PDHS Alum Tour Campus Before Demolition

Palm Desert High as many know it, is about to disappear.

New buildings have been constructed on what were once the baseball and softball fields, and demolition of the current 25-year-old campus buildings begins next month.  

Palm Desert alumni have been paying their respects the past week by visiting the old campus, meeting friends, and reliving memories. 

Kerri and Katie (Lippold) Zepeda are 1998 graduates who visited the campus recently to look back and remember.

“I walk around and realized how big it seemed, and it all seems so small now,” Katie Zepeda  said. “I remember the murals  that are there now. They were still being
done when I was there; at least I got to see ... that they’re finished, and
before they’re gone.”

Kerri Zepeda said he was a bit emotional as he walked the campus with his wife last week.

“It was kinda sad … I was thinking ‘that was my high school.’ Now when friends come in we can’t show them, ‘this was our school’... now it’s going to be, ‘see that
baseball field, that’s where  my school was.’”

The current campus will be converted to athletic fields by 2012.

Kerri Zepeda admitted that the 25-year-old campus had overgrown its use. 

“It was kinda run down, but I’m sad to see it go. But when you start seeing more and more portable buildings to house the students, you know there’s something wrong.”

Some alumni know that the clock is ticking for them to make that same trip back to their Alma Mater.

“I need to get over there before the demolition.  It’s important to me,” Mike Mozingo -- class of 1999 --  said.  “I think ‘Oh my God this is my school’.   I spent four years of my life there. I just can’t see it any other way.”

Demolition of the old PDHS building is scheduled to begin on July 5.