This blog will feature a weekly Golden Apple award on Mondays where we will spotlight a teacher, student, parent, staff member or community association making a positive impact on local schools.
This week's Golden Apple goes to the Grant Union High School Alumni Association, whose volunteer members operate the high school's alumni museum. Grant alumni have also been raising money to bring back the Pacer's marching band, as featured in a story I wrote last week.
In the past 28 years, the association has awarded $700,000 in scholarships to Grant graduates, including $101,000 last year alone.
The Grant alumni museum not only highlights campus history, but also the school's unique contributions during World War II as an aircraft mechanic training site. There are also displays on the school's Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ installed by alumni organist George Wright and a history of Grant Technical College, which became American River College.
With photos from as far back as the 1930s and newspaper clippings just as old, the museum has been a labor of love for the alumni group's members and offers students a rare insight on the 80 years of history at their school.
The museum is open to the public on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is located west of the school auditorium at 1400 Grand Avenue.
Loretta Kalb started her reporting career at The Sacramento Union, moved to KOVR-13 as a television reporter, editor and producer, headed to The Associated Press in San Francisco and eventually returned to Sacramento and joined The Sacramento Bee. Throughout her career, she has covered the state Legislature, courts, local government and, now, education. She is a Chico native and an Elk Grove resident.
Diana Lambert began her journalism career as a proofreader at the Lodi News-Sentinel. She is now a senior writer at The Sacramento Bee covering K-12 education and California State University, Sacramento. Previously she was The Bee’s Elk Grove bureau chief. Lambert was raised in a military family and lived at bases around the globe. She attended four high schools, graduating from Tokay High in Lodi and then Sacramento State University. She lives in Elk Grove.
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