Banning High School

Augustine Herrera, principal of Banning High School since 1987, is leaving the Wilmington campus to take a position as principal of Belmont High, near downtown Los Angeles, it was announced this week. Obelia Lamothe, an assistant principal at Banning, will take over as principal. Herrera said Lamothe has been recognized as "the best assistant principal in the senior high." "She has worked her way up and is ready to do this job," Herrera said. The changes are expected to take place this week.

Five-foot-two Erica O'Brien pushes a tall stack of gray cartons across the floor, straining as if they were full of coal, not tests. The office on the top floor of Banning High School is stuffy, even though it's only 6 a.m. But when the phone rings, O'Brien answers affably. "Penthouse," she says. That's what life is like these days for testing coordinators such as O'Brien. After weeks of preparing in the background, they suddenly become the most important person on campus.

Estela R. Pena has resigned after five years as principal of Banning High School. She will move to Hawaii, where she and her husband, Jerry Halverson, a retired associate superintendent in the Los Angeles Unified School District, are building a home. Augustine (Augie) Herrera, 45, of Montebello, took over the Banning post Monday. He was director of secondary school instruction in the Los Angeles district's Region F in the north San Fernando Valley.

The biggest victory for Wilmington Banning in the last two seasons was in serious jeopardy. Unbeaten Venice, then ranked 12th by The Times and considered a likely challenger for the City Section championship this season, had just scored a touchdown to pull to within 21-19 with 1:39 left to play. Everyone in the stands and on the sidelines at Venice High knew exactly who would get the ball for the two-point conversion attempt.

County prosecutors charged a 17-year-old Banning High School youth Friday with murdering a fellow student who died hours after the two had a fistfight in the school parking lot. The youth, whose name was withheld because he is a minor, is accused in the death of Fabien Espinoza, 18, of Wilmington. Espinoza's mother found him unconscious in his bed the next morning. Paramedics declared him dead. The district attorney's office said the coroner listed head injuries as the cause of death.

A high school athletic appeals board on Tuesday modified the sanctions against Banning High School's football team but upheld an earlier ruling that the Wilmington school must play Dorsey High School next year at Dorsey's home field in southwest Los Angeles. Banning forfeited a Nov. 1 game rather than play on Dorsey's home field because supporters argued that recent shootings around the stadium, combined with intense rivalry between the schools, made the site dangerous.

A 17-year-old Banning High School junior was shot Thursday morning just outside school grounds. Police quickly arrested a fellow student and said the attack appears to have been gang-related and racially motivated. The shooting happened about 7:45 a.m. near the back of the school grounds, in the 1400 block of Aviation Boulevard, Los Angeles Police Det. Chuck Hawley said.

Banning High School in Wilmington will appeal a decision to place the school's football team on probation for forfeiting a game rather than playing Dorsey High School on its home field in southwest Los Angeles. Concerned because of a near-riot after last year's Banning-Dorsey game and recent gang-related shootings in the Dorsey area, the school elected to forfeit the Nov. 1 game rather than play at Dorsey's home field.

In recent years in the Carson-Banning high school football rivalry, the team that lost the regular-season matchup has won when they met in the City 4-A Division championship game. So much for trends. Carson, which defeated Banning, 24-13, 4 weeks ago, did it again in convincing fashion with a 55-7 victory Friday night before a crowd of 12,000 at the Coliseum. It was the most lopsided win in a large-school final since Fremont routed Hollywood, 49-0, in 1949.

Last week's episode had West Beverly cancel a football game because it was scheduled to play at Shaw High School, where a shooting had occurred. The story echoed a similar incident last year where Banning High School refused to play Dorsey High School. While the show is imaginative and widely watched, it has little similarity to the real Beverly Hills High.

MOST everyone around Banning High School liked the big kid. Anthony Castro was handsome and athletic, a talented swimmer and fierce wrestler, captain of the football team. "The hardest-working player and pretty much the hardest hitter," teammate Marc Reichling said. "He was a regular guy." And he was gay. His story unfolded in an unlikely setting. Banning is a rural, working-class town straddling the San Gorgonio Pass, brown fields flanked by mountains, at the fringe of the Los Angeles sprawl.

Beginnings Banning sits 85 miles east and light-years away from the bustle of Los Angeles. Bracketed by Mt. San Gorgonio to the north and Mt. San Jacinto to the south, the city today draws people for some of the same reasons its first inhabitants came. The area offered a temperate climate and plenty of water for the Serrano and Cahuilla Indians, who made it their seasonal home.

A former Banning High School football player was cleared Monday of charges that he killed a fellow student, who died after the two fought in a campus parking lot. A Juvenile Court judge in Compton ruled that charges against Brandon Souder, 18, were unfounded and that "the people did not prove the burden of the case." Souder was accused of killing Fabian Espinoza, 18, last February. Espinoza had been returning textbooks to the Banning High student bookstore. Souder was leaving football practice.

A Banning High School student who was shot off campus five years ago can sue Los Angeles Unified officials for negligent supervision, according to an appellate court decision this week. The opinion, issued by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, may allow school districts to be held responsible for violent attacks involving students that occur off campus.

County prosecutors charged a 17-year-old Banning High School youth Friday with murdering a fellow student who died hours after the two had a fistfight in the school parking lot. The youth, whose name was withheld because he is a minor, is accused in the death of Fabien Espinoza, 18, of Wilmington. Espinoza's mother found him unconscious in his bed the next morning. Paramedics declared him dead. The district attorney's office said the coroner listed head injuries as the cause of death.

Authorities are investigating the death of a student at Banning-Carson Community Adult School who was found dead in his bed Thursday after a fight at the Wilmington school. Fabien Espinoza, 18, complained to his mother about having a headache Wednesday night, a few hours after he got into a fight with another student in the school parking lot, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. The next morning at 6:20, Espinoza's mother said, she could not wake her son.

A dozen teachers at Banning High School in Wilmington will be disciplined after school officials determined that they showed copies of the Stanford 9 exam to their students before last spring's testing. Another teacher resigned after being confronted with evidence of the cheating on the standardized basic skills exam, said Shel Erlich, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Taft High School in Woodland Hills is used to celebrating victory. Twice the school has won the national Academic Decathlon and its students are routinely lauded for individual accomplishments. But for the first time in its 40-year history, Taft savored the thrill of winning the city football championship. The Toreadors trumped 10-time city champion Banning High School 41-20 in a game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

A Wilmington Banning High offensive lineman whose season was delayed by health concerns died Monday of cardiac arrest after collapsing during an afternoon practice. Jonathan Diaz, 17, was taking part in a walk-through of plays when he fell unconscious, eyewitnesses said. He was pronounced dead at 3 p.m. at Kaiser Permanente Harbor City Medical Center, about 15 minutes after he arrived in full cardiac arrest, hospital spokesperson Tara O'Brien said.

Wilmington Banning's football team peaked right on schedule, and the result was an impressive victory over defending champion Carson in the City Section championship game on Dec. 8. Banning Coach Ed Lalau is already pondering next season's nonleague schedule, which includes open dates in the first and fifth weeks. Banning needs opponents to bookend games against two-time defending Southern Section Division I champion Long Beach Poly, Crenshaw and Santa Fe Springs St.