CSDR’s Medallion in Downtown Riverside

Riverside's History Walk on Main Street in downtown Riverside has an 18-inch circular step stone depicting CSDR in fingerspelling.   How cool is that!  I tip my hat to Keith Townsend (a retired teacher with 37 years of service at CSDR) for bringing the history sidewalk to my attention.  I feel it is important to write an article about this exciting discovery.

The History Walk features 33 commemorative stones that tell the story of the city's transformation from a frontier settlement to a flourishing California community.

The key person for including CSDR among the 33 organizations for special recognition is Bette Fauth, a professor of art at Riverside City College.  Bette and his husband, Warren, moved to Riverside in Fall 1953 for the first year at the brand new school at CSDR.  Warren taught history, then ran the PE and athletics as athletic director and finally oversaw the high school department as principal. He retired in 1983.   

Bette got her MA in Deaf Education in 1949 from Gallaudet University. She was the Lower School faculty at CSDR from 1956 to 1967 before she was appointed a professor of art at Riverside City College.  In the mid-1970s, she commissioned a project to create the bronze medallions embedded in 18-inch-wide granite.  They depict historic events spanning more than a century of civic and cultural history, from the city's founding and agricultural heritage to the establishment of its educational institutions, such as CSDR, as a gift to the prosperous city.

If you want to see the CSDR medallion, you can find it on Main Street between 10th and 12th Streets, near the courthouses.

We thank Bette Fauth (1919-1998) for including CSDR in joining RCC and California Baptist University as educational institutions to represent Riverside’s education community.

As a postscript, the Class of 1977 bought a duplicate medallion from Bette for a class gift. It is now on the sidewalk outside the Brill entrance door.

Kevin Struxness, ‘76, MA

Editor, CSDR Old Times

18 February 2026