- Eldorado High School is a public high school with two campuses in Clark County, Nevada, United States. The school is a part of the Clark County School District. The main campus is located in Sunrise Manor Township unincorporated area on the northeast part of the Las Vegas Valley, south of Nellis Air Force Base. The freshman campus is located in the Huntridge area of the city of Las Vegas. Its team mascot is the Sundevils and its school colors are Maroon and Gold.
- History
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Eldorado High School was established in 1973 on an open desert lot just west of the Las Vegas Wash between Washington and Bonanza Roads. The school opened its doors in September 1973 along with Chaparral High School, which brought the total number of major high schools in the Las Vegas Valley to eight, including Bishop Gorman, a private Catholic high school. For the first 15 years, Eldorado's zoning covered all of the Sunrise Mountain area north of Charleston Boulevard and east of Pecos Road, which resulted in a total school attendance of more than 2,000 (the largest known class to graduate from Eldorado to date is the Class of 1985, graduating about 550 students).The majority of the students are former students of Dell H. Robison Middle School, O'Callaghan Middle School, Monaco Middle School and Bailey Middle School. In the 1980s, Eldorado received former students from Robison and Von Tobel Middle Schools as well as a handful from Roy Martin Middle School. Today, its zoning border covers areas east of Nellis Boulevard, north of Bonanza Road and south of Owens Avenue.
- School Layout
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Its campus borders Washington Avenue, Linn Lane, Harris Avenue and Christy Lane (approximately 2 square miles), built with an enclosed building (no windows), a football stadium with an asphalt running track (one of the first high schools in Las Vegas to have such a track) and a state of the art sportatorium, used for basketball, volleyball and wrestling as well as assemblies and other school-related activities. Three other Las Vegas-area schools were built this way: Basic High School, Bonanza High School and the Southern Nevada Vocational Technical Center (also known as Vo-Tech); all built in the early to mid 1970s along with Eldorado. Both Basic and Bonanza were built according to the same blueprints as Eldorado.
- In 2007, the former facilities of Bishop Gorman were purchased by CCSD to house the rising number of freshmen and ease overcrowding at the main campus. The freshman campus is known as Eldorado Preparatory Academy.
- The school's principal is Dr. Ron Lustig, the sixth principal in school history. Dr. Niles Bayles was Eldorado's first principal and its longest serving principal, operating the campus from September 1973 until November 1982. Dr. Bayles left to take over Valley High School and was replaced by Richard Paulin (1929-2006), who remained until 1990. Gail Dixon (1990-96), Thomas Barberini (1996-2004) and Richard Carranza (2004-07) also served as the school's chief educator.
- Academics
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In the 2007-08 school year, Eldorado High School implemented a Newcomer Language Academy providing highly structured English language acquisition instruction to ELL students. The "STEP UP" college dual credit/teacher preparation program was expanded in partnership with CSN. In addition to this, the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) classes were doubled, providing structured skills to college-bound students. Eldorado also received a $1,000,000 Upward Bound Grant through NSC, which provided resources to 1st-generation, college-bound students.
- Sundevil Theater
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The campus is home of the Sundevil Theater. The theater has put on many plays, including The Curious Savage, and Carousel to name a few
- Extracurricular Activities
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The extracurricular activities offered at Eldorado High School are many and varied due to the school's large size. The Sundevils compete in the Sunrise 4A Region and are classified as a 4A school, the largest classification in Nevada according to the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association.
- Athletics
- Wrestling
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The most successful athletics program at Eldorado has been the wrestling program which has won a total of 12 state championships. Led by Jimmy May, the Sundevils were ranked 12th as the High School Scholastic Dynasty Teams of the Last Decade. Known as the “Dynasty in the Desert”, the Sun Devil wrestling program captured over a dozen state wrestling championships in the 1980s and 1990s, including eight state championships in a row between 1986 and 1993. Producing numerous individual state wrestling champions, among them was Cary Dreitzler, a 1986 grad who won a state championship in his weight class in all four years, one of only two wrestlers at Eldorado to accomplish this feat. The other being Gary "Tiny" Scrivens in the late 70's/early 80's. The program also produced a phalanx of All-Americans, and two National Champions. Alfonso "Alfie" Alcaraz, as a junior, won the 1989 Junior Nationals and was named to the 1990 All-American Dream Team, and Matt Azevedo won the 2008 US Nationals. Jimmy May first coached the wrestling program from the 1978-79 school year until the 1982-83 school year; and returned in the 1986-87 school year to win seven state team championships in a row. Stephen Marafino was the wrestling coach from 1983-84 school year to the 1985-86 school year, and won a team state championship.
- Coach May, ranked by the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the 6th all-time winningest coach in Nevada sports history. May left Eldorado with an enduring legacy. Four of his Sundevil teams were nationally ranked, and he had the nation's fourth-winningest program (317-20-2, .941) during his run which was punctuated by his son, Danny May, winning the last individual state championship for Eldorado High School (1996), his second. Eldorado also holds the Nevada record for most individual state wrestling champions in a single season with 7. The Eldorado wrestling room was commemorated in 1996. It is located adjacent to the northern end of the Sportatorium. The wrestling room was named in the honor of Coach May. In addition to providing space in which to practice, the room also houses the “Wall of Fame” with the names of over 60 state champions.
