Two Members of SLHS Class of 1948 Hold Reunion

SLHS grad and longtime Castro Valley High teacher Dale Berven joins classmate for 75th reunion.

A couple of San Leandro High grads recently got together for their class reunion – though it wasn’t a very big party, just the two of them.

When you get to the 75th reunion there aren’t too many classmates still around.

Dale Berven and Jean (Warren) Cooper graduated on Jan. 28, 1948, back when San Leandro High was a 2-story brick building at the site of the current Bancroft Middle School.

“Back in the ’40s, SLHS housed six grades, from the 7th to the 12th,” said Berven. “Since the building wasn’t very large we had many portables, and each wooden portable was heated by a pot-bellied stove.”

As Berven recalls, a student from each classroom was assigned to go out to the coal shed, shovel coal, and bring back some coal for the stove.

Berven remembers the gym wasn’t big enough for regulation games, so the SLHS basketball team would have to travel to Castlemont to use their gym.

Jean remembers girls only wore dresses and skirts to school, no pants in those days. The school auditorium hosted the “Shuffle Inn” on Friday nights, hosted by the city’s recreation department, where you could relax, dance and play table tennis.

“A juke box was available and we always had the latest hit records,” Jean said. “Vocals you could hear and understand, very dreamy!”

Berven later went to San Francisco State where he graduated after taking a break from school for a stint in the U.S. Navy flying jets off the USS Philippine Sea and the USS Hornet. In 1956, Berven became one of the original teachers at Castro Valley High, the year the school opened.

During his 33 years at CVHS, Berven was a teacher, coach, department head, athletic director and administrator. He was the last of the original teachers to leave when he departed 1989. He was inducted into the Castro Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 2012, and he’s still a volunteer docent aboard the USS Hornet in Alameda.

At the end of January, Berven and his wife Joanne drove up to Grass Valley where Jean Cooper lives and had lunch with Cooper and her youngest daughter Terri Myers.

“Jean and I were able to reminisce about the old San Leandro High School,” said Berven who now lives in Livermore.

After high school, Jean married Bob Cooper whose family owned Homekraft Bakery in San Leandro. She worked as a secretary while Bob finished college at San Jose State.

The couple raised three children and later sold the bakery, moved to Antioch and built a marina, The Driftwood Marina, where she and Bob did a variety of jobs. Eventually, they had enough of the work and moved up north. Bob passed away in 2002 and Jean now resides in Grass Valley.

Berven said he and Jean both felt lucky to grow up when they did.

“World War II was going on but the country was unified and things turned out well for most of us,” he said.

Other classmates that he’s aware of went on to careers as executives, some went into education, and one became a county superintendent of schools, among other occupations.

At the 1948 class 50th reunion, Berven said that out of the original class of 78 students, 26 were in attendance and a dozen others sent word that they could not attend.

Leaving the restaurant, the two 1948 graduates wondered about their classmates.

“Jean and I wondered, are we the last two standing?” Berven said. “Maybe readers will be able to clue us in on the status of any January 1948 San Leandro High graduates.”