Arts School Given Record $1.6 Million

LOS ALAMITOS — The Orange County High School of the Arts has received $1.6 million, the largest donation in its history, to kick off a fund-raising campaign for a new site.

Margaret and Lew Webb, who operate eight car dealerships in Orange and Los Angeles counties, made the first contribution to the school’s project to relocate to another Los Alamitos Unified site by 1998.

Since its opening a decade ago, the performing arts magnet program, which draws 485 students from Orange, Los Angeles and other nearby counties, has been housed at Los Alamitos High School.

Administrators plan to raise $14 million to move the arts program to Laurel Continuation High School, which will be converted into a high-technology arts facility. The continuation program will be moved to another, as yet undetermined location, Los Alamitos officials said.

The Webb’s contribution is the first earmarked for the $14-million fund-raising campaign and the largest the school has received in its 11 years, said Ralph Opacic, executive director of the school of the arts.

“It’s absolutely thrilling to pursue our own stand-alone school,” he said, noting that the Webbs’ donation surpasses the amount of the school’s previous largest gift, $50,000 in computers from McDonnell-Douglas.

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Over the next year and a half, Laurel High will be remodeled, with the new arts campus built around a pentagonal courtyard. The arts school will be able to expand its enrollment to 640 students and will include new acting and voice laboratories, dance and music halls and a 600-seat theater.

The most innovative feature will be an arts technology building decked with video and recording studios and equipment for computer design and animation.

With mixed-media and computer animation booming in the entertainment and art industries, Opacic said the new school will better train students to meet the demand for specially trained artists.

“There’s nothing like this for high school-aged kids in Southern California,” Opacic said.

The High School of the Arts, a tuition-free public school, is one of about 10 specialized arts programs in the state.

When the school was founded in 1986, the Webbs donated $30,000 to help refurbish the school’s performing arts theater, which bears Margaret Webb’s name.

“The founding donation was a Christmas gift for my wife,” Lew Webb said Friday. “That gift and this recent one are our gifts to the arts community and our children.”

Webb said he has supported school because he believes arts education needs more community support.

“The arts is always the first to be cut from school budgets,” Webb said. “And for that reason it is more of the citizens’ and businesses’ responsibilities to help programs, particularly when youths are involved to help preserve the arts.”

The Webbs’ contributions place them at the top ranks of major donors to Orange County schools.

One of the largest donations was made in December when a $5-million scholarship foundation was created for the Huntington Beach Union High School District by the family of the late Frank M. Doyle, a local developer.