Alumni club provides link to MHS past

For six years, Maricopa High School Principal June Celaya has been trying to get someone to form a high school alumni club.

This year, that vision became a reality.

Eddie Rodriguez, a 1979 MHS grad Maricopa Fire Department deputy fire marshal, took the reins and formed the Maricopa High School Alumni Association.

The club, formed in October, is still in its beginning phases. Rodriguez has collected the names of nearly 50 people interested in the club. He has the help of two volunteers — Jenn Miller, a MHS grad and current high school teacher, and Tracy Davis, a former MHS teacher and former Maricopa Unified School District board member.

“It’s very exciting that Eddie was willing to do this,” Celaya said. “He’s very passionate.”

Rodriguez said he hoped the club will provide a much needed link to Maricopa’s older generation and history, much of which has been lost because there was no alumni club to document and keep track of what was going on at the high school 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

“We’ve lost a lot of that history,” Rodriguez said. “This alumni group should have happened a long time ago.”

For example, Rodriguez said, there are some trophies at the high school commemorating past track, baseball and football championships.
“Where are the graduates that made that happen?” he asked.

Despite losing some of that history, Rodriguez is only looking forward and getting people together interested in chronicling what they know and helping support the school.

Celaya has a similar vision for the club.

“There’s a lot of culture that’s left behind when you don’t have any kind of connection to it, and the people who are the connection are the alumni,” Celaya said. “I want them to bring their memories back to the school and share that with our students now.”

Celaya has several ideas for the club. One idea, she said, is to paint a mural at the high school depicting Maricopa’s history.

“Our young students, they could help, but you need the people who really understand the Native American culture that surrounds this community, the agriculture, the infrastructure of our community,” she said.

Besides providing that connection to the past, the club also will provide financial assistance to the school by holding fundraisers and hosting events. Whatever the school needs — whether that be money for new band equipment or sports jerseys — Rodriguez hopes the club can help.

“It benefits both the school and the alumni,” he said.

“I’m right behind them; whatever they want to do now. If they want fundraising ideas, if they want to figure all that out, I’m right behind them,” Celaya said. “I’ll support them anyway I can.”

Davis said the club will provide a great place for former students to connect and remember their high school experience.

“I know from teaching at the high school, we were such a small community. The kids just wanted to get out of Maricopa,” she said. “I think that’s normal for any small community. Kids just want to get away from where they grew up. By creating the alumni association, it gives them something to come back to.”