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After watching his mother perform in a production of “A Raisin in the Sun” at Compton Community College when he was 9 years old, Anthony Anderson knew appearing on stage would be his life’s work. Over the next handful of years, he enrolled in programs across Los Angeles to achieve that dream. Then, one morning after finishing a class at the Southern California Regional Occupational Center in Torrance, Anderson saw a Post-It note on a bulletin board that caught his attention. The note informed aspiring artists about a newly formed arts school. To be admitted, they had to submit an audition tape.

“I ripped it off the board, and I brought it home to my mother, and I said, ‘Mom, if I can get into this school, can I go here?’” Anderson says. “She said, ‘If you can get into that, yes.’”

Months later, Anderson received a letter informing him that he had been accepted into the inaugural class at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.

Founded in 1984 and opening its doors to students in 1985, Los Angeles County High School for the Arts is located on the campus of Cal State L.A. It was established to provide students (currently 550) with conservatory-level arts training and college-prep academics within the public education system. LACHSA isn’t associated with LAUSD; instead, it partners with the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which provides funding to support it.

“I felt it to be very important that I was in an environment where other students had the same passion as I did for the arts, in particular, theater,” Anderson says. “Being around other students who had the same passion and drive that I had as an artist was very influential.”

Over the years, LACHSA has featured a who’s who of alumni across various disciplines, including musicians Phoebe Bridgers and Haim, actors Jenna Elfman and Belissa Escobedo, and visual artists Robert Vargas, Tomashi Jackson and Kehinde Wiley. For the past seven years, the school has been ranked as the top public high school for the arts.

Drew McClelland (second from right) with students from LACHSA’s Cinematic Arts Program and actor William H. Macy (far right).

(Courtesy of LACHSA)

While the school’s accolades focus on the arts, LACHSA also aims to give its students experiences that extend beyond the program. Days are structured so that students take academic classes in the morning and arts in the afternoon. With this format, they meet and get to know classmates from other disciplines.

Former “SNL” cast member Taran Killam points out that this also promotes the school’s social and economic diversity, acting as a mini-college experience.

“It’s such a melting pot, but you have this beautiful, focused bonding,” he says. “It’s a rare thing for kids to know, but LACHSA students are ambitious. It’s very unifying when your background is so disparate and so diverse. It’s what makes it special, and you can’t get this experience in a traditional school.”

Lara Raj attended several arts-focused high schools as she moved during her childhood. With that in mind, the member of the girl group Katseye cites LACHSA as having a major influence on her artistic development. During her time at LACHSA, Raj took music, fashion and acting classes, and says its music tech class was her favorite. There, she learned how to create beats and write songs.

“I developed my songwriting and fell in love with it through those classes,” Raj says. “I was excited to go to school every day. And I hate school.”

Before attending LACHSA, singer-actor Josh Groban didn’t know a school specializing in the arts was an option. After bouncing around schools and realizing he needed a different education to express himself equally academically and artistically, he ended up at LACHSA. There, he found like-minded, artistically inclined outsiders.

Josh Groban, a former student of LACHSA, credits the institution with helping him find his voice.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“I was a kid who didn’t quite know how to fit in,” Groban says. “Then at [LACHSA], I was surrounded by other students who, I think, didn’t know how to fit in either. We were there for the same reasons, which is that we felt like we needed the nourishment of the arts and being able to express ourselves on a daily basis.”

Half of LACHSA’s funding is provided by the state, with the rest provided by the LACHSA Foundation, a registered 501(c) (3). According to its executive director, Trena Pitchford, the foundation has invested $1 million each school year.

“People always ask me when I tell them I went to LaGuardia and to LACHSA if they were private schools,” Raj says. “I tell them it was created by people who are passionate about the arts and want to inspire kids.”

“There’s a part of LACHSA that I think is a discovery point for a lot of Los Angeles County, and even the nation,” Pitchford says. “There’s so much opportunity for the school, and they’re doing it on a limited budget. What would happen if they were fully funded? What would happen if the foundation had a $40 million endowment? That would fully sustain what they’re doing right now.”

LACHSA students posing in front of the entrance to the Greek Theatre

(Courtesy of LACHSA)

LACHSAPalooza, the culmination of the foundation’s two-year fundraising campaign to celebrate the first 40 years of LACHSA, will take place at the Greek Theatre on May 30. There, student artists will perform alongside Ozomatli, Jon B., April Showers and more. From a fundraising standpoint, the foundation has high hopes of raising $2.5 million.

