El Rancho High School
El Rancho High School is a public school located in the city of Pico Rivera, California, United States. It is a part of the El Rancho Unified School District.
El Rancho High School opened its doors in September 1952. Whittier High School provided many of the original El Rancho students, and the Whittier Union District administered the new school until 1962 when the El Rancho Unified School District was developed. The school was located within the unincorporated community of Rivera before the municipal incorporation of Pico Rivera. The school colors are Blue and Gray, representing the colors of the Union and Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. The two neighboring communities were Pico and Rivera: in symbolic terms, the North and the South.Ultimately the school brought students from the two communities together. El Rancho, Spanish for The Ranch, provided the student body and community with the nickname, The Ranch. The football stadium slogan is "You haven't been hit until you've been hit by The Ranch, which became well known throughout the Southland during the El Rancho powerhouse years of the 1960s."
In 2011, The El Rancho School Board voted to name the Football field at El Rancho 'Don Memorial Stadium'- "Ernie Johnson Field" in honor of his numerous and remarkable contributions and achievements during his tenure of Head Football Coach at El Rancho. A Banquet in the El Rancho Gymnasium with over 400 past players, Coaches and fans attending was held on August 28, 2011. The City of Pico Rivera also declared that day as "Ernie Johnson Day". Official Field dedication took place on September 23, 2011 at El Rancho's Homecoming football game.
El Rancho's campus was 45 acres (180,000 m2) and was named after what the land used to be a ranch. Before it was home to orange groves and avocados, soon it was made to serve the ever growing population of the two cities. No seniors were present during the first year of school until the Juniors of 1952 graduated as the first batch of seniors to leave the Ranch and head on to be the pioneering Dons of the future in 1954. Reflecting the local demographics, the school opened its doors to a population of primarily white, non-Hispanic students and a notable percentage of Hispanic students. When El Rancho was in the process of opening, the students who were planning to attend the school attended assemblies to decide their mascot. The Don was adopted as the schools mascot by a vote of the student population. Other mascot candidates included the Swallows, the Rocketeers, and Grizzlies. In 1990, the school was used for the film Zapped Again!.
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