February history headlines
People often ask me how I find history items for this column. What happens is that I really do not have to look very far—stories just seem to fall out of the sky and into my lap. Folks call or e-mail me, they tell me about items when we meet in the store or at city council meetings, or I notice something in the Citizen or the Bee that reminds me of something I should write about. Right now I have many good stories lined up, and if this keeps up in 2010, I could almost be writing a column each day. So, today, I am going to give readers some quick looks at some of the stories that I will be writing about in the coming weeks.
Bob Fletcher and the JACL – Mr. Fletcher was recognized last week in a ceremony during the Time of Remembrance at the Secretary of State Building in Sacramento for his “unsung hero” actions during World War II. Mr. Fletcher, now 98 years young, saved three family farms of Japanese Americans who were sent to internment camps, one of which was the farm of Mary and Al Tsukamoto. The Florin Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) recently celebrated its 75th anniversary and was instrumental in recognizing Mr. Fletcher, and I applaud their efforts now as well as over the years.
Louis Silveira and Elk Grove High School Yearbooks – Louis is an EGHS Supergrad, Class of 1967, who has taken it on himself to preserve the history of Elk Grove High through the school yearbooks. He has painstakingly scanned all the yearbooks he has been able to obtain and placed them on a special Web site which can be found atwww.alumniclass.com.elkgroveca. Since I am not a graduate of EG, I was not sure how I could access the site, but suddenly, I found a solution. There was a place to sign in as faculty, and since I was vice principal of Elk Grove High in the 1980s, that is what I did—and it worked. In a future column I am going to highlight the work that Louis has done, and I also want to impress upon our present students (at the nine Elk Grove comprehensive high schools) what great contributions they are making to future history through the school yearbooks. A gold star for Louis and his creative work! Read more about him in a couple of weeks.
Bob Fletcher and the JACL – Mr. Fletcher was recognized last week in a ceremony during the Time of Remembrance at the Secretary of State Building in Sacramento for his “unsung hero” actions during World War II. Mr. Fletcher, now 98 years young, saved three family farms of Japanese Americans who were sent to internment camps, one of which was the farm of Mary and Al Tsukamoto. The Florin Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) recently celebrated its 75th anniversary and was instrumental in recognizing Mr. Fletcher, and I applaud their efforts now as well as over the years.
Louis Silveira and Elk Grove High School Yearbooks – Louis is an EGHS Supergrad, Class of 1967, who has taken it on himself to preserve the history of Elk Grove High through the school yearbooks. He has painstakingly scanned all the yearbooks he has been able to obtain and placed them on a special Web site which can be found atwww.alumniclass.com.elkgroveca. Since I am not a graduate of EG, I was not sure how I could access the site, but suddenly, I found a solution. There was a place to sign in as faculty, and since I was vice principal of Elk Grove High in the 1980s, that is what I did—and it worked. In a future column I am going to highlight the work that Louis has done, and I also want to impress upon our present students (at the nine Elk Grove comprehensive high schools) what great contributions they are making to future history through the school yearbooks. A gold star for Louis and his creative work! Read more about him in a couple of weeks.