Harry Baker

A YHS booster from the very beginning

Harry Baker and Ken Savage, the first YHS district superintendent.

“Yosemite High School is a very fine school, and that is satisfying to all of us who were involved in its formation.”

Thus, Harry Baker, who was the president of the first district Board of Trustees, summarizes how he feels about the many years of work he put into the formation of the Yosemite Joint Union High School District and the support he has given the district ever since.

Remembering the area of Ahwahnee, Bass Lake, Coarsegold, Oakhurst and Raymond in the years before Yosemite High School opened in 1976, he says “It was a beautiful little mountain community, but it was just incomplete.” He believes now, and he believed then, that it takes educational institutions of all grade levels to make a community complete.

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Before 1976, the area was served by a number of elementary schools, allowing students to complete the eighth grade in their home community, but when they were ready for high school they had to travel long distances.

Most students from these five communities attended Sierra High School in eastern Fresno County, but some went to Mariposa or Madera or schools in Fresno.

“The bus ride to Sierra wasn’t a very satisfactory arrangement,” Mr. Baker recalls. Some students spent as much as four hours a day on the bus and traveled more than 25,000 miles a year to complete their high school education. This equaled one trip around the world each year, or the equivalent of four times around the world to earn a high school diploma.

Mr. Baker’s involvement in a high school for what is now the Yosemite Joint Union High School District started in 1963 when he was president of the Oakhurst Chamber of Commerce (now the Eastern Madera County Chamber of Commerce).

“The chamber had not taken much of a proactive role in pushing for a high school,” he recalls. “In my acceptance speech when I was installed as president, I said if people wanted positive growth they needed things that make a community attractive, such as schools, hospitals and so forth.

“I approached my good friend Fred Topham and asked him to be a catalyst to get some discussion started in the chamber. I asked him to attend a meeting and, from the floor, ask the question: ‘Is the chamber going to get active pushing for a high school in Eastern Madera County and if not, why not?’

“The question was timely because work toward a high school was gaining a little momentum. I don’t mean to suggest that I should be given any undue credit, but I think those who were here and involved at that time would agree things picked up a little.”

Mr. Baker took his involvement to the next level and ran for the Sierra High School Board of Trustees in 1965. Even though he received an overwhelming vote from the five communities that wanted a high school in the area, he was defeated. There were only two members of a five-member board who supported a campus in the Oakhurst area at that time.

He ran for the board again in 1969 and he was elected. Jess Love of Oakhurst was already on the board and was a supporter of a high school in Oakhurst. In the 1969 election, three more people who supported a second high school for the Sierra High District were elected: Harry Baker Jr., Ida Baker (no relation) and Bill Hill of Coarsegold.

With four people on the board supporting the second campus SHSD had promised, initial steps were taken to build that school.

Property purchased

The Sierra High School District had purchased land in Oakhurst in the early 1960s with the promise that a second school would be built when it would have a student body of 200 students.

The number kept being raised, however, and by 1969 the board was saying there would have to be 400 students for a second school. When the new trustees took office, the area was not far from those 400 students, Mr. Baker recalls.

After the board, led by the four who supported the second school, started taking steps for an Oakhurst campus, people who lived in other areas of the Sierra High School District (North Fork, O’Neals and portions of Fresno County) created “an uproar” and a recall effort was initiated. Two members, Harry Baker and Ida Baker, were targeted for removal from the board.

“You have to remember,” Mr. Baker says, “that this was almost 30 years ago, in 1972, and that area of Eastern Madera County that wanted the new high school campus was not as developed nor as populated as it is today.”

He recalls: “The five elementary districts ultimately to compose Yosemite High School voted overwhelmingly, it seems more than 90%, in opposition to the recall but even then, we didn’t have the votes to defeat it. Fresno County, North Fork and O’Neals were successful in their recall efforts and Ida Baker and I were recalled.”

Recall was the catalyst

This was a disappointment to those who realized the need for a high school in Eastern Madera County, but, he says, “It clearly was the catalyst and the action that made us realize that we could not depend on Sierra to keep their promises and build a second campus.”

Mr. Baker gives a great deal of credit to Paul and Martha Pitman for the work they did in Sacramento to persuade the state Board of Education to allow the people in this area to vote to pull out of the Sierra High School District. They also worked very hard locally to educate the people about the need for the school and to gather support for a new district.

After much struggle and a lot of opposition from people in the other portion of the SHSD, the people in the five elementary school districts were allowed to vote and by an 86.5% margin they said they wanted to pull out of the Sierra district. Mr. Baker recalls that time as a period of “a lot of battles. We lost some along the way, but ultimately won the war.”

Madera County Superintendent of Schools Norman Gould met with Mr. Baker and asked his thoughts on who might make good appointees to the Board of Trustees of the new district. Mr. Gould asked Mr. Baker to be one of those who would serve and he agreed.

The two then came up with four other people: Russell Clutter from Bass Lake, Fritz Konklin from Coarsegold, Regina Harlow from Raymond and Herman Neufeld from Ahwahnee.

“We had no place to meet, no paper and no pencils,” Mr. Baker recalls. “We met upstairs in the Pamplin Building (it was located at the intersection of Highway 41 and Crane Valley Road Road [426] where The Frameworks is now located).” In October 1973, Mr. Baker was out of town on business when the board met and elected him president. “I was very honored by that,” he says.

The real work begins

Mr. Pitman was hired as the district’s first administrator and they started moving aggressively to build the new school.

A bond was placed on the ballot and it passed by 89%. Work moved forward quickly and the school opened in September 1976.

In 1975, all of the appointed board members had to stand for election, which they did, and all were elected to four-year terms. This would have created a problem in the future, however, with the potential of all of the people leaving the board at once, so the trustees held a drawing to see who would serve two-year terms and who would serve four. Mr. Baker and Mr. Clutter drew the two-year terms.

At the end of his second term, Mr. Baker was defeated in his bid for re-election. Later, the board named the gymnasium in his honor.

Through the years, Mr. Baker has maintained a very active interest in the schools in the Yosemite Joint Union High School District.

He has given scholarships every year to students at Yosemite High School and to students in the district’s alternative high schools.

When Yosemite High School celebrated its 20th anniversary, Mr. Baker received the Superintendent’s Award in appreciation of the many years of support he has given the school district.

Mr. Baker employs a number of Yosemite High School students at his company, SierraTel Communications Group. At last count, 34 of his almost-350 employees had received their education through the Yosemite Joint Union High School District.

And away we grow

He is optimistic about the future of Yosemite High School. “This is a desirable place to live and I see nothing but growth the future,” he says. “The future for Yosemite High is very secure.”

Sierra Telephone is a good indicator of the growth in the area that comprises the YJUHSD. When Mr. Baker purchased the company in 1950, there were 200 customers and four employees; today the company is fast approaching 25,000 customers. Currently, Sierra Telephone and its subsidiary companies has approximately 350 employees. (The 25,000 figure includes customers in Mariposa. Mr. Baker purchased the Mariposa Telephone Company in 1953).

Over the past almost 40 years, starting in 1963, Mr. Baker has contributed countless hours and inestimable financial support to Yosemite High School. Would he do it again? “Absolutely, without hesitation,” he concludes.