- Coach May was named the first head coach at Baker University's for the school's first wrestling program in its 150-year history. He was selected following a national search conducted by Baker Athletic Director Dan Harris. Coach May will be responsible for developing the Wrestling program for Baker which is slated to begin competition in 2009. In 2007, Jimmy May accepted his nomination into the Central Missouri State Hall of Fame, and in 2008 Coach May was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Coach May was also enshrined into the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 5th, 2009, at the Orleans Arena.
- Other Sports
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The school does hold at least one state championship in each of the following major sports: American football (1991), boys basketball (1985) and baseball (around 1989). Eldorado also holds numerous Southern Nevada Zone and Nevada state championships in track and field.
- In 1990, the Eldorado's boys track and field Team won the Southern Nevada Championship by a record 152 points. Eldorado scored 208 points as opposed to second place Valley High School who scored 56. The following week at the State Championships, Eldorado scored 152 points, while the second place team finished with 45 points. Both records still stand today.
- The men's soccer team won the Southern Nevada Zone Championship 1994.
- Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association State Championships
- Baseball - 1990
- Basketball (Boys) - 1985
- Cross Country (Boys) - 1979, 1980, 1981
- Football - 1991
- Track & Field - 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992
- Wrestling - 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995
- The Merlin Olsen Cleat
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Every year, beginning in 1974, Eldorado and Chaparral holds its rivalry game, in which the winner gets possession of a bronzed cleat once owned by former Los Angeles Rams star Merlin Olsen. The overall series has Chaparral winning 26 of these 37 meetings, and Eldorado winning 11. The Sundevils won the cleat in 1978, 1983, 1991, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2009.
- The Sundevils won their first Merlin Olsen cleat game in 1978, and that team also won its first Sunrise Division Championship and a spot in the post-season. The cleat was won again in 1983, although it would not return to Eldorado until their state championship year of 1991. Eldorado's longest winning streak against Chaparral is 4 games; the Cowboys' longest is 7 in a row.
- Other Rivalries
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Since Eldorado's entry into high school football in 1974, the Sundevils have developed relative rivalries against Chaparral, Las Vegas, Valley, and Rancho.
- Chaparral High School, outside of its Merlin Olsen cleat rivalry, have been very competitive with Eldorado over the years. In 1985, the Sundevils' boys basketball team, coached by famed football and basketball coach Sherrill Stephens defeated the Cowboys 69-64 at the Las Vegas Convention Center to win the then-Nevada 3A State basketball title. During rivalry week, western themed events would take place at both schools. In 2007 students from Chaparral vandalized the football field at Sundevil Stadium, harmlessly spraying orange and black spray paint over the Sundevil mascot in the center of the football field, and dug out CHS (Chaparral High School) into the sideline of Eldorado. Although this incident may seem similar to the Rancho incident (see Below) it is very different in the fact that no valuable items were damaged or defaced.
- Las Vegas High School and Eldorado play for the unofficial Battle of Sunrise Mountain game since 1993, when the new campus for Las Vegas High was built. Prior to that, Eldorado was Sunrise Mountain's only high school.
- Rancho High School's rivalry with the Sundevils have been very heated, and at times, has even been violent. On numerous occasions, many students from Rancho would alter the E on Frenchman Mountain into an R prior to its football game with the Sundevils. In 1983 however, students from Rancho vandalized the Eldorado school campus with spray paint, resulting in extensive damage to the school track, football field, student parking lot and the exterior walls of the Eldorado Sportatorium. Two years later, following a football game at Rancho, a student wielded a handgun, causing others to flee for safety.
- Valley High School's rivalry with Eldorado have been on more friendlier terms over the years, despite Valley's dominance over the Sundevils in a variety of sports, except for wrestling and basketball. The Vikings were originally a member of the Sunset Division, but joined the Sunrise League in the 1990s when new schools were built across the Las Vegas Valley.
- Other rivalries Eldorado has had over the years includes older schools such as Clark, Western, Bonanza, Bishop Gorman, and Basic, which ended in the mid-1990s following the realignment of its athletic divisions. Eldorado was one time part of a five-team Sunrise Division, which included Basic, Las Vegas, Rancho and Western; while the Sunset Division schools were Valley, Chaparral, Gorman, Clark and Bonanza.
- Sherrill Stephens, an ASU grad, coached both the men's basketball and football program at Eldorado in the 1980s. Prior to that, he coached at Rancho and Las Vegas High Schools. Known for his loud outbursts during basketball games, Stephens accumulated several state championships in both football and basketball, including his lone state title in basketball while at Eldorado. Returning to his roots in Arizona, he is now a high school principal in Globe.
- Source: Wikipedia; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.
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