“We have both annual goals in terms of investment as well as sort of big visions, big dreams of where we think LACHSA could go for the next 40 years,” Pitchford says. “We also hope to put LACHSA on the national stage.’

The honorees for the night are the late Pat Bass, LACHSA’s gospel choir director, retiring LACHSA theater department chair Lois Hunter, and Jerry Freedman, a longtime social studies teacher at the school.

For Anderson, who is serving as the night’s host, seeing Freedman recognized is very meaningful.

“He was there from the school’s beginning,” Anderson says. “He was there when I started, and he’s still there and is still beloved by the students 40-plus years later. I’m looking forward to honoring him.”

As an arts-based school in the long-standing entertainment capital of the U.S., LACHSA can educate and enable the next generation of artists to discover their voices in the backyards of production companies, studios and record labels.

“The freedom that a LACHSA student gets on the campus to discover who they are is exciting,” Pritchard says. “It’s very innovative, very creative, and it’s forward thinking, future forward. It’s an exciting and thrilling place to be.”

Alumni agree. Without LACHSA and, in turn, a focused public arts education, pursuing a career in the arts would have been more difficult and more costly.

“It helps develop souls to be fully fledged human beings who feel like they can go off into the world and be the best versions of themselves,” Groban says. “We all felt like we were free to be who we wanted to be.”

“Specialty-focused high schools like LACHSA, be it arts or any other topic deserving of protection, because it is a gathering place for exceptionally talented, ambitious, driven kids,” Killam says. “And aren’t those the kind of people we want to be cultivating in society?”

“Curly” Williams returned to his old high school campus last week for the first time in 76 years, but did so under his given name — the same name emblazoned on North Hollywood High’s newest attraction: the John Williams Performing Arts Center.

Williams, 94, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony last Wednesday, which commenced with the composer’s rousing “Raiders March” played by the school’s marching band and accompanied by its blue-clad cheerleaders.

“I think you played that better than we could have,” Williams said, speaking from a wheelchair under the sign of his namesake venue in front of other accomplished alumni and friends, including producer Kathleen Kennedy. “That’s a hard piece.”

The ambitious construction project, initiated in 2015 and designed by CO Architects occupies 35,000 square feet and seats 800. Michael Stebbins, project manager for the BroadStage in Santa Monica, served as project manager. The center is equipped with state-of-the-art amenities to host student performances and school assemblies, but also to train the next generation of theater technicians. Besides an enormous stage, blue velvet curtains, a mixing console and safe catwalks, the building also features new classrooms and rehearsal spaces.

Students, faculty and guests stand for the national anthem before a concert inside the new John Williams Performing Arts Center, named for one of North Hollywood High’s most famous alumni.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A 75-foot hand-painted mural in the lobby, still in the works by artist Ian Robertson-Salt, is inspired by Williams’ formidable filmography, which serves “as a daily reminder to every student who walks these halls that greatness can begin right here,” remarked Andrés Chait, acting superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District.

Due to health complications, Williams has made few public appearances in the last two years. He last conducted a concert in February 2024 — and he has also consistently turned down requests to name buildings after him, including at his beloved Tanglewood in Massachusetts, although the Hollywood Bowl did recently name its stage for Williams. It’s a testament to his affection for his time at North Hollywood High, and his regard for the next generation of students, that he not only blessed this dedication but showed up and spoke to a gathered crowd of hundreds.

“I’m sort of silly happy to be here,” he said, calling the dedication “a singular honor in my life.”

Other showbiz alumni on hand included “Beauty and the Beast” producer Don Hahn (class of ’73), “Independence Day” writer-producer Dean Devlin (’80), and Rob Friedman (’81), CEO of Ascendant Entertainment. Partly due to its proximity to the entertainment industry, North Hollywood High has produced a host of famous artists over the decades, including the late Michael Tilson Thomas, who attended in the early 1960s.

John Williams smiles while applauding a performance by the North Hollywood High School band at the dedication ceremony of the John Williams Performing Arts Center on campus.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“At some point you have to stop calling that a coincidence,” said Kennedy, a longtime collaborator of Williams who gave brief remarks before handing him the microphone. “Something happened here, and something can happen again.”

