Eldorado High School (Las Vegas)
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- This article is about the high school in Las Vegas, Nevada. For other uses, see Eldorado High School (disambiguation).
| Established | 1973 |
|---|---|
| School type | Public high school |
| Principal | Richard A. Carranza |
| Students | 3,172 (2005-2006 school year) |
| Colors Mascot |
Maroon and gold Sparky |
| Location | 1139 Linn Lane Las Vegas, NV 89110 |
| Information | (702) 799-7200 |
| Website | http://ccsd.net/schools/eldorado/index2.html |
Eldorado High School is a public high school in Las Vegas, Nevada, part of the Clark County School District. The high school is located on the northeast part of the Las Vegas Valley in Southern Nevada, south of Nellis Air Force Base. Its team mascot is the Sundevils and its school colors are Maroon and Gold (very similar to the colors and mascot used at Arizona State University).
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[edit] History
Eldorado High School was built in the early-1970s on an open desert lot just west of the Las Vegas Wash between Washington and Bonanza Roads. The school opened its doors in September of 1973 along with Chaparral High School, which brought the total number of major high schools in the Las Vegas Valley to eight, including Bishop Gorman, a private Catholic high school. Its campus borders Washington Avenue, Linn Lane, Harris Avenue and Christy Lane (approximately 2 square miles), built with an enclosed building (no windows), a football stadium with an asphalt running track (one of the first high schools in Las Vegas to have such a track) and a state of the art sportatorium, used for basketball, volleyball and wrestling as well as assemblies and other school-related activities. Three other Las Vegas-area schools were built this way: Basic High School, Bonanza High School and the Southern Nevada Vocational Technical Center (also known as Vo-Tech); all built in the early to mid 1970s along with Eldorado.
For the first 15 years, Eldorado's zoning covered all of the Sunrise Mountain area north of Charleston Boulevard and east of Pecos Road, which resulted in a total school attendance of more than 2,000 (the largest known class to graduate from Eldorado to date is the Class of 1985, graduating about 550 students). Today, its zoning border covers areas east of Nellis Boulevard, north of Bonanza Road and south of Cheyenne Avenue.
The majority of the students are former students of Dell H. Robison and O'Callaghan Middle Schools. In the 1980s, Eldorado received former students from Dell H and Von Tobel Middle Schools as well as a handful from Roy Martin middle school.
The school's principal is Richard Carranza, Eldorado's sixth principal since its opening in 1973. The longest-serving principal was Richard Paulin (1929-2006), who served from November 1982 until around 1995, and was responsible for the early success of Eldorado's athletic programs.
[edit] Athletics
Eldorado High School's athletic activities have not been highly successful; yet its wrestling program, headed by Jimmy May, produced over a dozen state wrestling championships in the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (including eight state championships in a row between 1986 and 1993) as well as producing numerous individual state wrestling champions (among them was Cary Dreitzler, a 1986 grad who won a state championship in his weight class in all four years, the only Eldorado wrestler ever to accomplish this). Coach May went on to pursue other coaching endeavors, leaving a lasting legacy that will forever be known as, "The Dynasty in the Desert"; that was punctuated by his son, Danny May, winning the last individual state championship for Eldorado High School in 1996. The Eldorado wrestling room is named in the honor of Jimmy May. The school does hold at least one state championship in each of the following major sports: football (1991), boys basketball (1985) and baseball (around 1989). Eldorado also holds numerous Southern Nevada zone and Nevada state championships in Track and Field and Girls Basketball.
Every year, Eldorado and Chaparral holds its rivalry game, in which the winner gets possession of a bronzed cleat once owned by former Los Angeles Rams star Merlin Olsen. Chaparral has won 25 of these 33 meetings (including an 11-game winning streak between 1984 and 1994), and Eldorado has won 9, including five out of the last six meetings. Eldorado also has long-standing rivalries with Las Vegas, Rancho and Valley High Schools, all three of which they've played each other every year since the school's 1973 opening.
Before the new Las Vegas High School was built in the 1990s, Eldorado was the only high school based in the Sunrise/Frenchman Mountain area, and since then, Eldorado and Las Vegas face each other in its unofficial annual "Battle of Sunrise Mountain" football game.
During the 2006 football season, Eldorado will share Sundevil Stadium with its hated rival Rancho High School (North Las Vegas), who will play its home games there while renovations to its current campus are in progress. Rancho's last home game at Eldorado is against Chaparral, on November 3.
Sherrill Stephens, an ASU grad, coached both the men's basketball and football program at Eldorado in the 1980s. He is now a high school principal in Arizona.
[edit] Trivia and history
- When Eldorado High School opened in 1973, the school was surrounded mostly by desert, except for the southern portion. From that time until around 1983, many of the students would walk (or cycle) to school by short-cutting through the desert. By the 1990s, the desert was replaced by new housing communities; the first of which was the Kings Manor subdivision to the east, built in 1980.
- Among the school's first security officers was Harry Daniels, who was best known by the students as "Harry O".
- It was said that during Eldorado's first year (1973-74), a few rattlesnakes were found inside the school's performing arts theater as well as one inside the sportatorium, causing the Clark County Animal Control to retrieve the snakes, and school officials to seal the holes that the snakes came out of.
- Eldorado has had some gang problems over the years, and on several occasions a few shootings occurred on or near campus. One shooting in 1983 injured a popular football and baseball player, but managed to come back to play football the following school year, and another on campus in the lunch area in 1989 left a student dead and a few others injured. In 1993, 5 Eldorado students lured a fellow student into the desert, killing and burying him; for which all were convicted and sent to prison.
- The school, like many others in the western United States, used the letter "E" on nearby Frenchman Mountain, which was established first off of the east end of Bonanza Road, later moved to the hills about a half mile off of Owens Avenue. The "E" at this location was maintained regularly at least once every year until the late-1990s.
[edit] Noted Alumni
- Quincy Harrison, USC Trojan star
- Steven Jackson NFL player, led the Sundevils to the Nevada state championship game and the Sunrise Region championship in 1999; scored 51 rushing touchdowns and 3,976 rushing yards (both school records); his jersey number (34) is now retired in his honor.
- Christa Daniel (1983), former Miss Nevada and Star Search contestant.
