Barstow High to rename 2 campus streets in honor of former football coach, band director

Barstow High School; Nov. 17, 2021
Barstow High School; Nov. 17, 2021

Barstow Unified School District will rename two streets on its high school campus in coming months to honor a former football coach and band director who both left local legacies after passing away in recent years.

The renamings will be dedicated to Barstow High School's former head football coach Art Davis and former band director Tim Garvin, according to a BUSD press release. Two ceremonies will be held to consecrate each change:

  • A ceremony at 6 p.m. Sept. 16 to rename Campus Way to Art Davis Way

  • A ceremony at 6 p.m. Oct. 14 to rename the on-campus stretch of Silver Lane to Tim Garvin Lane

The Art Davis Way ceremony will take place at the entrance to the main building on the BHS campus, while the Tim Garvin Lane ceremony will begin at the entrance to the BHS campus off Buena Vista Street, per the press release.

Each ceremony will be followed by a momentous game on the BHS varsity football schedule.

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The Barstow Aztecs will play their homecoming game for this season against Burroughs High School on Sept. 16, following the Art Davis ceremony. The football team is then set on Oct. 14 to play its 99th iteration of "The Ax Game," the colloquial name for its rivalry match-up against Victor Valley High School.

Davis died on Nov. 29, 2021, at Saint Francis South hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to his obituary. He became head football coach at BHS in 1967, and two years later led the then-named Barstow High Riffians to an undefeated season with a 12-0 record, a Golden League Championship victory and a subsequent California Interscholastic Federation AA Southern Section Championship victory.

The latter win made Barstow the first of any High Desert high school to win a CIF title, according to the release.

More: Family, students mourn Barstow High's Timothy Garvin, who was 'more than a teacher'

Garvin died on Oct. 28, 2020, at his home in Melissa, Texas, according to his obituary. He was the school's band director and music teacher from 1984 to 2015, a time in which "he was instrumental in the production of countless musical events and positively impacted thousands of students."

Garvin was named BUSD's Certificated Employee of the Year in the 2005-06 school year.

"Music is part of the human condition so it ought to be nurtured rather than left stagnant," Garvin said of the philosophy that drove his teaching, according to his obituary and the BUSD release.

Charlie McGee covers California’s High Desert for The Daily Press, focusing on the city of Barstow and its surrounding communities. He is also a Report for America corps member with The GroundTruth Project, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and around the world. McGee may be reached at 760-955-5341 or cmcgee@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @bycharliemcgee.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Barstow High to name streets for former football coach, band director