Williams moved to North Hollywood with his family in 1947, having grown up in Queens. He transferred to North Hollywood High as a 15-year-old sophomore, and joined the band and orchestra as a jazz-loving trombonist. His classmates included Susan Sontag (“I remember her teaching a class in civics, when the teacher would sit down and listen to her,” he told me in 2023) and many future actors, including Barbara Ruick, who played Carrie Pipperidge in “Carousel.” But his best friends were all music-inclined guys whose dads, like his, were famous musicians.

A poster board featured yearbook photos of John Williams, left, performing with the North Hollywood High School Band, class of 1950, in the lobby of the new John Williams Performing Arts Center on the North Hollywood High School campus.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Williams embraced the nickname “Curly,” given to him by a fellow student in response to his curly red hair, and quickly created his own jazz band with classmates. Ruick sang with them at school events and dances, and they became the house band at a new teens-only venue in Van Nuys called the Dri-Nite Club. Broadcast on local radio, they caught the attention of Time magazine, which ran a story on “Curly’s” band in October 1949.

A newspaper story about John Williams’ high school band from the Los Angeles Unified School District’s archives.

(Los Angeles Unified School District)

Williams has said he fondly remembers his civics and French classes at North Hollywood High, but his time and passion were almost exclusively devoted to music. He rigorously practiced the piano at home, studying with a local concert pianist and MGM arranger named Robert Van Eps; on Wednesday nights he played in jam sessions with his father (Johnny Sr., a drummer) and the Columbia Pictures orchestra. He bopped around clubs in L.A. listening to jazz greats like Oscar Peterson (whose style influenced Williams’ recent piano concerto), and started making a name of his own as a wunderkind performer and arranger.

Long before he scored “Star Wars” or “Harry Potter,” Williams did his earliest arranging and orchestrating for theater productions at North Hollywood High. The impact of his time at North Hollywood High cannot be overstated.

John Williams featured with members of the class of 1950 in the North Hollywood High School Yearbook.

(Los Angeles Unified School District)

During his remarks about the performing arts center on Wednesday, Williams said he felt particularly overwhelmed because the school was “formative in my thinking and my professional work … This is a great, magical place, North Hollywood.”

Williams eventually married Ruick, his high school sweetheart and mother of his three children. Ruick was instrumental in making many of Williams’ earliest career connections. She died from a brain aneurysm in 1974, at the age of 41, just one year before Williams’ career catapulted with “Jaws.” The couple’s youngest son, Joseph, lead singer of Toto, stood proudly behind Williams during the theater’s dedication.

The John Williams Performing Arts Center (JWPAC) is the crescendo of a $319.5 million modernization project at North Hollywood High, which also includes modern classrooms and athletic facilities. It’s a reflection of the diverse public school’s commitment to the arts; students here can play in the orchestra, marching band or modern band, and study drama or modern dance.

“As I think about what else I might say to all of you younger people, students here,” Williams said at his homecoming Wednesday, “two words about this beautiful building: simply use it. Make sure you all use the place.”

Tim Greiving is the author of “John Williams: A Composer’s Life.”

Brittany Brown looks strong.

She looks confident.

She looks capable of achieving her dreams.

That’s how Brown looks in the mural painted in her honor at Vista del Valle Elementary — and it’s how the 31-year-old U.S. sprinter feels in real life nearly two years after winning a bronze medal in the women’s 200-meter at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

But that’s not always how she felt decades ago during her time as a student at the Claremont school.

“I grew up very sickly,” Brown told The Times last month while visiting Vista del Valle for a mural unveiling ceremony. “I had asthma. I had pneumonia, bronchitis. … I never thought I’d be running because I just was not the person that would be running. I was told to stay inside, not go outside.”

U.S. sprinter Brittany Brown celebrates winning the bronze medal in the women’s 200-meters at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

(Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

Former Vista del Valle Elementary student Brittany Brown wears her 2024 Paris Olympics bronze medal at the school’s district track and field competition April 24.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Brown’s family also faced housing uncertainty and financial struggles during that time. They moved around a lot, and sometimes Brown and her family — mother Yo-Landa, father Wayne, older sister Brandi, twin brother Brandon and younger brother Bryan — found themselves living in a hotel room near the elementary school.

