History

History

The Los Angeles High School Alumni Association® , a California, tax-exempt, not-for-profit corporation, was founded in 1881 by its first graduates. It is the owner and exclusive licensee of the name Los Angeles High School Alumni Association® , a trademark and service mark registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The Alumni Association was founded with the mission of maintaining through alumni fellowship the emerging ideals and aspirations of what was to become known to students who experienced it as "The Spirit of the Hill."

Over the years, the fellowship grew to be an important social networking organization and a principal donor of facilities and resources to students and alumni of Los Angeles High School.

Following WWI, the Association partnered with the student body to raise funds to purchase from the Mullen estate land across the street from the school for a park in memoriam to fallen schoolmates of the Great War. Eventually donated to the citizens of Los Angeles, it officially bears the name "Los Angeles High School Memorial Park." Over the years, it has served as a Senior Park and the site of a City library containing a stained glass window in which are inscribed the names of the fallen alumni to whose sacrifice the park is dedicated. The Association continues to donate to the park and to supervise the maintenance of its historic memorial stained glass window, memorial arboretum and other tributes.

Following WWII, the Alumni Association resolved to emulate the precedent set by Memorial Park and called for the raising of funds to build a War Memorial Hall in memory of those who had given their lives in this just concluded "war to end wars." The original intent was for the War Memorial Hall, like the earlier commemoration, to be sited off campus. However, the Board of Education offered to contribute land and partial funding if the Association would agree to the Hall's being built on-campus and allow shared use of the facility by students and other stakeholders. The Alumni Association's War Memorial Hall thus came to be constructed on an unused section of the Los Angeles High School campus.

In order to encourage donations to the construction fund, the Association became a public benefit, non-profit corporation in 1947. By the time the War Memorial Hall was completed in the mid-fifties, however, to alumni casualties of military actions by the United States could be added those of the Korean War. So, the Hall was rededicated to the memory of alumni who had fallen in that conflict as well. The names of all are inscribed upon a bronze plaque affixed to the structure.

For the Association's proactive role in the creation of the War Memorial Hall, it was granted permanent tenancy of the facility, and the section of the campus in which the Hall is located was later named "Alumni Court."

In addition to its role in creating Memorial Hall and the Los Angeles High School Memorial Park, the Association's initiatives and activities have included:

  1. The production of an annual gathering of members and alumni, sometimes known as the "President's Luncheon;"
  2. Annually recognizing and bestowing to one of the school's alumni a "Lifetime Achievement Award;"
  3. The purchase, installation, and preservation of the Deagan Chimes
  4. Awarding scholarships;
  5. Support of the LAHS Academic Decathlon team;
  6. Support of the JROTC program;
  7. Providing a repository for memorabilia and artifacts donated by graduating seniors and alumni, such as class banners, gifts, and yearbooks;
  8. Providing a repository for LAHS artifacts and documents de-accessed or withdrawn from use by LAUSD and/or donated to the association by officials of LAUSD;
  9. Chronicling the history of LAHS and the Alumni Association;
  10. Transmitting the history of LAHS to current students, alumni and the general community via displays, advisories, publications, consultation, forums and presentations, etc.;
  11. Conducting research in response to specific queries from alumni, students, historians, journalists and the general public;
  12. Corresponding and social networking with alumni;
  13. Tracking the careers and accomplishments of LAHS alumni;
  14. Co-establishing and maintaining the LAHS Alumni Hall of Fame;
  15. Maintaining a directory of alumni.

As the oldest surviving institution associated with LAHS, with roots going back to its very first graduates, the Alumni Association is the only legally established and government-recognized entity specifically dedicated to providing information, protective services and support in behalf of the lore and legacy of Los Angeles High School..