75 years of Panther pride

Hillcrest High School will commemorate 75 years of graduates during the school’s anniversary celebration Oct. 4-5. The festivities kick off Friday with the Hillcrest pep rally, homecoming parade and homecoming football game. Saturday’s activities will include face painting, food trucks, and an assembly with appearances from Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles. It will be the first allinclusive alumni reunion in the history of the Preston Hollow high school.

Since February, hundreds of parents and alumni have worked to raise support for the celebration. Linda Cullum Tunnell and Christy Bednar, who both graduated from Hillcrest in 1962, are the event cochairs. Bednar says the PTA parents had been thinking about the anniversary for some time and invited the alumni to get involved.

“There are people who are eager to help and be a part of it, so it feels like a warm school community that’s standing up and saying that they are proud that they went to Hillcrest,” Bednar says.

When planning the event, Tunnell and Bednar wanted it to serve a different purpose than the 50th anniversary celebration, which was a nighttime celebration held at Ola Podrida mall 25 years ago.

“We wanted it to be during the day, at the school, completely inclusive, and free,” Bednar says.

She says that the Hillcrest 75th anniversary is more of a celebration of the Hillcrest community.

“The motto is ‘Panther Pride,’ and that’s what we want the alumni to celebrate, but we want to inject that sense of pride into the neighborhood, too,” Bednar says. She hopes that they can take the energy from the event and segue it into finally starting an official alumni association.

“Our long-term goal is to have a strong alumni association, with a foundation that is devoted to funneling private money to Hillcrest for student and teacher support,” Bednar says. “We know we want an educated work force, but we need more supportive adults than public schools have right now. What’s going to help the public schools in Dallas the most is the strong support and involvement of public school alumni. We can do more.” —Whitney Thompson Visit hhspanthers.com

High School alumni events.