Laguna Beach to rename Top of the World Park in honor of William Wilcoxen

Laguna Beach will honor a public servant of its past, as Top of the World Park will be renamed William M. Wilcoxen Park.

The idea came before the City Council for consideration Tuesday after two Laguna Beach High School students brought the proposal to the city’s recreation committee in February.

Jackson Flemming and Hailey Weng, two recent high school graduates, looked back on the life of the late Wilcoxen, who was known for his environmental stewardship. Wilcoxen, who died in 1997 while vacationing in the High Sierra, also served on the City Council and as a member of the Laguna Beach Unified School District’s board of education.

Among his accomplishments, Wilcoxen helped acquire the land on which Top of the World Park was built, and he was an advocate for coastal preservation. He also played a role in the establishment of Top of the World Elementary and Thurston Middle School.

The recreation committee voted unanimously to accept the proposal and send it on to the City Council for approval, and the panel followed suit with its vote.

“It’s a great opportunity to remember great community leaders like Bill Wilcoxen by highlighting some of his accomplishments, not only to justly recognize him but also to educate and inspire others, students and non-students alike, to create positive change in individuals, even individuals from Laguna,” said Roger Kempler, vice chair of the recreation committee.

“He was a Laguna High valedictorian in 1950. Even individuals can make a difference. I think that’s inspiring, and that’s part of a program the [recreation] committee is going to try to launch. There are just a few parks that are named after individuals, and we’re just keeping it to a few parks, not every park.”

Several members of Wilcoxen’s family were in attendance. His oldest daughter, Jennifer Wilcoxen Rosenfeld, thanked the students and Kempler for taking on the project and researching some of the area’s past.

“It was such a pleasure to see them working and to remember many of the things that my father did in town,” she said. “It would be a great honor to have his name affixed to this park and perhaps preserve this little bit of Laguna history.”

A video prepared as part of the project showed that the late Wilcoxen had been honored with a plaque on a drinking fountain at the park, but it was lost when the fountain was replaced.

Jun Shen, who taught Flemming and Weng, was proud of the impact of his students’ work. He also noted that their reasons for renaming the park were twofold, with the added benefit of it reducing confusion for those looking for the Top of the World hiking trail at Alta Laguna Park.

“The man has been instrumental into what we enjoy today and what makes the character of our town, and also, it helps out the operations and maintenance of our town,” Shen said of the proposal to rename the park after Wilcoxen. “And all this comes at no additional appropriation. … I’m so immensely proud of the students.

“This could be a really good sparking point and set an example for other students to kind of reshape what it really means to be in school in Laguna Beach. Think about when you were 17 or 18, what our education was like.”