New middle school in Clovis named for Phillip Sanchez, a local Latino leader and hero

Clovis middle school students who will have to switch schools to attend Clovis South in the 2025-2026 school year now know what their new intermediate school will be called: Phillip Victor Sanchez Intermediate School.

Phillip V. Sanchez was a Californian farmworker-turned-U.S. ambassador. Before entering international politics, Sanchez was chief administrative officer of Fresno County in the 1960s and a board member for Clovis Unified School District.

Mark Sanchez, Phillip Sanchez’s son, was present during the board’s meeting and told The Bee it took 10 to 15 years of community advocating for this honor to happen.

“It just hadn’t come to fruition, and now it’s done, and we’re very, very proud to see it done,” Sanchez said. “When you have a father like Phillip Sanchez, there’s nothing more to feel than a great deal of pride.”

District spokesperson Kelly Avants said she isn’t aware of the ethnicity of some of early school namesakes. Still, she said Sanchez is the first Latino to have a school named after him in recent history.

Clovis Unified School District’s board voted unanimously to honor Sanchez during its latest Wednesday night meeting.

Board member Clinton Olivier said Sanchez’s family will be honored again at a later date, when the board hosts the official naming celebration.

Though the name was revealed, the school’s mascot and colors are still pending.

Avants said Sanchez Intermediate School’s mascot and colors will match those of Clovis South High School, also slated to open in the 2025-2026 school year. Together, they form the Terry P. Bradley Educational Center. Avants confirmed the schools’ mascot and colors will be listed as action items on the agenda, so the board might discuss and vote on it.

Sanchez Intermediate School will not only be attended by students who switch schools in 2025 to balance out attendance across the district but also the first class of sixth-turned-seventh graders from Hirayama Elementary School, scheduled to open in the fall.

Hirayama Elementary School is named after Satoshi “Fibber” Hirayama, former local educator, World War II Japanese internment camp survivor, and national and international professional baseball player. It’s Clovis Unified’s 35th elementary school, the first named after a Japanese American person in Clovis.

Mark Sanchez said his father and Hirayama were great friends.

“They both went to Fresno State, and they’ve been friends forever and ever,” he said. “Just before they both died, they used to get their hair cut together.”

“He makes a great example not just for the Mexican-American students,” Mark Sanchez said of his father, “but all the immigrants, to let them know that this truly is the land of opportunity.”

David Rodriguez, director of the Pinedale History Project, accompanied Sanchez to Clovis’s board meeting. He knew Phillip Sanchez and is working to preserve and share his history.

“He was very humble – never, never flaunted his accomplishments – that’s why people don’t know about it,” Rodriguez said. “To know him was to love him and to respect him.”

Who was Phillip Sanchez?

Phillip Victor Sanchez was born in Pinedale in 1929 and was one of seven children. He first worked as a child farmworker in Fresno County, picking cotton at the age of 6, after his father left the family.

Sanchez went to school in Fresno and graduated from Clovis High School, Coalinga College and Fresno State.

While in college, he joined the Army National Guard in the lowest enlisted position, The Bee reported, and he rose from that rank to colonel in the Army Reserve and also served in the Army. He had more than 40 years of military service when he passed away in 2017.

After serving, Sanchez became chief administrative officer of Fresno County in the 1960s and a board member for Clovis Unified School District. Soon after, then-governor Ronald Reagan appointed Sanchez to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors and then to the California State University and Colleges Board of Trustees.

In the early 1970s, Sanchez unsuccessfully running for the the 15th Congressional District seat but was appointed assistant director of the Office of Economic Opportunity by President Richard Nixon. Sanchez was optimistic about this position, he reportedly told The Bee, because he could continue to serve low-income and minority communities.

When Nixon dismantled the office in 1973, Sanchez was appointed ambassador to Honduras, making him one of the first Spanish-speaking U.S. ambassadors to a Latin American country.

Soon after, he was transferred in 1976 to ambassador of Colombia during President Gerald Ford’s administration and served there until President Jimmy Carter recalled him a year later.

Sanchez then returned to Fresno briefly, and went on to create a consulting business that specialized in representing corporations doing business in Latin America. He later served as publisher of The New York Tribune and Noticias del Mundo, and president of CAUSA USA, The Bee reported, a faith-based educational organization that denounced communism.

Sanchez also has a Fresno charter school named after him, was president and founder of the first Sigma Chi Fraternity chapter at Fresno State, and was a trustee of National Hispanic University.

“My heart has always been here and always will be,” Mr. Sanchez said in an interview for a 2014 story in The Bee.

The Clovis Unified School Board meets every other Wednesday at the district’s Professional Development Building at 1680 David E Cook Way in Clovis. The public session starts at 6:30 p.m. after the board convenes once they end the closed session portion of their meeting.

Their next meeting is on May 22, before the final one for this school year scheduled for June 12. The board reconvenes on July 17 for 2024-2025 school year matters. You can find more information and the board’s meeting schedule online at cusd.com/BoardMeetingsAgendasArchives.aspx.