Beetdiggers old and new

What the heck's a Beetdigger?

If you know the answer, and link it to the name "Dan," your blood probably runs maroon and grey.

And if that's the case, no doubt you've been invited to the school party of the century.

Jordan High School is 100 years old. Thousands of alumni — some, cruisin' from Florida in a Winnebago — will mark the occasion at the South Towne Expo Center Friday night and Saturday with memorabilia, music, dance and a car show, of sorts, featuring at least one automobile made in each of the past 100 years.

There will be a 200-page Jordan High history book for sale, a golf clinic from pro Don Collett, performances by an Elvis impersonator, military bands, barbershop quartets and comedy acts. There's even an alumni choir, which will include a woman from the class of 1939.

"Those of us that are alive are going to party," said Sherma Yeates, member of the golden anniversary graduating class of 1961, who's helping with publicity for the centennial celebration. "My husband didn't know what hit him when he married a Beetdigger. We are an unusual bunch, but we're proud of it."

So what makes the Beetdiggers love their school so much that they'd throw a party to rival a celebrity wedding?

Some say it's the people — the school educated future golf pro Don Collett, astronaut Don Lind, U.S. District Court Judge Dee Benson, Olympic medalists and other community leaders. Others cite the spirit-inspiring teachers and principals, and all those good kids who go there today.

But history — and lineage — play a big part.

Case in point: Alumni Association vice president Kathy Birch Damjanovich, whose son graduated from Jordan High, while other children completed high school at Alta High.

"I was so excited to have a Beetdigger, and he married a Beetdigger, so we have a whole 'nother generation of Beetdiggers," she said.

"My parents and grandparents all went there," said alumna Lael Askew Ehlers. "I think for a lot of kids who went to Jordan (school pride) was passed down through their families."

Jordan High, the premiere high school for what's become Utah's largest school district, once took in every community in the south Salt Lake Valley — except Bingham.

The intense rivalry between Bingham High and Jordan comes as no surprise: Bingham, which is 99 years old, was created as a satellite campus for Jordan High, said Bingham High history teacher Scott Crump, author of "Jordan High School: The First 100 Years." (Though named an "honorary Beetdigger" for his work, Crump remains a blue-blooded Bingham Miner: He'll write that school's history next.)