Photos

In January 2007, Rev. Kenneth Fuller, a veteran of the 11th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, and his wife Doris, a Filipina medical doctor, visited U.P. Rural High School. The Fullers make their home in the Philippines, at Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, where they run an evangelical and medical mission. On February 23, 1945, Ken Fuller, a sergeant in Headquarters Company, First Battalion, 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, took part in the brilliant and decisive raid which liberated Los Banos Internment Camp from the Japanese Army. In this picture, Ken and Doris Fuller are standing in the back row. Professor Liza Carascal, principal of U.P. Rural High School, is on the right, and Lea C. Garcia, Chair of the U.P.R.H.S. Scholarship Committee, is on the left. The four students are part of the eight receiving financial assistance in the 2006-2007 school year from the Los Banos Liberation Memorial Scholarship Foundation, Inc.

The six scholarship students in June 2005. Imarie and "JC", on the right, graduated in April 2006 and passed the entrance examinations for the University of the Philippines. Imarie was valedictorian for the whole graduating class of U.P. Rural High School.

Scene from the U.P. Rural High School, March 2003: Left to right, Principal Liza C. Carascal, Beths Estrella (representative of Los Banos Liberation Memorial Scholarship Foundation), and members of the faculty.

A U.P. Rural High School building that serves as an assembly hall, theater, and basketball court. A valuable structure during the rainy season.

U.P.R.H.S. students rehearsing for a dance entertainment which formed part of the program commemorating the liberation of Los Banos Internment Camp. This program was held 24 June 2005.

Mrs. Tidon and Jim Innis at the UPRHS program commemorating the liberation of Los Banos Internment Camp (February 23, 1945).  Mrs. Tidon lost family members in the massacre perpetrated by Japanese troops a few days later in revenge for the liberation of the prison camp. Mrs. Tidon read aloud a paper she had written long ago about the tragic aftermath of the liberation. This program was presented on 24 June 2005.

In 1995, for the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Philippines from the Japanese in World War II, the Philippine government issued a special series of postage stamps. This is one of them. It portrays the old gate to the campus of the University of the Philippines Los Banos. Behind the gate (and really not that close) stands Baker Hall, an old gymnasium, used by the Japanese guards as a dormitory for some of the male civilian prisoners, Americans and British and other Allied nationalities. It survived the war and is back in good service as a physical education center. Around the edge of the stamp are listed most of the American and Filipino military units who carried out the daring and superbly successful raid that freed every one of the 2,147 internees from Los Banos Internment Camp.