Yes, Cher really lived in Fresno and attended school here.

However, the claim that she went to Fresno High School isn’t true. History experts GV Wire spoke to have narrowed down where she likely went.

Cher flatly denied her Fresno High attendance in a 2015 tweet on X. However, she now writes that she attended school in Fresno. In her new book, “Cher: The Memoir Part One,” she recalls her Fresno connections.

Cher’s Fresno Family

Her father, Johnnie Sarkisian, is from Fresno. He met Cher’s mother, Jackie Jean Crouch “at a Harry James big band dance in Fresno, California, in 1944.” They wed on June 22, 1945 in Reno.

Cher said Johnnie was “Mr. Wrong from the outset.”

“The spoiled youngest son of a large Armenian family, Johnnie was a year older than Mom but wore the kind of flashy clothes and jewelry that gave him an air of greater maturity. He wasn’t her type and was too short for her taste,” Cher writes.

Johnnie and Jackie Jean — a struggling Hollywood actress later known professionally as Georgia Pelham among many other last names — moved to El Centro, near the Mexican border.

Cher— born Cherilyn Sarkisian, even though she writes a mistake on the birth certificate listed her as Cheryl — came along on May 20, 1946.

The family moved to New York, then Scranton, Pennsylvania. Johnnie left the family when Cher was still a baby, for a life of drug addiction, gambling and crime, Cher writes. The future superstar entertainer and her mother moved back to southern California.

Several years and several husbands later, Johnnie re-emerged in Jackie Jean and Cher’s lives. The couple remarried, and moved to Fresno to be closer to Johnnie’s family.

This would be circa 1958, when Cher was 12.

“My silver-tongued father talked Mom into relocating two hundred miles north to an area of Fresno known as Little Armenia. We were to live with his family — more strangers that I’d never met and didn’t know existed until that moment,” Cher wrote.

Cher wrote she was “astonished to discover how many of them looked like me.”

She enjoyed connecting with her new family members including grandparents Ghiragos “George” and Siranoush “Blanche” Sarkisian.

“Everyone seemed to have a lovely home and, better still, they introduced me to the most delicious Armenian food,” Cher wrote.

But, the marriage didn’t last. The family soon moved to Las Vegas. Jackie Jean and Johnnie eventually split again, and Cher’s family returned to southern California.

John Paul Sarkisian died in Fresno in 1985 at the age of 58. A Fresno Bee obituary noted his relationship to Cher in the headline.

What School Did Cher Attend?

Cher said she attended school in Fresno for a semester, not “hating” it. But she did not identify the school.

If a 12-year old Cher lived in the Little Armenia section of Fresno in 1958, where would she go to school?

GV Wire asked Elizabeth Laval, president of the Fresno City & County Historical Society, who in turn enlisted Melissa Scroggins of the Fresno County Public Library Heritage Center to find out.

Laval said three junior high schools were possible — Longfellow, Fort Miller, and Hamilton.

Longfellow, at 868 Hazelwood Boulevard, closed in 1966 because it no longer met earthquake standards. A book commemorating its closing in 1966 listed several famous alumni of Armenian heritage. Roger Tatarian, former head of United Press International, author William Saroyan, and actor Krekor (Jay) Ohanian — aka Mike Connors — made the list.

But curiously, Scroggins observed, Cher did not. By 1966, she was already touring with Sonny Bono.

Laval and Scroggins doubt Cher attended Fresno High. Scroggins said that in the 1966 page of the 100-year anniversary book of Fresno High, it shows a picture of Sonny and Cher when they performed in Fresno. However, it did not mention Cher attending the school.

Fresno Unified is actively checking is records, but did not have an answer by time of publication.

Sonny and Cher performed at the Fresno Memorial Auditorium on Dec. 21, 1965. The Fresno Bee made no mention of Cher’s Fresno connection, other than her father used to live here.

Cher’s Fresno Family Tree

George Sarkisian immigrated to Fresno from Turkey in 1909. He died in 1965 at the age of 76. Blanche also immigrated from Turkey, and died in 1979 at the age of 80.

George’s brother — Cher’s great uncle — Aram Sarkisian, also lived in Fresno. Some of his descendants, distant cousins to Cher, live in Bakersfield.

Blanche’s parents — Hagop “Jacob” and Noussaper “Lucy” Dilkian — also immigrated to America and lived in Modesto.

George and Blanche had four children — Elizabeth, Roxanne, Louise, and Johnnie.

Elizabeth married Harry Yegan, and they had two sons — Richard and Kenneth. She worked at the Fresno County Health Department as an executive secretary, according to her 2007 obituary.

Richard lived in Clovis, working as a property and evidence director for the sheriff’s office. He died in 2013 at the age of 70. Kenneth lives in southern California and has two adult daughters.

Not much is known about Louise, who died in 2006 according to a brief Fresno Bee obit. She worked as a nurse.

Roxanne operated a dry cleaning business in Las Vegas with her family. She died in 2019. Cher wrote nice things about her Aunt Roxie in the book.