Name: Anita ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Jul 26, 2008, 5:23 pm - HHS Time
Maiden: Harmon
Class: 1969
City & State: Fair Oaks, Ca
E-mail
Message: Hey JB ~ just wanted to give some kudos to Jerry Miles. Today he "paid it forward". Last night, my brand new computer of 1 week (the monitor) decided to crash and burn on me. After spending an hour on the phone (to India) it was clear the HP techs could not help me. To say I was upset is putting it mildly. Then, this morning, I had the idea of calling Cougartown's computer guru Jerry Miles. He came over, diagnosed the problem, and after making a return trip to Costco we came back with a new monitor that Jerry had hooked up and running for me in no time. ?? Jerry - thanks again so very very much!

Name: Keith D. Jones ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Jul 26, 2008, 11:35 am - HHS Time
Class: 1976
City & State: Las Vegas
E-mail
Message: Been thinking. We need to make this a yearly event. It should also take place over a week period if possible. Most events will only be a one day thing but new things can come in the following day. Also, having it as a yearly event will insure long-time relationships with the sponsors and supporters. Everyone working would have to be a volunteer but that should not be a problem with all the students and parents. It should also take place at HHS. This will get the students, faculty, parents and community involved and they will be able to see where their support is going and see the improvements they have helped become real. To tell you the truth I haven't lived in Hawthorne since 1978 and I haven't been back to Hawthorne since around 1999 or so. I also tell people I am from Manhattan Beach and went to Hawthorne because they had a great sports program. Since i lived in Manhattan so long I figure I am from their. I do this because frankly I am a little embarrassed to say I am from Hawthorne. When I do say something though I always say "it was so nice back when I was there and I grew up in the nice area Holy Glen". When I think about it I shouldn't have to do this but the city and now the school has really become bad. This "no-sports" at HHS thing just set me over the top. We have some awesome athletes from our school. I still think we have more pro athletes come from our school that have done some major things than any other school surely in the Southern Cal. So I am driven to make HHS sports good again. I just wish I had more time. I am really hoping we (or I) get the support. There is no way I can do this alone. We can get as many restaurants involved and do our own"Taste of the South Bay" The restaurants will usually donatetheir food, time and employees. We can can give them thebooth for free, sell tickets to the event and raise a goodamount of cash with that. It would surely grow every year. I know the one in Honolulu started off with just a few and ended up with 100+. It generates 10's of thousands of dollars. Having a "job fair" too also helps the community business's get involved and also helps the students and families. Definitely concerts will help. Free entertainment by local bands and such during the day with a big concert at night on the football field. If we could get Brian Wilson to do just a few songs or Al Jardine can you imagine the money we could raise the exposure we would receive. We could get some major sponsors like Coco-Cola, or just about anyone. I did an event in Honolulu where I had Budweiser be the titlesponsor. I said they could be it for free. All I wanted was the money from the liquor sales at the finals at Block Arena in Pearl Harbor. I cleaned house. In addition, Dan Johnson is in that industry maybe he can get some bands to help also. Ernie Curcio has a band. This could be huge. What we need to do is reestablish some kind of Cougar Spirit at the school and at home with the parents. I also think the teachers can get involved more. If we come up with some sort of incentive so the teachers get involved then we have a big winner here. We need to get local business's to give every student who has a current HHS ID Card a discount when the purchase something at their business. CougarFest really could bring a lot of spirit back to the school and fund the sports program. It would give the school so much exposure both locally and nationally. It is this exposure that will bring in the major sponsors. I would love to be able to go to Nike or someone like that for a yearly sponsorship. More later sorry for the long one

Name: Chuck Kelley ~~~~~~~~~~ Sat-Jul 26, 2008, 11:10 am - HHS Time
Class: 1985
City & State: Los Angeles, CA
E-mail
Message: Howdy folks: New (old) pictures of Hawthorne Blvd have just been posted on my blog - chuckkelley.blogspot.com Enjoy! Chuck Kelley

Name: Britt Stonebraker ~~~~~~~~~~ Fri-Jul 25, 2008, 9:48 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1978
City & State: Kingman AZ
E-mail
Message: My first thought when this all began was we would be throwing good money after bad. However the feedback seems to be Very aware of this possibility. I think if some fellow Cougars would commit to assisting Keith Jones and following through with his direction, this could be pulled off. JB1 has already layed the groundwork and has insured that finances will go to sports only! It is no little thing to organize a fundraiser and would be a very nice add to a resume. It may even be a new career. Hey we are still young are we not??

Name: Neil Andersen ~~~~~~~~~~ Fri-Jul 25, 2008, 9:32 am - HHS Time
Class: 1962
City & State: Dallas, OR
E-mail
Message: There's a book out this summer The Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow, takes place in Pacific City, San Diego area, that alumni from '58 -'64 can totally be alive in the dreams of yesterday.

Name: Chris Prewitt ~~~~~~~~~~ Thu-Jul 24, 2008, 9:59 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1967
City & State: Fullerton, CA
E-mail
Message: OK, I have a fund raiser for the picnic. I?ll purchase (2) $50 each seats just to sit with the infamous Keith Jones. I figure 10 of us at a table would be $500 but should he not show he kicks in the $500.

