Larry Stewart, a longtime Arcadia resident and a regular blogger for Arcadiasbest.com, recently won a lifetime achievement award from his high school in the San Joaquin Valley. “It was a total surprise,” Stewart said. “The amazing thing was my wife Norma knew about it for two months and never let on.”
Pictured with Larry Stewart, center, are, from left, Strathmore High alums and friends Gene Yunt and his sister Rosemary Yunt Spruce, Norma Stewart and Linda Palmer Solway.
Stewart, a sportswriter, editor and columnist in Los Angeles for nearly 40 years, is a 1964 graduate of Strathmore High, located in Tulare County six miles north of Porterville. It is now part of the Porterville school district. Strathmore High has an annual Homecoming in May every year, attended by alums dating back as far as the late 1930s. Larry and Norma attended this year’s Homecoming because earlier on the same day his graduating class held a 50-year reunion.
A tribute to Stewart on the school’s web site describes him as “one of Strathmore’s biggest successes, and also one of our town’s most loyal citizens.” Stewart, whose mother, Greta Stewart, was a correspondent for the Fresno Bee, started his long journalism career when he was still a student at Strathmore High. At that time he was a “stringer” — or minor correspondent — for the Bee, getting a fee of $1 for phoning in the school’s football results. And he continued to work for the Bee during college at Fresno State.
Stewart was asked to speak at a school assembly the day before the reunion and Homecoming but still was not aware he would be honored the next day. Kuyler Crocker, the head of the Strathmore High Alumni Association, introduced Stewart at the assembly and noted that he was in attendance at the 2005 Fresno State-USC football game at the Coliseum when Stewart was honored at halftime. “I’m glad he mentioned that because it was a lifetime highlight,” Stewart said. “I have to say that getting an award from my high school ranks pretty high too.”
Stewart’s close friend and classmate, Linda Palmer Solway, who was class president during their senior year at Strathmore High, presented his lifetime achievement award. “Despite his immersion in the big city for most of his life, Larry’s love and fond memories of Strathmore have never faltered,” Linda said during her introduction of Stewart, who was with the old Los Angeles Herald Examiner for nine years and then spent 30-plus years with the L.A. Times.
According to the web site, Stewart’s award was in recognition of “his continuing support and affection for our town, and for his outstanding success in life…”
Stewart and his wife Norma, a retired special education teacher at Camino Grove School, have lived in Arcadia since 1978. They have two daughters, Kelly, 38, and Jill, 36, and one grandson, Teddy, 18 months.