ERNIE JOHNSON (COACH) FUHS 1943

 

 

1925 - 2013 | Obituary

WILLIAM ERNEST (ERNIE) (COACH) JOHNSON

Johnson, William Ernest (Ernie/Coach)
Legendary football coach, Ernie Johnson, 87, of San Juan Capistrano, California, passed away at his home on September 15, 2013.

Ernie was born October 12, 1925 in Bruceville, Texas to William and Bessie Johnson. The family moved to Fullerton, California in 1927 when Ernie was 2 years old. He attended school from Elementary through Junior College in Fullerton. He played football, basketball, baseball and track at Fullerton High School and Fullerton Junior College.

After graduating from Fullerton High School in 1943, Ernie joined the Merchant Marines and served for 3 years during WWll. Upon discharge in 1946 he returned to school at Fullerton Junior College. In 1948 he went to San Jose State on a football scholarship. He graduated in 1951 and was immediately drafted into the Army during the Korean conflict. He spent 2 years in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). Upon discharge from the Army in 1953 he attended UCLA and earned his General Secondary Teaching Credential. He returned to UCLA in 1959 and earned a Masters Degree.

Ernie taught and coached at El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera, CA. from 1954-1969. He experienced great success as the Head Football Coach from 1956-1969 winning CIF, State and National Championships. He was named California Coach of the Year in 1966. In 1969 he moved on to Long Beach State as their Defensive Coordinator. They led the nation in interceptions (39) that year. In 1970, he became Head Football Coach at Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach, CA. That year they won their first championship in 28 years. From 1971-1977 Ernie was Head Football Coach at Cerritos College. In 1972 they won the South Coast Conference Championship and Ernie was named South Coast Conference Coach of the Year. He retired from Cerritos College in 1992.

In 2011, the football field at El Rancho High School was named Ernie Johnson Field. In 2013, the documentary film Touchdown Newport, about Ernie's 1970 season at Newport Harbor High School, was previewed at the Newport Beach Film Festival. It is soon to be released on DVD.

Ernie's retirement years were spent playing tennis, traveling the world and watching and attending high school, college and professional football games. Every morning, until he was no longer able, he walked 4 miles to the bakery to enjoy his coffee and beloved bear claw. Most of all he enjoyed spending time with his former players. They were and always will be his "boys".

Ernie was predeceased by his parents and son, Dirk Johnson. He is survived by his wife, Vicki who was at his side when he passed. Some of his last words were, "I had a great life", and that he did. He will be missed by many but his legacy will live on in all those he loved and mentored.

A Celebration of Life will be held at the El Rancho High School Gymnasium in Pico Rivera, CA on Sunday, November 3rd at 1PM. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to the Ernie Johnson Memorial Scholarship Fund, El Rancho High School 6501 S. Passons Blvd. Pico Rivera, CA 90660.

Published in Orange County Register on Oct. 26, 2013 (Available until Oct 26, 2014)

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http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/orangecounty/obituary.aspx?n=william-ernest-ernie-johnson-coach&pid=167706641

DAUGHERTY, JOY RUOFF FUHS 1970

 

 

Daugherty, Joy Ruoff 61, passed away on October 6, 2013 in Stockton, Calif. with her family by her side.

Born on February 2, 1952 in Berea, Ohio to Vernet "Vern" and Margaret "Mickey" Ruoff. Joy and her family moved to Fullerton, Calif. during her Junior year of high school. She graduated from Fullerton Union High School in 1970 where she was a member of their famed dance team, The Featherettes. After high school she attended college at San Diego State University. A dedicated mother to three athletic boys, Joy had a permanent seat in the cheering section at countless football, basketball and lacrosse games. She also was deeply involved with Junior Aid of Stockton, The Haggin Museum, Children's Home of Stockton, and Mable Barron Elementary and Lincoln High School PTA.

Whether it was her kind, outgoing personality or her sunny, blonde hair, she stood out in even the most crowded of rooms. Blessed with good looks, a quick mind and a wicked sense of humour, she was a bright light in so many people's lives. Her life's passions included family, friends, reading and enjoying the Laguna Beach sunshine. She also had a fondness for French Country decor, Meg Ryan movies and Cantonese chicken from Dave Wong's.

Joy is survived by her mother, Mickey; three sons and their wives, Ryan and Lori, Kevin and Andrea, and Shaughn and Stefanie; grandson, Charlie; and Labradoodle, Dexter.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be given to your local American Cancer Society or Hospice of San Joaquin.

Published in Orange County Register on Oct. 13, 2013 (Available until Oct. 13, 2014 ) There was a wonderful picture on the obit, but I couldn't get it.  

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ALL-ALUMNI POW WOW LUNCHEON MARCH 15, 2014

SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 2014    11:00 A.M. TO 4:00 P.M.
Host class 1961

The invitation letters for the 2014 all-alumni luncheon are being sent out. For information or to download the letter, click on the following:

Home page:    http://fuhs1961.wordpress.com

To download invitation:   http://fuhs1961.wordpress.com/powwow/     

 

   

SECOND ANNUAL FUNDRAISER FOR ROSIE’S GARAGE

SECOND ANNUAL FUNDRAISER FOR ROSIE’S GARAGE

When the Wilson Grammar School closed in 1950, it ended an era of school segregation in La Habra. The stories of the treatment of the students with Mexican ethnicity by their white teachers are harsh and sometimes cruel.

