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Mark Keppel High School
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Mark Keppel High School is a four-year California Distinguished School located in the city of Alhambra, California in the Alhambra Unified School District. The school is adjacent to the Interstate 10 Freeway, north of the City of Monterey Park.
Keppel High School is named for Dr. Mark Keppel, Superintendent of Los Angeles County Schools from 1902 to 1928.
The redrawing of the feeder-school lines has had a profound effect on Mark Keppel High School; the elementary school students of the Highlands area of Monterey Park were re-routed from Alhambra High to Mark Keppel High.
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Encyclopedia
Mark Keppel High School is a four-year California Distinguished School located in the city of Alhambra, California in the Alhambra Unified School District. The school is adjacent to the Interstate 10 Freeway, north of the City of Monterey Park.
History
Mark Keppel High School is named for Dr. Mark Keppel, Superintendent of Los Angeles County Schools from 1902 to 1928.
The redrawing of the feeder-school lines has had a profound effect on Mark Keppel High School; the elementary school students of the Highlands area of Monterey Park were re-routed from Alhambra High to Mark Keppel High. Some concerned parents banded together and formed the Mark Keppel High School Alliance to lobby the Alhambra School District to improve conditions, renovate the aging campus, and to advocate for the school community.
Construction
Construction of Mark Keppel High School started December 19, 1938, three days after the ground-breaking ceremonies. The school was just one of thousands of projects built by the Public Works Administration during the Great Depression, but this was one that the cities of Monterey Park, Alhambra, the Alhambra High School District, and the unincorporated Wilmar section of Los Angeles County would be proud to call their own. Renovations and construction of new buildings has recently begun.
Alma Mater
:Mark Keppel High we hail thee.
- With honors true and bright.
- The heaven's beauties hail thee.
- With thy Red and White.
- Our Alma Mater true.
- Thy fame has long been made.
- We sing a joyful praise anew.
- Thy memories shall not fade.
Student body
The Mark Keppel student body has long been characterized as a harmonious, hard working pre-dominantly asian group with a few other multi-racial students from the surrounding communities. Since its inception, Mark Keppel High has been in competition with cross-town rival Alhambra High School, which always seemed to enjoy “favorite-son” status with the Alhambra community and school district.
1940s-1990s
Throughout the 1940s the White and Hispanic students got along harmoniously and conflicts were few. The 1944 Aztec Varsity Football team, under the command of head coach Eddie Wagner, beat the Pasadena High School Bulldogs 19-13 for the CIF-SS Championship at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Aztec alumni served gallantly in various branches of the military in World War II; Aztecs who remained on the home front reminded students to conserve valuable resources, while others volunteered at area USO’s.
Student participation in activities and school spirit soared throughout the 1950s as the Mark Keppel Aztecs-Alhambra Moors rivalry kicked into high gear. Football games became so popular that they had to be held in the Rose Bowl to accommodate the crowds, and the rivalry became so intense that it soon expanded beyond the football stadium and into other extracurricular activities.
The 1960s began deceptively peacefully, but then the 1967/68 school year saw a radical cultural shift. School spirit and participation in school activities waned as the sixties counterculture found its place on the campus; ASB became to be perceived as an exclusive clique whose activities only inflated their own egos; anti-war sentiment over the Vietnam War became widespread; ethnic activism spurred students to protest. The school dress code was seldom enforced as boys began sporting mop top haircuts, and girls began wearing pants to school unchallenged. Meanwhile, racial tensions emerged as Whites moved out and more Hispanics moved in from East Los Angeles, making Mark Keppel High a school “made up of strangers.”
An attempt to unify Monterey Park schools with the city boundaries, which was an attempt to isolate its largely white student body (from the largely Mexican American student body coming from Garvey Junior High in neighboring Rosemead), failed in an election in 1970.
