Willow Glen, California Since 1992
Education
High school students win top honors in essay contest By Amy Jenkins When she entered an essay contest sponsored by the California Pioneers of Santa Clara County and she was asked to write about a person, place or thing that has influenced Santa Clara County, Konstantina Panayotopoulos didn't hesitate in choosing to write about her grandfather—Anargyros (Roger) Antonopoulos. The 16-year-old Willow Glen High School student was given the option of entering the contest in lieu of writing a history term paper. "This was the longest I have worked on a paper," says Panayotopoulos, who won first place and $500 for her 24-page essay. "I worked on it diligently for one month." Out of the five contest entries, the top awards went to students from Willow Glen High School. Second-place winner Sara Roberts, a sophomore at Willow Glen High School, wrote about Temple Emanu-El of San Jose and third-place winner Roxana Loredo, another sophomore at Willow Glen High School, wrote about the 1906 San Jose earthquake. The annual contest is open to students and adults. Since her grandfather died last October, Panayotopoulos researched his life by asking her grandmother, mother and other family members questions about him. She also relied on her own memory and stories he told her. Originally from Greece, the late Antonopoulos and his wife, Patricia, lived in Willow Glen for 52 out of their 54 years of marriage. The two met in Salinas in 1946 and married a year later. And although Antonopoulos had an exciting life before becoming a U.S. citizen—he was in the Greek Merchant Marines—the restrictions of the essay contest forced Panayotopoulos to focus more on his life in San Jose and Santa Clara County. She did, however, mention that he was born in 1921 in Pireaus, Greece, and experienced hardships growing up in Greece such that he decided to become a U.S. citizen—which he did in 1943—and join the U.S. Army. In Santa Clara County, Antonopoulos became a popular restaurateur, feeding local student athletes and the poor and translating for Greek immigrants in cases in the Santa Clara County court system. He was honored with the presidency of the Santa Clara County Restaurant Association and became a member of the Santa Clara Civil Grand Jury. In 2000, at 79 years of age, he became a Santa Clara County wedding commissioner, authorized to perform civil marriage ceremonies; however, he died a year later, before he could perform his first marriage. In 1952, Antonopoulos bought the first of the four restaurants he and business partner Angelo Lygizos owned in San Jose. The first restaurant, on the corner of First and San Antonio streets, the Old Colony Steak House, was where Antonopoulos started his "hamburger poll." Because Antonopoulos loved to discuss politics with his patrons, he started to take a poll from customers about who they thought would win the presidency. This continued from the 1952 presidential election of Dwight D. Eisenhower until the 1988 presidential race between Michael Dukakis and George Herbert Walker Bush. "Every year they would count the ballots before the election and every year the customers made the right prediction," says Patricia, thus making their predictions correct 10 times. The other restaurants he owned were the Alpine Restaurant, Angelo's Steak House and the Steer House. "These restaurants became very popular during the 1950s and 1960s because of their good food, friendly service and fair prices," Panayotopoulos writes in her report. "People of all walks of life became customers of these restaurants." |
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