red worked for the school district as a piano tuner, stage manager, and maintenance man. Red was a great ragtime piano player who also played the banjo, drums, and cornet. Red’s great granddaughter is Gwen Stefani of the group No Doubt.

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George Fraser – Class of 1970

George Fraser - Class of 1970

George Fraser – Class of 1970

George Fraser has the distinction of being Anaheim High’s first player in CIF history to make the CIF selection three years in a row, twice on first team. He was also on the 1967 Colonist football team that won Anaheim’s first outright CIF championship in the 4- A Division.

A natural athlete, Fraser was a stand-out player from the beginning. He played football, basketball and ran track as a boy in New York with a Catholic youth organization before moving to Anaheim in 1964. [Read more…]

Jerry Shipkey – Class of 1943

Jerry Shipkey - Class of 1943

Jerry Shipkey – Class of 1943

Legendary Hall of Fame athlete Jerry Shipkey has the distinction of being the only person to play in the Rose Bowl for both USC and UCLA. But his accomplishments as an athlete include much more. Shipkey went on to a standout career in professional ball with the Pittsburgh Steelers and was also a record-setting track and field star in high school and college. [Read more…]

Jo An Burdick Gottlieb – Class of 1951

Anaheim High Class of ’51 graduate Jo An (Burdick) Gottlieb credits living a life she describes as a “dream come true” to being at the right place at the right time. In one instance, the right place and time happened to be sitting on a curb in 1939 at age 5 with her parents and sister in front of Anaheim’s old Chung King Cafe on Center Street (now Lincoln) waiting for the Halloween Parade to begin.

“Looking to the east I saw the band approach with girls out front holding these shiny things.” The objects that caught her attention were batons being tossed and twirled by the band’s majorettes. From that day forward, Jo said her dream was to be the “best darn baton twirler ever.”

But she never imagined that from her humble beginnings, practicing with a bamboo pole in the alley behind her homeat500 N. Vine Street, that she would one day lead the nation’s top parades as a majorette, appear on stage and screen with entertainers like Frank Sinatra and own her own baton, dance and music studio. In Jo words: “It’s been one fabulous ride.” [Read more…]

Jan Harp Domene – 1969

Jan Harp Domene, a ’69 grad who became a nationally recognized advocate for children and education: JAN DOMENE

Jan (Harp) Domene - Class of 1969

Jan (Harp) Domene – Class of 1969