Ivan The Pirate

CLASS OF 1975 KEEPS “IVAN THE PIRATE” ALIVE

In June of this year, the Class of 1975 Celebrated its 50th High School Reunion. The theme of the reunion was aptly named a “Pirates Beach Party.” Members of the Decorating team, Cindy Curry and Lisa (Boggy) Ohlund, drafted Ivan to greet classmates as they entered the party and to provide a photo op to memorialize the once in a life time fun event.

For those of you not familiar with “Ivan the Pirate”, he was created by Todd Young, Class of 1981, for their 10 yr Reunion. More than just a mascot, he embodies values that all Oceanside High School (OHS) graduates possess.  The idea of him represents, strength, persistence, and inspiration. In 2023, Terri (Lopez) D’Andrea offered it to the Foundation. After being stored in their garage for 30 years, Terri and her husband, John, wanted to donate it so more people could enjoy it. Of course, the OHS Foundation was thrilled to give Ivan a good home, and OHS administrators readily agreed to store it on campus.,

Now Todd had originally painted Ivan’s pants white, but in keeping with the Pirate Beach Party theme, Lisa requested that we turn the pants into surfing boardshorts and to paint them, accordingly.  So in comes classmate, Kathy (Hague) Wilson, a wonderful artist that obliged the request.  The vision of a sunset, palm frond, plumeria flowers, birds out at sea, and a pelican on a pier; if that doesn’t say memories of Oceanside, you never lived here.

Another thing that Todd did was to construct Ivan out of an 8 ft x 4 ft sheet of particle board. As you can imagine, not only is Ivan heavy to move requiring two or more people and a truck, after 30 yrs he has begun to crumble – Cindy is still finding shreds in the carpet of her car since last June.  Another classmate, Joe Gemmel, acted as our “main mover’ for the Reunion. Least to say it was not pretty or fun. Ivan broke in half, a leg broke off, and the sword handle broke off. Joe was not happy and the rest of the team was in shock. “What do we do now?”

Well, Joe being somewhat handy, quickly improvised and affixed new wood pieces to hold Ivan together. Joe also has infinite wisdom. He said, “The next time another Ivan is made, he better be made of 1970’s technology, namely plywood.” Good idea, Joe!

Finally, enter classmate, Tina (Drebushenko) Van Breukelen, along with the other classmates, facilitated the construction of a new Ivan. We could not let “our” class give back the broken Ivan to the gracious OHS Foundation. We just had to make a better Ivan and we did. The original Ivan (Ivan I) will now have a permanent home in the OHS library.  The new plywood Ivan (Ivan II) is available for ongoing OHS Class and Foundation uses. The sunset boardshorts which everyone loves, were kept as an ode to the class of 1975 for keeping “Ivan the Pirate” alive for another 30 years, or more.

The new Ivan II made his debut at the 2025 OHS Foundation Ceremony on October 11, at the OHS Performing Arts Center.