The Baler Education Foundation held its Ninth Annual FameFest on March 23 at San Juan Oaks Golf Club from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This year seven people were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Warren Hain, who was a 1934 graduate of San Benito High School, and served as judge of the Tres Pinos Justice Court for 30 years. He was president of the San Benito County Saddle Horse Association for 10 years, was chair of the San Benito County Planning Commission and president of the San Benito County Farm Bureau.
Representing the decade of the 1950s is Lanetta Bishop who graduated from San Benito High School in 1951. Bishop is very active in the Native Daughters of the Golden West and has served on the Hazel Hawkins Foundation board. She is one of its generous benefactors. She served as president of the Girl Scouts Council and directed Day Camp for several years.
A 1958 graduate of San Benito High School Gordon Machado is being inducted for the decade of the 1950s. He has been an active community member for many years at the high school, in the Jaycee’s, on city council, in the I.D.E.S., Rotary Club, Hollister Downtown Association, Measure A Committee, Hazel Hawkins Hospital Board, San Benito County Planning Commission, and on the editorial board of the Weekend Pinnacle and Hollister Free Lance.
Enrique Henry Ortiz, who was a 1979 graduate will represent the decade of the 1970s. In 1998 he was inducted into the U.S. Foreign Commercial Services’ foreign service branch as a career foreign service diplomat. Since that time he has served in Colombia, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, and Mexico. He is currently the deputy senior commercial officer at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, Canada.
The decade of the 1980s will be represented by Frank Muro, who escaped a war torn Spain by coming to the United States with his young family when he was in his 20s. Muro taught all levels of Spanish, English as a second language, French, typing, and computers at San Benito High School for 30 years.Muro has received recognition from many groups: the High School Board, Future Farmers of America, Navy ROTC, and LULAC, just to name a few.
Two other San Benito High School teachers represent the decades of the 1990s and the 2000s – Jim Caffiero and Chris Cameron.
Caffiero came to the high school 27 years ago and has served as migrant counselor, career counselor, crisis and group counselor, and senior counselor. He has received many awards from graduating classes at the high school, M.E.C.H.A., Future Farmers of America, the United States Air Force, L.U.L.A.C, and M.A.C.E.
Cameron, Coach Cam, came to San Benito High as a varsity football coach in 1994. He has run that program as well as the wrestling program very successfully since that time and has very high expectations of his team members. At least 100 students reach the level of One-Thousand-Pound Club Athlete in wrestling each year, and the football team has won both the Monterey Bay League and the Tri-County Athletic League championships three times.
