University High School

Mark Cunningham has been named boys' athletic director and Monica Colunga has been named girls' athletic director at University High School. Cunningham has been the school's varsity football coach for three seasons. He was a head coach at Chino in 1981 and at Truckee, near Lake Tahoe, for two seasons. Colunga served as the school's athletic trainer for three seasons before becoming an interim athletic director this year.

A UC Irvine professor accused of setting a series of fires following his son's suicide wrote in emails that he planned to get a dozen machine guns and shoot at least 200 students at his son's high school and then kill himself. Rainer Reinscheid in April sent two emails to his wife and another to himself, threatening to kill the assistant principal of University High School, shoot hundreds of students and burn the school to the ground in a "firestorm that destroys every single building.

The only way either of the Boykin brothers, Jamal and Ruben, escaped his family chores while growing up was to defeat the other in a game of one-on-one basketball. "We have a big yard and big trees, so the loser would have to do a lot of stuff," Jamal said. "You would have to rake the leaves in the front of the house, the side of the house and the back of the house. The games were real personal. You'd feel sorry for the loser, but you didn't want to be raking leaves."

Hunting for the arsonist who they believed had set several mysterious fires around one of the city's high schools this month, police in Irvine say they finally found their culprit before dawn July 24 in an adjacent nature preserve. Police arrested Rainer Reinscheid, a 48-year-old professor at UC Irvine, on charges of trying to light a fire in Mason Park Preserve with newspaper and lighter fluid. It was not far from the wooded spot where his 14-year-old son, Claas Stubbe, had hanged himself four months earlier.

Sometimes in the evening, long after her last class of the day, Patricia Medina has an uncommon urge. She wants to go back to school. "I want to come at night and just, like, make something," said Patricia, a sophomore at University High School in West Los Angeles. What could reduce an otherwise bright, engaging student to dreams of breaking and entering?

Robin Stone, 17, of West Los Angeles will represent the Santa Monica Gymnastic Center at the International Gymnastic School and Friendship competition today through July 7 at Moscow and Leningrad. She is a graduate of University High School.

For the second year in a row, Irvine's University High School won the Sweepstakes Award at the 30th annual California Junior Classical League (JCL) convention. The three-day convention last weekend at Corona del Mar High School attracted 715 Latin language students--a record number--and teachers and chaperones representing 25 California schools.

Greg Spector, an All-Western League volleyball player at University High School, has been named to the U.S. team for the 13th World Maccabiah Games, which will be played July 3-13 in Israel. Spector was a second-team All-Los Angeles City selection in volleyball in 1987 and 1988.

Steve Ruiz, baseball coach at University High School, is going to take the year off from coaching, Athletic Director Mark Cunningham announced Tuesday. Ruiz, who has coached three seasons, will remain at the school and teach social studies. Ruiz told Cunningham he wanted to spend more time with his family.

As the black father of one daughter who recently graduated from University High School, I am compelled to respond to the article entitled "Times Change, but Girls' League Endures" (Orange County Life, Jan. 16). The article raises several concerns. It promotes the myth that Girls' League has changed from its discriminatory beginning to become "fully integrated." Girls' League at University High School is not now and has never been "fully integrated." If the club were "fully integrated," it would have representation from ALL sectors of the student body.

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to amend the city's daytime curfew law, which allowed police to ticket students who arrived at school after the start of class, even if they had not intended to be truant. During an hour-long discussion, more than 30 people criticized the rule as financially crippling — fines and court costs could surpass $800 — and criminalizing to students who, though tardy, were trying to attend school. Many of those fined came from low-income families that could ill afford such costs.

When Richard Nixon died in 1994, The Times observed that he had "resuscitated his reputation and emerged as an elder statesman," but "he never got his freeway back. " The reference was to California 90, between the 405 Freeway and Marina del Rey, which state lawmakers had named in his honor in 1971. In 1976, with Nixon's image tarnished by Watergate, lawmakers quietly responded to the request of local Chamber of Commerce officials and took his name off the 2.5-mile roadway.

Sometimes in the evening, long after her last class of the day, Patricia Medina has an uncommon urge. She wants to go back to school. "I want to come at night and just, like, make something," said Patricia, a sophomore at University High School in West Los Angeles. What could reduce an otherwise bright, engaging student to dreams of breaking and entering?

A plan to scan the fingerprints of 2,200 Irvine high school students to ease lunch lines was scrapped this week after angry parents argued it would violate teens' privacy rights. A spokesman for the Irvine Unified School District said district administrators had been unaware of University High School's proposal and had halted its implementation. "This is not something we will be using at our schools," said Ian Hanigan, district spokesman.

LONG before Christopher Columbus sailed to the so-called New World in 1492, there was already a civilization in Southern California, an established world with its own life and landscape. Indeed, long before Los Angeles Basin was transformed into a smog-filled, celebrity-obsessed metropolis, it was home to the Native American Gabrielino/Tongva nation, some of whom lived in a place called Kuruvungna.

Marine Sgt. Rick Carloss is as familiar to students as some teachers at Downey High School. He does push-ups with students during PE classes and plays in faculty basketball games. During lunch, he hands out key chains, T-shirts and posters that proclaim: "Think of Me As Your New Guidance Counselor." On a recent morning, Carloss drove his silver 1996 Mercedes-Benz from his recruiting station to the school two blocks away. A parking attendant waved him into the lot, saying, "Hi, dear."

Twenty-five Orange County students are among the winners of this year's National Merit Scholarships, the nonprofit National Merit Scholarship Corp. announced this week. Of the 14,000 students who reached the final phase of the annual competition, 1,000 were chosen by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors to receive the $2,000 scholarships. The awards are based on students' academic records, standardized test scores and contributions to school and community.

An English teacher at University High School in Irvine has agreed to plead guilty to possession of child pornography that investigators found on a computer in his classroom, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday. Kenneth D. Fair Jr. will enter the plea when he is arraigned Jan. 6 by a U.S. magistrate, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Y. Lee.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials said Thursday that they would proceed with work to reduce potential hazards from earthquake faults under six buildings on the University High School campus. Using funds from its last bond measure, the district plans to build a new gymnasium to replace the school's boys' gymnasium, rebuild the music room and initiate other seismic retrofit projects.

Along busy Wilshire Boulevard, a steady stream of cars is rocketing by, oblivious to another L.A. phenomenon a scant block away--22 gallons of spring water gushing per minute along a quiet corner of University High School. "It's just an amazing secret garden," says Clark Stevens, of the L.A. architecture firm RoTo, which has been hired to help restore the springs. "I've seen other urban places like this, but never one with water. It's incredibly powerful."