Her mother told The Times that the school and the community provided invaluable support during those trying times.

“I think emotionally, it took a toll on her,” Yo-Landa Brown said. “But, of course, she was always joyful. She was very observant. She was kind. I could tell she used to cry a lot, but we all just tried to keep things calm and collected around her.”

U.S. sprinter Brittany Brown, a bronze medalist at the 2024 Paris Olympics, is all smiles after winning a ribbon in the Vista del Valle track meet as a fourth grader in 2007.

(Brandi Brown)

The mural ceremony was held April 24 immediately after the school’s 50th annual district track meet, where Brown interacted with the participants and handed out ribbons. Vista del Valle Elementary hosts all seven elementary schools in the district each year for the meet. It was as a fourth-grade participant at the same event nearly 20 years ago that Brown discovered she loved to run — and also that she was very good at it.

“I remember running just felt very freeing. Like it just felt like, ‘OK, I’m not the sick kid. I can just try and do something,’” said Brown, who holds the Claremont High School record in the girls 100-meter and 200-meter races. “And I was also winning, so that helped as well. … Running has brought me opportunities I never thought I would ever experience.”

The mural was painted by local artist Xiucoatl Mejia, who attended Claremont Unified School District schools from kindergarten (Sumner Elementary) through high school (Claremont High). He has painted several murals at district schools in recent years and was already working with first-year Vista del Valle principal Charles Boulden to start an after-school art club for the students.

The two men thought it would be great to have a mural on campus to tie in with the half-century anniversary of the district track meet. The realization that one of the country’s top sprinters was a Vista graduate who got her start at the same meet served as further inspiration.

The mural depicts an adult Brown running while wearing a Vista track uniform and carrying a torch. A large group of children runs behind her, with some of those kids resembling students from the art club.

People gather in front of a mural featuring U.S. sprinter Brittany Brown prior to its unveiling ceremony April 24 at Vista del Valle Elementary in Claremont.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

“It just made sense to include some of the kids who were in the class and make it a little bit more custom to the school and personal to these kids,” Mejia said.

Third-grader Levi Adams said being depicted in a mural on a school wall is “special because when you’re older you can go back and look at it.”

Second-grader Holland Ly agreed that “it’s pretty special” to be featured in a painting that “many people” will see through the years.

Art club students also helped paint the mural.

“I had the kids lay out the whole track,” Mejia said. “I wanted them to do that very specifically, because I wanted them to understand that that’s the foundation for the race in our scene. … I wanted them to have that part in it, and be able to look back on it and see it.”

The theme of the piece initially was victory, Mejia said, but it evolved.

“As it progressed, the theme kind of changed into carrying the torch and paving the way for a better future for our youth and for our communities,” Mejia said. “It became a lot bigger than what initially it was. It became something that is a little bit more powerful than any singular victory. It was a collective victory with everyone.”

Boulden thinks the mural ended up being a tremendous success.

U.S. sprinter Brittany Brown holds up her bronze medal from the 2024 Paris Olympics surrounded by, from left: mother Yo-Landa Brown, twin brother Brandon Brown, brother Bryan Brown, grandmother Jeanette Royston and sister Brandi Brown.

(Brandi Brown)

“I couldn’t be happier with how it is — the colors, how vibrant it is and what it represents to me,” the principal said. “I see perseverance in there, and I see chasing dreams, and I see kids chasing after somebody who’s chasing their dreams as well.”

Brown is also thrilled with how the first mural in her honor turned out.

“I think it’s really good! I’m really, really happy with it,” said Brown, who is currently training in Los Angeles with the long-term goal of competing for the U.S. again in the 2028 Summer Olympics. “I love the colors. It even has my choker — I wear a choker when I run a lot. It has the little, fine details, so I think that was really cool.”

Her mother said she thought it was “really touching” that Mejia included images of current Vista students in the painting.

“Yes, Brittany is the Olympian, but now you have the next generation involved,” Yo-Landa Brown said. “Their stories will continue to live on and they will remember that. And that will give them the inspiration to be better and to do better in their lives. I thought that was phenomenal. I felt so thankful that he was able to capture that.”

Wearing her Olympic medal around her neck, Brown addressed the student body at the mural ceremony and became emotional while talking about the hardships she overcame while attending the school.

