Former Ceres Mayor Louis Arrollo, Valley native turned astronaut Jose Hernandez and Eastgate are the three finalists as the namesake for what is now Cesar Chavez Junior High School.
On May 7 the CUSD Board of Trustees voted to remove Chavez’s name from the school in light of the controversies surrounding his alleged sexual misconduct.
The district began collecting names from the community and an ad hoc committee comprised of parents/guardians, students, employees, community members, and Board members met on May 30 to review the recommendations.
The committee narrowed the list of 53 eligible recommendations to three finalists for the Board’s consideration.
The board will be presented the names at the regular meeting of Thursday, June 11 set for 5 p.m. and decide on the final pick at the meeting set for 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 18.
The names for Arrollo and Hernandez received tied votes among the ad hoc committee.
Eastgate is the name of the nearby master plan in east Ceres.
Information about the three recommendations is attached and available at https://www.ceres.k12.ca.us/page/cesar-chavez-renaming.
Arrollo has served Ceres for decades, starting after he moved to Ceres with his family in 1957. He attended Ceres High School, joined the Army where he was a military police officer before returning home to work loading boxes of harvested peaches onto trailers. In 1963, he became the Ceres Police Department’s first Hispanic officer, rising through the ranks over the next 21 years to retire as police commander in 1984.
Driven by a desire to support local youth, Arrollo taught law enforcement courses at Ceres High School, earned his master’s degree, and served more than a decade as an administrator in charge of discipline. He retired from education in 2001.
Parallel to his work in schools, Arrollo was elected to the Ceres City Council in 1985 and later served two non-consecutive terms as mayor. Under his leadership the city built the Smyrna Park skate park, launched the Concerts in the Park, and adoption of the city motto, “Together We Achieve.”
In 2026, the Ceres Chamber of Commerce recognized Arrollo with its Citizen of the Year/Lifetime Achievement Award for his decades of service that helped shape the Ceres community. Reflecting on the city he calls “one of the greatest in the Central Valley.”
Arrollo said, “Ceres has been good to me, mainly because of the people who live in Ceres.”
Hernandez is a Central Valley native who became an engineer, NASA astronaut and now an advocate for education who spent his childhood as a migrant farmworker, learning English at age 12. His visits to Ceres schools to share his experiences with students have provided a relatable example of the power of perseverance, hard work, and education in making dreams attainable.
Hernández’s interest in space was sparked in 1972 at age 10 while watching the Apollo 17 mission on television. After graduating from high school, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering. While working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Hernández co-developed medical imaging technology that helped improve early breast cancer detection.
Hernandez joined NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where he was rejected 11 times as an astronaut candidate before being selected on his 12th attempt. In 2009, at age 47, Hernández fulfilled his dream of traveling to space as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
“A lot of people always say that they’re amazed that in spite of being a migrant farmworker, I made it to become
an astronaut,” Hernández told an Arizona PBS reporter. “I always correct them. Not ‘in spite of’ – because of.”
The 2023 film A Million Miles Away depicts Hernández’s journey from the fields to space.
The Eastgate name reflects a prominent geographic area of Ceres, located on the city’s eastern edge where residential neighborhoods meet almond orchards. The area is bordered by Hatch Road to north, Boothe Road on the west and Faith Home Road to the east.