Name: Christopher Breeze ~~~~~~~~~~ Thu-Jul 24, 2008, 8:00 pm - HHS Time
City & State: Martinsburg, West Virginia
E-mail
Message: I was in the class of 70 at Van Nuys High School. I don't really know how I got to your web site, I was looking up information on the old Ralph Williams Ford, took me to Cal Worthington Dodge, then used car lots and somehow I ended up at the Cougars web page. What a wonderful site, well maintained and very informative. I was overly impressed by the effort that has been put into the Viet Nam memorial page. So many kids today have no interest in history and schools have little interest in teaching history, especially our recent wars that only seem to kill the young.Thank you for making us all remember, although I never forget as two of my good friends never came back. Christopher Breeze / Martinsburg, WV

Name: Connie ~~~~~~~~~~ Thu-Jul 24, 2008, 7:09 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1979
City & State: Lomita, CA
No E-mail
Message: My daughter is a Narbonne Gaucho and plays two sports (Volleyball and Swim). Between the two, it was about $500 out of my pocket last year, and that was with coaches working their butts off on fundraisers. I know just how important sports are to my kid, though, and find the money somewhere. I believe Torrance Unified kids pay even more (as they are believed to have $$). The HHS parents need to raise heck with the school board. If LA Unified can find the money, any district can. And sadly, if the community raises money, the expection is set that it will never need to be funded by the district again. But, heck, I'll pitch in a bit.As to the 2.0 GPA, I agree it is completely reasonable. The Narbonne baseball coach came in set the standard, no exceptions or excuses. He told one of his star players to consider himself cut if he did not pull up his grades for Senior year. The kid pulled them up and got to play at Dodger Stadium for the City Championships. Way to go!

Name: Mary Ann Martin ~~~~~~~~~~ Thu-Jul 24, 2008, 5:34 pm - HHS Time
Maiden: Walton
Class: 1961
City & State: n
E-mail
Message: The non-profit status/foundation is the only way to go, IMO. Just look at the Hawthorne Parks & Recreation Foundation and how much they have accomplished for many years. Civic organizations and individuals could be involved in a fund raising, not just businesses.

Name: Keith Jones ~~~~~~~~~~ Thu-Jul 24, 2008, 4:08 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1976
City & State: Las vegas
E-mail
Message: Okay lets do this. i will try to be at the picnic. I need some help though. I need as much info on the HHS sports since the beginning as I can get. We have a great sports history and we need to show this to potential sponsors. It will exhibit how much history we have and how much the sports program means to the students, faculty, parents, commmunity and the futures of HHS graduates. I mean we have a Hall of Fame football player, CY Young award winner, world champion, many pro baseball & football players, professional tennis and Olympic Gold Medal winners. We have a great history of sports at HHS. Anyone who has info and pics email them to me at hawaiifit@yahoo.com I need this so I can put something together. I will also put together the Sponsorship Levels and what they can receive. We need to provide in our sponsorship package, why we are doing this, what we are doing and why it is important to the sponsor to support this. Getting a $5,000+ dollar sponsor is not that hard once you have everything put together. Alot of business's are in business in Hawthorne because the students have supported them. Asking them to help support HHS this time is not out of line. I do not live in Hawthorne so I need people to give me some ideas and contacts if you have them at business's in Hawthorne itself. Not so much outside of Hawthorne just because we need to get to the "heart" of the companies. A local Hawthorne company will be more apt to support something in their own community rather than something outside. Larger companies are best. They will be more able to sponsor something for $5,000 to $25,000. Smaller sponsors we will hit also but it is something much easier to get $500 or so. Once the package is complete I don't see it will take much time to get some major sponsors in. I have already made contact with a few more and I have told them what we are doing and I am looking for a minimum of $5,000 and all but one said they would be very interested just send them the info. So I will get something together. I will send to John or post it up on the net so everyone can see it. Give me your feedback and suggestions and then we will go with it. It has to be done nice yet simple. The whole package may be 10 pages or less. The local community will jump on this. Economy bad or not, I will get the point across that they will be losing a lot of money and business if sports no longer exists at HHS. And that could easily mean the closing of their own business or at the very least hurt it big time. I will also show how helping will help their business because we will drive more people to their business because they are supporting this. Maybe we can get some stickers or something that business's can stick near their front entrances to show they are supporter of this. I know the district has offered an account and everything but I wouldn't want the money we raise to go anywhere but into an account someone we trust has access too. There should be no problem keeping it separate. Plus we should be able to find the vendors we purchase stuff from too. We also need to file for the 501 C 3 non-profit status. I think we can generate enough income to actually put some people on payroll too. This would be a great thing for some Cougartowners to get involved with part time. We should also give a 10% commission to anybody who secures a sponsor. This way it encourages people to go out and find sponsors. Anyway, enough for now but for some reason I am driven to do this. Like I said I don't have the time I would like to put into it but I will do what I can. There are a lot of ways to get something for a lot less than normal. I am getting at least a 20% discount on every piece of equipment I am buying for the gym and quite a few I am getting a lot more. And this alone save me over $300,000 i what other would pay. We can easily make certain companies Official Vendors and sponsors of HHS Sports.

Name: George Johnson ~~~~~~~~~~ Thu-Jul 24, 2008, 2:56 pm - HHS Time
Class: 1962
City & State: Spinnaker Coves, Ca
E-mail
Message: John Boy; I know your heart & concience are in the right place, however, keep the CVUHSD FOXES out of the hen house. I don't care what they tell and/or promise you, they are probably ringing their hands in anticipation of this new found money. I worked for the County of L.A. and saw first hand how the L.A. Co. Attorneys figured out ways to circumvent the system and use the $$$$ for other than what it was designated for. I agree with Keith, if you are talking about (possibly) a large sum of money then get a third party to handle it (money) so that it does get used where it was meant to be used. Just be careful on who you decide on, because sometimes 90% of the money collected is alledgedly used for administrative fees ????? by those honest third party administrators. Just a thought GEORGE

Name: Sharon Leach ~~~~~~~~~~ Thu-Jul 24, 2008, 12:29 pm - HHS Time
Maiden: Moore
Class: 1966
City & State: Long Beach, CA
E-mail
Message: John, incorporating the aforementioned into the picnic sounds like a GREAT idea. What are the thoughts of others on this idea?