[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 7266]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     HONORING WAWONA MIDDLE SCHOOL

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. GEORGE RADANOVICH

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 29, 2008

  Mr. RADANOVICH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Wawona 
Middle School upon celebrating their 50th anniversary. The school will 
celebrate the anniversary with current and former staff and students at 
an open house to be held on Tuesday, April 22, 2008.
  Originally named Wawona Junior High School, Wawona first opened its 
doors for the 1957-1958 school year, and became part of the Bullard 
Unified School District. Due to the location of the school, Wawona was 
named for an important area of the southern part of Yosemite National 
Park. ``Wawona'' is a local Indian name meaning ``big tree.'' The 
people that helped to build Wawona were Superintendent Westin M. Alt, 
President of the Board of Trustees Carroll H. Baird and board members 
Harry Bud Buck, Dr. William Adams Jr., Dr. William Beatty, Jr. and 
Robert McMahan.
  Wawona Middle School is now part of Fresno Unified School District. 
The school was originally located on the outskirts of Fresno, but today 
it is in the middle of an urban sprawl. As the area has grown and 
developed, so has the school. In 2000, Wawona began looking into 
developing a Pre-International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme to 
enhance the academic program of the school. This program started in 
2003 with about sixty sixth grade students and has grown in size each 
year since. For the 2006-2007 school year, Wawona Middle School had 870 
sixth, seventh and eighth grade students enrolled in the school.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend and congratulate Wawona Middle 
School on 50 years of dedicated service to providing a solid education 
to the students of Fresno. I invite my colleagues to join me in wishing 
Wawona Middle School many years of continued success.

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