As a way to memorialize the struggles that these students went through, Rosie’s Garage, the iconic tutoring center founded by Mayor Rose Espinoza, is hosting its second annual fundraiser Oct. 5 in honor of the Wilson alumni. The event is part fundraiser for Rosie’s, part school reunion and part conversation on the era of segregation.

When: Oct. 5, 2013 5:30-9:30 p.m.

Where: La Habra Community Center, 101 W. La Habra Blvd.

Cost: $35 presale, $45 at the door. Make checks payable to Rosie’s Garage, P.O Box 2125, La Habra, Ca., 90631

Information: 714-626-0655

 

NEWS ARTICLE ABOUT THE LA HABRA FARM CAMPS

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/habra-527508-school-camps.html

Published: Sept. 23, 2013 Updated: Oct. 3, 2013 10:21 a.m.

Set apart, farmhands struggled together in La Habra camps

Until the 1960s, laborers lived in camps that lacked many modern amenities.

By CHRIS HAIRE / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The roads were dirt. When kids shuffled by on their way to school, dust kicked up and caked the air.

There was running water, but no hot water.

The houses were more like sheds. Often, large families lived in one-bedroom huts or barracks.

The men jumped in beater trucks in the morning and drove off to pick oranges or walnuts or any other crop that covered much of rural La Habra. The kids, who on weekends scooped up fruit from the ground while ...

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From Connie:

 

I will try to login and get the rest of Chris Haire's news story. Cruz Reynoso (FUHS 1949), who lived in farm camp Alta Vista, became the first hispanic associate judge on the California Supreme Court.

FULL NEWS STORY:

Published: Sept. 23, 2013 Updated: Oct. 3, 2013 10:21 a.m.

Set apart, farmhands struggled together in La Habra camps

Until the 1960s, laborers lived in camps that lacked many modern amenities.

By CHRIS HAIRE / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The roads were dirt. When kids shuffled by on their way to school, dust kicked up and caked the air.

There was running water, but no hot water.

The houses were more like sheds. Often, large families lived in one-bedroom huts or barracks.

The men jumped in beater trucks in the morning and drove off to pick oranges or walnuts or any other crop that covered much of rural La Habra. The kids, who on weekends scooped up fruit from the ground while the adults worked among the treetops, were affectionately called ratas, Spanish for “rats.”

This is a snapshot of life in “the camps,” three barrios – Campo Colorado, Campo Corona and Barrio Alta Vista – home to Mexican American and Mexican immigrant farmhands from 1916 until the 1960s. The families that lived there struggled. At times they faced discrimination and segregation. Many of the white residents of La Habra proper thought the camps, south of the railroad tracks, were dangerous.

Still, the camps were vibrant, communal neighborhoods, according to many elderly La Habra residents who grew up in them.

“When I look back on life there, it was fun,” said Carmen Gaeta Chytraus, 70, who lived in Campo Colorado in the late 1940s and early 1950s. “We didn't miss what we never had.”

‘IT WAS A STRUGGLE'

The camps sprang up in 1916 when the La Habra Citrus Association brought the Mexican fruit pickers to town to help work the fields.

Most of the men would pick fruit in the unforgiving Southern California sun. Others worked in the packing plants. The children, when not in school, tried to scrounge money any way they could. The money went to their folks for rent or food.

“On Saturday, the whole barrio was empty,” said Enrique Zuniga, 74, who grew up in Campo Colorado, the smallest camp with 70 homes. “Everyone went to work. We'd get into the same trucks as our fathers and go to the fields, or we'd caddie for tips at the Hacienda Golf Club.”

There was no indoor plumbing or sewers. Outhouses and community showers dotted the neighborhoods. The barrios created makeshift stores, run out of houses, to provide milk and other goods, because many shops in La Habra refused to serve Mexicans.

Families used curtains to divide living rooms, creating second sleeping areas. When the association brought in barracks in 1947 to Campo Colorado to alleviate overcrowding, the families who moved there got a measure of legroom.

“When we lived in House 59, I slept under a bed with another brother,” said Zuniga, who in 1947 moved, along with the other 12 people in his family, to House 69, an army barracks. “When we moved to the barracks, it was the first time I slept on a bed.”

There were inconveniences. School buses, for example, did not pick up students living in the barrios, Chytraus said. For years, Zuniga said, the postmaster would not send mail carriers there.

“I had fun as a kid,” Chytraus said. “But when I look back, it was a struggle.”

ISOLATION AND SEGREGATION

In an era that predated the Civil Rights Act, the March on Washington and the Chicano movement, leaving the camps for any reason carried with it an inherent risk.

“When someone moved from the barrio to (other parts of) La Habra, we were worried they would be beat up or killed,” said Cruz Reynoso, 82, who lived in Alta Vista and ultimately became the first Hispanic associate judge on the California Supreme Court. “A friend of mine came back from World War II and bought a house in La Habra. His neighbors on both sides offered to buy it for twice what he paid. So we were aware of the separateness.”