Even though there was a brief period of racial tensions between the white "Surfers" and the Mexican American "gang bangers", this was generally a very mellow campus with Whites, Mexican Americans, and Japanese Americans, and immigrants of vast cultural diversity getting along very well, with a progressive academic curriculum on the horizon.
In 1944 the Mark Keppel varsity football team won the CIF championship. Mark Keppel also had a outstanding tennis program during the 1970s.
But as the 1970s drew to a close, the predominantly White and Hispanic student population of Mark Keppel High slowly shifted as larger numbers of Taiwanese immigrated to United States. Monterey Park became a haven for Asian immigrants because of its proximity to downtown Los Angeles and magazines and advertisements that reached all the way to Hong Kong. High-density housing and shopping developments along Garfield Avenue were marketed to these new residents, and stories of home buyers riding bicycles with grocery sacks full of cash (and offering top-dollar purchases) were circulated.
In spite of editorials in the "Monterey Park Progress" newspaper (which urged residents to invite newcomers into their social groups and to encourage them to adopt American culture), the emerging sea of Chinese-language storefront signs on Garvey, Garfield and Atlantic Boulevards changed the perception of Monterey Park to the “Chinese Beverly Hills.” Participation in school activities and school spirit continued to wane, but did so because of immigrant students’ unfamiliarity with American high school culture rather than with the prevailing counterculture and disillusionment of the times.
The 1990s seemed to be a return to happy times as the younger immigrants became acclimated to American culture while in elementary school and made their way into Mark Keppel High. Student interest was reborn and new clubs formed with more emphasis on the stewardship of the environment and social consciousness. The nineties became a veritable Renaissance of fresh optimism, exemplary academic achievement, exceptional student participation in school activities, and history-making success in athletics.
2000s
Mark Keppel has an active local campus chapter of the .
Demographics
In the 2006–2007 academic year, the student body was 71% Asian, 23% Latino, 2% White, with the remaining 4% consisting of Filipino, African-American and Pacific Islander students, with the addition of those who had no response. The predominant languages spoken at students' homes are Cantonese, Mandarin and Spanish. 55% of the student population participates in a free or reduced lunch program, while 30% of the students are English language learners.
Extracurricular activities
Visual and performing arts
In 2007, band and orchestra teacher Dr. Carla Bartlett won the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County's Bravo Award as an in the Arts Specialist division, one of the highlights of her career. Leading the District Band along with Alhambra's Mark Trulson and San Gabriel's Tammy Cognetta, Dr. Bartlett and her marching band have qualified to enter the 2009 Rose Parade.
Athletics
The Varsity football team, under coach Eddie Wagner, Beat Pasadena High School 19-13 for the 1944 CIF-SS Championship at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Both the Aztec Boys and Girls Varsity swim teams won back-to-back CIF-SS Division IV championships in the 2007 and 2008 season.
Publications
The Aztec
Mark Keppel High School's journalism class, headed by Cynthia Bradley, runs school newspaper, issued monthly.
IDEA Magazine
The organization sells copies of its magazine each year during or near the time of the Festival of Learning. Released only once a year, the IDEA Magazine is an annual compilation of Mark Keppel students' achievements in literature and art.
Teocalli
The student-run yearbook committee compiles each year's most memorable events into the annual, known as Teocalli. It is also run by Cynthia Bradley with the help of her 6th period Yearbook class. The name pays homage to the temple of religious ritual that once served as the crux of Aztecan worship.
Awards and Accreditations
Architecture
Mark Keppel High School is designed in the Streamline Moderne architectural style, a variant of the Art Deco, and a product of the Great Depression. While the Art Deco celebrated the mechanization of the Jazz Age with big, bold, vertical designs, exotic materials, and elaborate decorations, the Streamline Moderne was a more reserved and utilitarian style. The Streamline Moderne mimicked the fast, dynamic look of machines with sleek, aerodynamic and nautical forms, low horizontal designs, rounded corners, and shiny materials.
