THE PRIDE OF NORTH TURLOCK
Pitman High School gave Turlock a new campus and a new rivalry. Its earliest students helped establish traditions that now have their own history: the Harvest Bowl, the Marching Pride and an athletic hall of fame. The name on the building reaches further back, to an educator who spent his career at Turlock High.
Updated 2026.
A school built for a growing town
On November 4, 1997, voters approved Measure N, authorizing up to $35 million in bonds. The ballot connected the new high school directly to increasing enrollment and overcrowding at Turlock High. The California Secretary of State’s election record preserves both the result and that original purpose.
Construction finished in April 2002. Superintendent William H. Gibson and founding principal Rod Hollars welcomed roughly a thousand people to the August 10 dedication. More than a thousand students began classes on August 26, 2002, according to the school’s history.
The campus grew one grade at a time. It began with freshmen and sophomores, added juniors in 2003–04 and seniors in 2004–05. Its student handbook also explains the school identity: dark green and silver, with the Pride representing a group of lions. Those first classes were building a school culture while moving through their own high-school years.
Who was John H. Pitman?
John H. Pitman was a garage foreman before Turlock High hired him to teach auto mechanics in 1923. He also taught electricity and physics. During World War II he trained aircraft personnel for the Army Air Corps in New Mexico. He became Turlock High’s principal in 1947, moved into the superintendent’s role in 1965 and retired in 1966. He died in 1979. Naming the new campus for him linked two generations of local education; his working life belongs to the story of Turlock High School.
How the Harvest Bowl started
The first Harvest Bowl came in 2004, two years after Pitman opened. Pitman beat Turlock High 21–18, with junior quarterback Colin Kaepernick and a fourth-quarter touchdown by Mark Runyan. The following year, the Pride won 35–34 in overtime after Anthony Harding’s two-point conversion. The Journal’s year-by-year Harvest Bowl account shows how quickly the matchup produced games worth remembering.
Kaepernick’s connection to Pitman includes basketball and baseball as well as football. He and Harding entered the school’s inaugural Hall of Fame in 2018, alongside other athletes and early figures such as Hollars and athletic director Jim Parker. The first induction announcement records that group. Our Colin Kaepernick profile follows his Turlock years and the career that came afterward.
More than a football story
Pitman’s 2014 girls’ volleyball team finished 44–2, won the Division I section and Northern California championships, and reached the state final. Coach Kristen Pontes-Christian’s team became state runner-up. It was recognized in the school’s 2024 Hall of Fame class, which also included the 2005 football team and baseball player Bradin Hagens, a 2007 graduate who reached Major League Baseball with Arizona in 2014.
The grounds changed as the programs developed. A $4.5 million playfield project celebrated in 2019 brought a synthetic football field, an all-weather track, two softball fields and a soccer practice field. That report described the football facility as a practice field; the project was one stage in the campus’s development.
In October 2023, students and staff gathered for the first switch-on of the field lights. A $56,300 Turlock Irrigation District grant paid for the installation. The change mattered to the marching band and color guard as well as athletes: practices and activities could continue after daylight faded.
The Marching Pride and life beyond the playing fields
The Marching Pride’s music program includes three concert bands, a jazz ensemble, drumline and color guard, with more than a hundred students participating. Its boosters help cover equipment, uniform repairs, transportation and competition expenses. That support connects performances on the school calendar to work done by families throughout the year.
The band also hosts Preview of Champions, a marching-band review. The documented 2025 event brought Northern California and San Joaquin Valley school bands together for parade, music and color-guard judging. For another view of student life, The Roaring Times publishes the school’s student journalism.
The district’s career technical education directory lists Pitman pathways in agricultural mechanics and welding, animal and veterinary science, horticulture and floral design, and video and broadcast production. The college and career page brings together planning resources, including Modesto Junior College dual enrollment. These programs connect the campus to the region’s agriculture, skilled trades and further education.
Find the school and follow what is happening
- Campus: 2525 W. Christoffersen Parkway, Turlock.
- Main office: (209) 226-6500. The official contact page lists attendance, counseling, activities and athletics numbers.
- Events: Use the school calendar, football schedule and campus map for current dates and locations.
Continue with Turlock High’s history, the wider history of Turlock or the Turlock Guide.