Reynoso moved with his family to Barrio Alta Vista when he was 7. When his family arrived in that La Habra camp in the summer of 1938, school was fast approaching. Reynoso and his older brothers, all of whom spoke English, went to find a school.

Reynoso says he saw Lincoln School, a tall brick building with a lawn of lush grass and trees. He went to the school office to get more information.

“We were told we had to go to Wilson to learn English,” he said. “But we were already bilingual. I also noticed that some of the Anglos who lived closer to Wilson were being bused to Lincoln.”

Wilson Grammar School was multiple wooden, bungalow-like buildings. The grounds were mostly dirt, except where weeds had taken hold. The students were all of Mexican ethnicity. They were not allowed to speak anything but English.

“I was whipped with a hose by a teacher once for speaking Spanish,” said Ray Molina, 74, who was born in Campo Colorado and still lives on the same property his father bought on Electric Avenue.

As the kids got older, they moved on from Wilson (which closed in 1950) and attended integrated Washington School and then La Habra High School. Again, the former La Habra pupils said, no Spanish was allowed at those two schools. The rules and punishments, they also said, were harsher for them than their white peers.

On occasion, the parents of white friends prohibited them from hanging out. When Our Lady of Guadalupe was on Fourth Street, below the tracks, it was almost entirely Mexican. After the church burned down and was rebuilt at its current location on La Habra Boulevard, more white people began attending Mass. The priests, according to Zuniga, started doing sermons in English only.

“Even though we're Americans,” Zuniga said, “we sometimes felt that we were in somebody else's country.”

THE BARRIO IS FAMILY

But despite the hardships, the camps were anything but bleak.

Sitting in their homes, with black-and-white photographs sprawled on their tables, the former residents of the camp spoke of yearly fiestas at Los Arbolitos, a local gathering spot covered with trees; having rock fights after school; listening to the radio; flocking to the house of the one family that had a television; and how the barrios grew to become one family.

“Everybody knew each other,” Molina said. “When somebody died, the whole barrio would show up to the wake. We got along, because we didn't have anything.”

The camps, geographically, were small compared with the rest of La Habra. But because everyone who lived there also worked together and helped watch one another's children, the three barrios, in a way, became one village.

Frank Mejia, 87, has lived in the same house in what was once Alta Vista since 1948.

“People think it's awful to live in a place like that,” he said. “But we grew up as family.”

Contact the writer: 714-704-3707 or chaire@ocregister.com

 

 

WRIGHT, JAMES "JIMBO" M , FUHS 1979

FUNERAL: OCT 4, 2013

FINAL FAREWELL : OCT 6,, 2013

 

JAMES “JIMBO” WRIGHT, FUHS 1979

 

Longtime youth football coach remembered

By LOU PONSI

2013-10-02 21:53:35

Anyone involved with youth football in Fullerton over the past three-plus

decades likely connected at some point with James Wright.

Known to virtually everyone as “Jimbo,” Wright served as a volunteer

coach and board member with Fullerton Pop Warner & Cheer for 35

years.

Wright died Monday at age 53, succumbing to a variety of medical

issues he'd been battling for years, said his son, James Wright Jr., 28.

Wright's football family on Wednesday honored the longtime volunteer

and father of three with a vigil at Lions Field, where he spent countless hours teaching football's X's and O's and mentoring youngsters.

Despite battling illness, Wright was showing up at practices as recently as three weeks ago, said Tracy Bair, the current league president.

“It was about the kids for him,” said Bair, who'd known Wright for 14 years. “He was amazing.”

A lifelong resident of the city, Wright's first involvement with Fullerton Pop Warner was as a player. He went on to play running back for the Fullerton Union High School team and was still in high school when he began volunteering as a coach with the Pop Warner league, James Wright Jr. said.

Wright coached his son's team to an Orange Bowl championship in 1994.

“He always said he was going to retire after I stopped playing,” Wright said. “And years later, he was still going.”

Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson, a Fullerton resident and former city councilman, coached in the league with Wright for the past eight years.

Wright loved youth football, Nelson said. “There are not that many people that, when their kids are out, they stay involved,” Nelson said.

Along with his son, Wright is survived by his father, John Wright; wife, Kim Betty-Wright; daughters Vanessa Loera, 25, and Taylor Wright, 18; and granddaughters Alize, 5, and Issella, 11 months.

Funeral services will be at 1 p.m. Friday at Cornerstone Church, 4905 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim.

Bair said a “final farewell” is also being held by the league at 12:30 p.m. Sunday at Lions Field, 1300 Brea  Blvd., Fullerton.

Fullerton Pop Warner plans to purchase a memorial bench inscribed with Wright's name for the field.

Said Nelson: “He was the heart and soul of the league and he was the tenure of the league.”

Contact the writer: 714-704-3730 or lponsi@ocregister.com

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FUNERAL:  OCT 4, 2013

FINAL FAREWELL : OCT 6,, 2013