Olympian Brittany Brown hands out ribbons and high-fives to participants in Vista del Valle’s annual district track and field meet April 24 in Claremont.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

“I really just want them to know you can create beautiful stuff, even in the struggle,” Brown told The Times afterward. “It’s going to be a lot harder, but you can still create beautiful stuff in the struggle. And I definitely have created a different life for me. …

“I never thought the little girl in the hotel would freaking have a mural. I never thought, like a little asthma girl, you know, someone who wasn’t allowed outside, that this would be my story. So it’s definitely crazy. That’s what I want them to know.”

Brown’s message seems to have resonated with the students. Fifth-grader Kaylee Mency said Brown’s story of her childhood struggles “really meant a lot to me because she still kept going even though her life wasn’t as good.”

Fifth-grader Eliana Ocegueda added: “She went to this school and now she’s an Olympian. It’s really inspiring and it kind of makes you think about you can be anything you want to be.”

The small Little Lake school district, which serves mainly low-income families in southeast Los Angeles County has become the setting for one of the longest teacher strikes in state history — reaching the the 10-day mark on Wednesday — as its 200-member union takes on significant issues straining districts throughout California.

The teachers have walked out over health costs increasing by $14,000 a year for some, crowded special education classes and proposed class size increases in a district grappling with declining enrollment and unsustainable past spending. The teachers aren’t asking for a pay raise — but their high-cost benefits are tantamount to a big pay cut.

While a settlement appeared close with negotiations to resume Wednesday afternoon, the dispute has taken a toll. Although schools are open with substitutes, the strike has consumed about 6% of the academic year. Most parents have kept children home, while scrambling to manage disrupted work and home routines — especially difficult in a school system where about 80% of students qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch because of family poverty. Teachers have typically lost several thousand dollars of pay that they are unlikely to get back.

“We’re trying to stay positive but every day feels like a punch to the gut,” Sabrina Ireland, a 6th grade math and science teacher, said on the picket line Wednesday in front of her campus, Lake Center Middle School. “I’m losing sleep… We have some teachers that both the husband and the wife teach here. They have no income right now.”

It’s hard for Little Lake to be noticed alongside the mammoth L.A. Unified School District, which has about 390,000 students. An L.A. Unified strike was dramatically averted with hours to spare on April 14 in a conflict that commanded local and national attention for weeks.

But this district — with seven elementary and two middle schools — is enduring a crippling strike, affecting about 3,400 students drawn from Santa Fe Springs and parts of Norwalk and Downey.

In terms of lost instructional days Little Lake ranks high. Earlier this school year, teachers went out for 12 days in the sizable Twin Rivers Unified School District in north Sacramento County. Teachers in New Haven Unified in Union City in Alameda County struck for 14 days in 2019. And an Oakland teachers strike in 1996 lasted about a month.

Teacher demands statewide

Numerous shorter walkouts and near strikes have unfolded throughout the state this year, part of a loosely coordinated effort by the California Teachers Assn. to align unions’ contract expiration dates and benefit from collective force. The union dubbed the effort as “We Can’t Wait.”

The issues surfacing in Little Lake echo the dynamic in L.A. Unified and elsewhere.

“Up and down the state, educators have won life-changing healthcare benefits and support for special education and have forced districts to create the safe and stable classrooms our students deserve,” said Gabriella Landeros, a spokesperson for the California Teachers Assn.

In the broad picture, district budgets throughout the state are likely to be a little larger, level or somewhat smaller — and schools could yet receive a big boost by the time the state’s budget is adopted in June.

Martin Gonzalez,13, left, a seventh-grade student at Lake Center Middle School, and Sebastian Escobedo, 11, a sixth-grade student at Lake Center Middle School, join striking Little Lake teachers at Lakeland Elementary School on Wednesday in Norwalk.

(Gary Coronado/For The Times)

But cost pressures have escalated quickly in many regions. In Little Lake, as in L.A. Unified, the cost of services for students with disabilities and percentage of students identified as having disabilities has risen sharply. Healthcare costs also have gone up fast.

Meanwhile, enrollment is declining, offsetting the benefit of state increases in spending per pupil. Inflation hit hard in recent years, while prompting employee groups, especially in urban areas, to fight for wage boosts to keep pace. This comes as one-time pandemic relief aid has expired.

