Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Vannoy Family, BHS Graduation Day

The Vannoy Family, mom, Nancy and father LeRoy with daughter Mycelle Vannoy who graduated from Burbank High School with the Class of 2010 on May 28th 2010 at the Starlight Bowl. They are friends of mine.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Kauppila taken in draft

BASEBALL: Burbank senior standout chosen in 44th round by Oakland Athletics.

By Jeff Tully and Gabriel Rizk, Burbank Leader
June 12, 2010


BURBANK — Although he just completed his senior baseball season, Burbank High baseball standout Lonnie Kauppila has already fulfilled two of his dreams. Last year, Kauppila fulfilled a childhood dream of earning a college scholarship when he signed with Stanford. Wednesday, another one of his long-standing desires came true when he was chosen in the 2010 Major League Baseball First-Year Players Draft. Kauppila was drafted in the 44th round — 1,325 overall — by the Oakland Athletics.

"It's kind of a dream come true for me," Kauppila said. "It's definitely something that I can tell the grandkids about when I get older. It's just a good feeling being taken anywhere in the draft."It was also nice knowing that wherever I went in the draft, I always had Stanford to fall back on."

Kauppila, a shortstop, is the first player to be drafted from Burbank High in 10 years. The last was Corry Parrott, who was taken in the 48th round of the 2000 draft by the Chicago White Sox. The last local chosen was former resident Tom Vassella, who attended Sherman Oaks Notre Dame. He was taken in the 11th round — 339th overall — in 2006 by the Houston Astros.

With a full college ride, Kauppila indicated he will likely opt to attend Stanford in the fall rather than sign with Oakland. "I wasn't really surprised, but I was just relieved that I actually got drafted, anyway," Kauppila said. "I was kind of anxious to know [when I would be drafted]. I was just waiting and trying to see what's gonna happen. I was just waiting for my name and it finally came."Kauppila, the reigning All-Area Player of the Year, batted .443 with three home runs, 35 hits, 22 runs batted in, 35 runs scored and 21 stolen bases as a senior for the Bulldogs, helping them to the postseason. He also drew 21 walks, had a .569 on-base percentage and a .759 slugging percentage. READ FULL STORY

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Wordless Wednesday

Savanna Field Show, Anaheim, California, November 20, 1982

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Memorial Field Still Standing?

Stadium still standing

Memorial Field project pushed back to winter, causing problems for area football teams.
By Jeff Tully
June 2, 2010

BURBANK — Burroughs High football Coach Keith Knoop realized his team would have to make do without a home field for the 2010 season. The coach was told the renovation project to construct a new stadium, running track and football field on the school's Memorial Field site would begin the first week of June.With his team being displaced for a project that would last past the 2010 campaign, Knoop and the Burroughs administrators had to schedule all the Indians' 10 home games on the road.

Burbank Coach Hector Valencia and the Bulldogs were in the same boat, as the team also uses Memorial Field as their home venue. Having resigned themselves — and their teams — to their fate for the upcoming season, the coaches were floored when they were told last month that the construction project would be delayed.

According to the Burbank Unified School District, construction of the project isn't expected to begin until late November or early December. "With the delay, that means that we are going to have to play most of our games on the road for two seasons now instead of just one," Knoop said. "If we had our way, we would have liked the construction to begin [this month], so it could get finished earlier."Knoop said he was able to get three Pacific League games — against Glendale, Arcadia and Burbank — moved back to Memorial Field. However, the other seven contests will be on the road."With next year included, that means that essentially we'll have 17 games on the road," Knoop said. "And that doesn't even include playoff games."

Valencia was equally frustrated with the delay. His team had to deal with displacement a year ago when construction was underway on Burbank's new field and running track.Along with the rivalry game with the Indians, Valencia said the Bulldogs have convinced two league opponents to play at Memorial Field next season."It's disappointing, because we expected the construction to start right after the school year was over," Valencia said. "Now they're telling us that there's going to be another delay? That's just not right."Valencia said the delay is going to cost the program, and the district, more money."Because we scheduled all those games on the road next year, that's going to cost us more money," he said. "It's expensive to bus kids to games. It costs $270 an hour for a bus, and we have to pay that now for road games that we could have played at home."

Believing that their field would be inoperative for the upcoming season, Burbank and Burroughs signed contracts with nonleague schools to play three games on the road. The Indians will play games away against former Foothill League rivals Saugus, Canyon and Hart. Knoop said he tried to get the schools to switch and play at Memorial Field, but to no avail."You think that being old league teams they would do that for us," he said. "But they said they already signed contracts and they have things planned for those home games."

If the construction does get underway later this year, that would force Burroughs and Burbank to be displaced for two seasons — at the least.The Indians have the added headache of finding a place to practice during the construction. But for many — like Valencia — who have been waiting for a new venue to finally be constructed, they are bracing for another delay. They aren't convinced in the least that work will be started in November or December."Who knows," Valencia said. "We just want it to get done and we're hoping that they are going to do a good job when they do finally build it." Read Full Story

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Connections to the Famous!

This is from a Palm Desert Newspaper about regular people who had meet Hollwood Stars in normal places:

Connections

Edie Thoreson of Palm Desert, a corporate wife who moved everywhere with her husband, was first a student at Burbank High School.

She remembers a girl there called Mary Frances Reynolds with a whole chest full of Girl Scout badges. Edie was in the audience when Mary Frances won a talent contest with a lip-sync performance, which led to her signing with Warner Bros. and becoming Debbie Reynolds.

Edie felt like hot stuff by going to her junior prom at Burbank High in Jane Wyman's navy blue Cadillac convertible. Her date's father was foreman of Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman's San Fernando Valley ranch, and they let him borrow Jane's car.