Students get into history lesson

Jeff Benson

A bevy of organizations are receiving praise for contributing to the

Corona del Mar Centennial Celebration, and education has not been

lost in the shuffle.

Volunteer education consultant Jan Billings thanked the

Newport-Mesa school board and several principals this week for

helping to coordinate student participation in the four-day

celebration. The centennial celebration kicked off Thursday and runs

through Sunday.

“The goal I had set when we got involved was that the activities

would not be above and beyond what the students were expected to do

in the classroom,” Billings told the board. “So the activities were

tweaked or given a bit of a different bent.”

Board member Serene Stokes thanked Billings for her help as well

and anticipated a fun weekend.

“It wasn’t a last-minute thing,” Stokes said. “You understand that

you can’t come back to school in September and have everything

planned for October. It took months and months of preparation ...

You’ve put it all together, and we just can’t say enough.”

The city will formally thank the school district at 3 p.m. Sunday

near the Big Corona jetty. Winners of student poetry and essay

contests will read their entries, and the Corona del Mar High School

cheerleaders and jazz band will perform onstage.

Billings said some of the student-related events for the

celebration took place as early as last spring, when activities

wouldn’t intrude on the bustle of the beginning of school. In March,

storyteller Linda Pruitt made presentations to area schools. The

students indulged in asking her questions about the area’s history,

Billings said.

And over the summer, 10 Corona del Mar High School juniors

interviewed seven longtime Corona del Mar residents at Sherman

Library & Gardens for an American history project. The interviews

were broadcast on Adelphia cable.

“We tried to incorporate it into the school curriculum so it

wouldn’t take away from kids’ everyday work,” Billings said. “We’ve

had wonderful longtime residents with some good stories to tell.”

The students enjoyed the experience as well, she said, because

they each got to know the seniors, ate lunch with them and wrote

personal essays about them.

Students from elementary schools that feed into Corona del Mar

High School also found ways to contribute. Twenty-one students from

Andersen, Eastbluff, Harbor View, Lincoln and Newport Coast

elementary schools designed bookmarks that fused the concepts of

Corona del Mar and reading.

“It was a stretch, but they did a great job,” Billings said. “They

came up with things like ‘Happy Birthday Corona del Mar,’ and ‘I love

the beach.’ The whole point was to enrich the understanding and

appreciation of this village and the kids.”

In addition, Sherman Library & Gardens volunteers made greeting

cards depicting artwork that elementary school students had submitted

July 15. The original artwork was then displayed in City Hall and is

on display in the Corona del Mar branch of the Newport Beach Public

Library, Billings said.