|
"The Door" is still open for naming the newest Tracy High building.
A number of Tracyites, at least the ones who have spoken or written to me, seem to like the idea of tacking the name "El Portal" onto the new two-story classroom and administration building at Tracy High.
The idea was first advanced by Erika Hillstead, a 2001 Tracy High grad who has returned there to teach social science. "El Portal," the name of the school yearbook for some nine decades, reflects the Spanish-style architecture of the building, the main entrance to the campus and its function as a doorway to learning.
Those concepts apparently resonate with the people who wonder what the building will eventually be called.
Erika, too, has had "several positive responses" to the El Portal name from school district staff.
Naming it for an individual is out; it’s too central a structure to take on any one person’s name, as past surveys have indicated. Nevertheless, some readers insist that a person’s name — speech instructor Ernest Poletti is the most popular — would be appropriate.
Elvera Rotherham told me she was among a group of Tracy High alumni who originally hail from the Banta area having lunch the other day. The new building, which everyone thinks looks great, came up for discussion, and the group assumed there was a move afoot to rename the entire school.
I assured Elvera that’s not so. The school will remain Tracy High. Only the name of a single building on the campus is under discussion.
I wouldn’t expect anything official to come of this anytime soon. A citizens committee and trustees of the Tracy Unified School District went through the facility-naming process six months ago, and I doubt they will crank up the process in the near future. But in the meantime, I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks at Tracy High start calling the new building "El Portal." We’ll see.
Meanwhile, Tracy High’s football stadium will soon — Sept. 12 to be exact — bear the name of former Bulldogs coach Wayne Schneider, and there doesn’t appear to be any major discussion about that. The new signs for the stadium went up Wednesday.
The grass field itself will remain Peter B. Kyne Field, a name attached to Tracy High football for 81 years.
‘Different and enjoyable’
One reader who noticed the account of my recent excursion on the Altamont Commuter Express decided to give it a try himself — with a positive outcome.
Andy Galligan reported that he and friend Rich Giambastini took ACE to San Jose and back. They found the trip "different and enjoyable — a nice smooth ride and on time all the way," according to Andy.
The traveling duo opted to take the 10:02 a.m. train, which is usually uncrowded, to San Jose and returned on the train departing there at 3:35 p.m. That schedule seems to be the best for most people wanting to sample traveling the ACE rails.
Andy said that during the trip, the ACE conductor filled them in on all sorts of railroad facts and helped free up seats by asking commuters with backpacks and computer cases on adjacent seats to move them.
Like my five-guy golf group, Andy and Rich took the DASH free shuttle bus from the San Jose station to downtown San Jose, where they had lunch at Original Joes, as we did.
"I imagine it would be particularly beautiful trip in March or April, when the hills are lush green and filled with colorful wildflowers," Andy wrote.
That’s something potential ACE one-day excursion riders might take into consideration.
• Sam Matthews, Tracy Press publisher emeritus, can be reached at 830-4234 or by e-mail at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comments