The architecture of Mark Keppel High School features rounded corners in and outside the auditorium, on the staircase leading up to the front entrance, and in all the interior stairwells. Incised horizontal lines cut through the brick stringcourse which wraps the lower part of the building and the brick pillars between the windows. The stucco texture coat of the facade features designs that emphasize horizontal shapes; blocks between the windows on both floors and along the top of the building contribute to the geometric, yet sleek look of the building. The uppermost block is bounded by a horizontal brick band, and the building is crowned with a small inset ledge. Extra handrails are found in front of the windows in the second floor hallways, in front of the display cases around the administration offices, and on the north wing exterior staircase.
Murals
Mark Keppel High School features three bas relief murals made by native Southern California artist, Millard Sheets.
The three enamel on stainless steel murals entitled "Early California" decorate the exterior of the auditorium, and depict the founding of California as well as the regional features of Los Angeles County.
The largest mural crowns the entrance to the auditorium and depicts the three main groups that colonized and populated California: the Spanish Conquistadors, the Catholic Missionaries, and American Pioneers. The mural features a golden California on a backdrop of green mountain ranges, dotted with golden Redwood trees, and capped with a large reflective stainless steel sun wrapped with a sunburst decoration. On the left, the Conquistador goes before his ship, claiming the new land in the name of Spain. In the center, a Missionary kneels down, gingerly placing a mission in Southern California. On the right, a Miner 49’er pans for gold while his wife holds their child and rifle, their covered wagons behind them.
The two smaller murals are located on the southern facade of the auditorium, facing toward Hellman Ave. The mural on the left depicts early Los Angeles County with the San Gabriel Mountains to the north, the San Gabriel Mission surrounded by orange groves in the center, a dairy farm with Cowboy below, and the Long Beach Harbor in the south.
The mural on the right showcases the entire state of California. From north to south: a lumberjack cuts down a Redwood tree, two miners pan for gold, and a farmer harvests oranges from his orange grove. A cowboy gallops in on a white horse from the east, while a large ship sails in majestically from the west.
Notable alumni
- Bill Martin, Class of 1944: CIF-SS Football Player of the Year 1944.
- Hank Aguirre, class of 1950: Major League Baseball Pitcher with the Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Chicago Cubs.
- Victor V. Vurpillat, class of 1950: Mathematician, entrepreneur and venture capitalist who has launched several successful high tech firms, including Novell and Span Works.
- Bradley Wayne Hughes, class of 1952: Founder and director of Public Storage, a self-storage company.
- Jim Sterkel, early 1950s: Namesake of Jim Sterkel Court at the University of Southern California's Galen Center.
- Dan Vadis, class of 1955: Actor who appeared in sword and sandal films such as The Triumph of Hercules, and Clint Eastwood westerns such as High Plains Drifter.
- Larry Burright, class of 1956: Major League Baseball Second baseman.
- Mike McCormick, class of 1956: Major League Baseball Pitcher with the San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees, and the Kansas City Athletics.
- Pete Mikkelson, class of 1957: Major League Baseball Pitcher.
- Malcolm McNab, class of 1960: Jazz, pop, and classical horn player, Session musician, two-time winner of the Most Valuable Player Award of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
- Foster Hirsch, class of 1961: Professor of film studies at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York; Author of sixteen books on Film and theatre.
- Luis J. Rodriguez, late 1960s–early 1970s: author of Always Running, a chronicle of gang life in the school's area in that era.
- Jenny Gago, class of 1970: actress, she has performed extensively in movies and television for 25 years, including recurring roles as Captain Santina on MacGyver, Detective Beatrice Zapeda in Alien Nation, Anaya on The Agency and Grandma on Freddie.
- Raul X. Garcia, class of 1975: IFC Short Film of the Month Winner.
- John Avila, class of 1976: currently a music producer and former bassist of Oingo Boingo
- Jeff Dandurand, class of 1992: Radio DJ and Comedian
- Hope Sandoval - Singer - Mazzy Star, "Fade Into You","Hallah"
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