Thousands more for healthcare

In Little Lake, strike supporters say they are fighting over issues that justify the sacrifice. Starting in January, the monthly premiums for the health plan used by many teachers rose from zero to $1,400 a month paid over 10 months each year — an enormous reduction in take-home pay.

To back off from that charge, district officials proposed raising average class sizes in kindergarten through fourth grade from 24-to-1 to 28-to-1, according to the district. Union negotiators want to keep class sizes where they are.

District officials acknowledge their proposals are painful, but said they face an unsustainable financial situation.

“We are at a point fiscally where the district can no longer support 100%,” of healthcare premiums, said Acting Supt. Monica Martinez-Johnson, a career district employee who started as a teacher.

A fact-finding report endorsed that account, but also noted that the district suddenly ended health subsidies on January 1, when a previous agreement expired. Employees were immediately forced to pay about 40% of the cost of their monthly premiums.

“This decision … has soured the relationship and [affects] all aspects of this reopened negotiations,” said Donald S. Raczka, who prepared a fact-finding report, issued April 12, as chair of a panel that included district and union representatives.

Jennifer Conforti, center, a teacher at Lake Center Elementary, pickets at Lake Center Middle School in Santa Fe Springs on Wednesday.

(Gary Coronado/For The Times)

Dollars and sensitivities

The financial implications of the strike are difficult to calculate at this juncture, but the district doesn’t necessarily lose money. Subs are making $500 a day, but there are fewer subs than teachers and striking teachers forfeit pay.

In-person student attendance has ranged from 18% to 31%, which will mean lost funding linked to student attendance. The annual operating budget of the district is $73 million, of which salaries and benefits are $53 million, according to the district.

Many parents and students have joined teachers on picket lines.

“We’ve stuck it out this long, we wouldn’t want them to fold on an agreement that doesn’t benefit them,” said Melissa Maggard, who has two daughters at Lakeland Elementary.

Therapist Sherry Gonzalez has kept her fourth-grade son at home, rescheduling work hours, hiring babysitters. Her son receives special services for a disability at Lake Center Elementary, and home routines are harder without this support.

“I don’t feel comfortable taking him in during a strike with subs who do not know my son’s needs,” Gonzalez said. “As a parent it’s just been hard. It’s been so frustrating. We feel worn down, tired, and we feel like we’re being ignored and unheard.

“To see this drive a wedge between the community, it feels hurtful,” she added. When asked how she’s been trying to cope, she responded: “Crying.”

What’s next?

The turmoil has included the sudden resignation of then-Supt. Jonathan Vasquez a week into the strike. After a 10-hour negotiating session on Monday, an altercation or a feared altercation — accounts vary — resulted in the district calling police.

A potential deal in the works includes employees paying zero to $630 a month in healthcare premiums — depending on their choice of health plan. Class size would not rise. Budget cuts would be necessary. On the chopping block are six intervention teachers serving students who need intensive academic help.

The union this week was pushing for a one-time $4,000 bonus for its members, but not a permanent increase. The pay scale for teachers ranges from $58,752 to $118,363.

Negotiations resumed Wednesday afternoon at a location considered more secure than district headquarters.

Chile’s military police force has cracked down on student protesters after hundreds demonstrated against the government’s proposals to limit access to free higher education. The proposal includes cutting a government scholarship programme and increasing student loans, as part of wider austerity measures.

Imagine getting a scholarship to attend college by learning how to caddy?

It’s happened to five Los Angeles-area high school students awarded the Evans Scholarship, a full housing and tuition grant offered to golf caddies.

This year’s recipients include Amaia Diaz and Marley Gomez from St. Mary’s Academy, Joel Arriaga Lopez and Sara Mejia from Compton Early College High and Cesar Sierra from Salesian.

The Western Golf Assn. Caddie Academy trains the students and supports the scholarship program.

A record 1,260 caddies in the program are enrolled at 27 universities. More than 12,000 caddies have graduated as Evans Scholars since the program began in 1930.

To qualify for the Evans Scholarship, students must meet the program’s four selection criteria demonstrating a strong caddie record, outstanding academics, financial need and exceptional character.

“Caddying taught me discipline, patience and responsibility,” Sierra said.

All five students caddied in Illinois during summer training. The Evans Scholarship is valued at more than $125,000 over four years.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.