Bear gathering
The naysayers predicted that it would take a cold, wet, rainy day in August before there would be a get-together of alumni from all 79 graduating classes of Central Valley High School.
The naysayers were right.
Despite a steady drizzle and temperatures that evoked a distinctly October feel, more than 100 grads gathered at Mirabeau Point Park Sunday. Neither rain slickers nor umbrellas could dampen the spirit as they joyfully walked through a treasure trove of collective memories.
“All the REAL alumni are here,” one thrilled Bear grad said as the group gathered for the photo that now adorns the cover page on the alumni association’s Web site, www.alumniproject.org.
They reminisced about the original CV High School on Appleway, the current site of Greenacres Middle School, which opened in 1927 and housed the school through 1955. Others remembered the second high school, which stood from 1956 until it was torn down in 2002 to make way for the current building on Sullivan Road.
More than a few grads noted that none of the buildings that housed their alma maters, from elementary through high school, still stand.
As always, they remembered the great sports teams that have worn the blue and white of Central Valley – aided by former player and current coach Stan Chalich and fellow alum Duane Ranniger.
The day’s highlight was the arrival of 96-year-old George Harrison, one of 18 members of the first graduating class at Central Valley High School in 1928. Harrison, whose family moved to the Spokane Valley in 1926, drove himself to the event and was treated like a rock star, with fellow alums queuing up for photos and to shake his hand.
Maggie (Dial) Crabtree, class of 1975, served as the event’s MC.
“You know what we always say,” she told the gathering. “Once a bear, always a bear.”
Crabtree led the group in a hearty rendition of the school fight song before giving away the day’s door prize, a carved wooden bear statue.
“This is just the first of what we hope will be many more events like this,” Crabtree said. “We’re planning to have a meet-and-greet with all of the alumni before the homecoming football game with East Valley on September 28. We’re planning to have a special section set aside for the alumni to sit together and all root on the team.”
The Alumni Project, funded in 2006 by a grant from the Inland Northwest Community Foundation, has a list of projects on its calendar.
“We’ve gone through and put together a database of all 10,000 or so graduates, and we have addresses – good addresses – for all of them,” alumni coordinator Dave Graham said. “What we found was that about 6,000 still live in the immediate area. We went out, got ourselves a grant, and now we have a monthly newsletter that we send out to everyone.”
Crabtree urged the group to check into the Central Valley Activities Foundation.
“The foundation is doing some wonderful things and I hope everyone will check that out,” she said. “It’s not like the old days when we were in school. You don’t just go out for sports and play. These days, kids have to pay their own way to play sports. The foundation is working to help the kids who can’t afford to do that among many other things.”
Graham agreed.
“They’ve been doing some great things with the foundation,” he said. “(Former University of Idaho and New York Giants standout) Mike Hollis, the great CV kicker, volunteered to come back and run a clinic. Coach G (Rick Giampietri) puts on a punt and kick clinic, and we have kids from all over the Pacific Northwest coming here to learn how to kick. They have a thing called Next Generation Basketball for kids in grades 1 through 5.”
“One of the things we’re going to do is put a Wall of Fame in the new high school,” Chalich said. “We want to put it on the wall when you first enter the school so you can get a feel for some of the greats who have come through here.”