Teacher, students launch a drive to hang a new name on San
Benito High
What’s in a name? San Benito High School in Hollister may have
once been known as San Benito Joint Union High School, but to many
in the community, it’s always been Hollister High.
Now SBHS science teacher Bill Johnson
– a Haybaler alumnus himself – is behind a movement to get the
name of the school officially changed.
Teacher, students launch a drive to hang a new name on San Benito High
What’s in a name? San Benito High School in Hollister may have once been known as San Benito Joint Union High School, but to many in the community, it’s always been Hollister High.
Now SBHS science teacher Bill Johnson – a Haybaler alumnus himself – is behind a movement to get the name of the school officially changed.
“It’s always been Hollister,” said Johnson. “You don’t get a Block SB [for participating in athletics], you get a Block H.”
Johnson says that he wasn’t trying to start a movement, but simply get the school recognized as what it already is, Hollister High – the high school that belongs to his home town town. He said that in talking with his brother and his friends he discovered that it had likely always been San Benito High, but everyone has always known the school as Hollister.
“It’s something that’s been talked about for years. But this year, I have a group of students that are kind of involved in student government and I told them that if they wanted to get behind something, they should get behind this.”
Every class has a representative to the Student Congress, Johnson said. So, he proposed that the group of students poll their classmates and find out if they were behind it.
The students took the idea to the Student Congress, which took the idea to the Student Council, who in turn took the idea to the student representative to the Board of Trustees.
All the athletic teams have always been known as Hollister, not San Benito. It even says so right on their uniforms. The only exception to this is the baseball team with its black jerseys and hats that say SB.
“I bristle when I hear the school referred to as SB,” Johnson said. “When the baseball team came out with the black uniforms with the SB on them I went to a game and couldn’t tell which team we were or who we were playing.”
Adding to the name game complications, the football jerseys all say Hollister for the away jerseys and Haybalers for the home jerseys.
The student response to the movement to change the name of the school has been hit and miss. Johnson says that he hasn’t heard any student who said, “I want it to stay San Benito.” Either the students shrugged their shoulders because they didn’t care, or they said, “I want Hollister High.”
Teachers at San Benito High School, specifically those that are alums themselves, seem to be partial to the sound of Hollister High. Johnson said he’s talked with vice principals Krystal Lomanto and Santiago Echaore, both former Haybalers.
There is talk now of sending around a petition to find out how many of the teachers/students would be in favor of officially changing the name.
Once all the necessary steps have been taken, the proponents will take their petition to the trustees. Johnson said that if the petition and surveys show Hollister High is indeed what everyone wants, the trustees will have to do a cost analysis of the change and proceed from there.
“It’s not the same level with contract negotiations, accreditation or exit exams, but this is a little thing that I think is more important to the alumni, though the students seem to be behind it too.”
And in terms of phonetics, Hollister Haybalers rolls off the tongue much easier than San Benito Haybalers. Alumni are proud of the school and its heritage in San Benito County, but the school isn’t the only high school in the county, it’s the town’s only high school. There are other schools in San Benito County – Anzar and San Andreas – by calling this high school San Benito High School the implication is that this is the only high school in San Benito County.
“It would have been a lot harder to burn an SB into the field of Gilroy than it was to burn an H,” said alum Gordon Machado, owner of Colonial Cleaners. He remembers that the school was Hollister High when he graduated. He added that his business does embroidery for the high school and when they design the block letters they don’t design a block SB, they design a block H.
