Hi Dave,
Survived another storm, just a lot of rain and wind. We did get two extra days off from school but with the weather no riding and no golf, just sitting around the house watching the Olympics.
Attached is the Press-Citizen article that tells of West’s 40th anniversary since it opened. Rather interesting. Please pass it on. Hope everyone enjoys it
Arnie
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August 19, 2008
40 years since the rise of Troy
Rob Daniel
Iowa City Press-Citizen
The year 1968 was a turbulent one.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated within a few months of each other. The Vietnam War was raging, and in the last week of August, police in Chicago put down violent protests at the Democratic National Convention.
It was in the midst of this, on Sept. 3, 1968, that West High opened its doors for the first time.
Built for about $5 million, the new school was the new home for 1,099 students, among them 500 seventh- and eighth-graders, according to a Press-Citizen story.
It had been designed to ease growth at the 29-year-old City High building and the 9-year-old South East Junior High, said Ed Barker, West High’s first principal.”
The idea was to have a 7 through 12 building until a new junior high could be built in Coralville,” said Barker, referring to Northwest Junior High’s opening in 1972.
Since then, the Iowa City School District has made three additions to the West High building and surrounding campus, including a new auditorium and football field in 1994 and a ninth-grade wing in 2005. The auditorium was built as part of an $11.1 million bond issue approved in 1991 while the football field was built using $350,000 raised largely from fundraisers by parents, said Jerry Arganbright, who has been principal since 1984. The fundraiser, he said, was a sign of the Iowa City area accepting West High on its own merits.
“It took the community a long time to come to terms with Iowa City having two high schools,” said Arganbright, who is the school’s third principal. Barker, who was principal for 11 years, was followed by Duane Carnes. “Those facilities are there because the west side community came together.”
Building a new school community took work. One decision that helped, Barker said, was getting would-be seniors from City High involved. During the 1967-68 school year, after coming to Iowa City from Boone where he had been the high school principal, Barker met periodically with juniors who were the leaders of clubs. Those leaders helped with a flag-raising ceremony on the first day of classes at the new school in September 1968.
“We knew the seniors wouldn’t be terribly enthused (about moving to the new school),” Barker said. “We worked real hard in having the seniors form the activities at the new school.”
The activities were few and far between for the first few years. Sports teams, which did not compete in a conference the first year, suffered through several losing seasons. There was no homecoming the first year, with students instead celebrating “The Rise of Troy.” The school also developed a domestic affairs week program, where speakers of different political stripes were invited to meet with students.
“There was some controversy because conservatives don’t like to have liberals talk to students and liberals don’t like to have conservatives talk to students,” Barker said about the program that ran for three years.
The politics of the time affected what students learned, said Ann Wallace, a 1974 West High graduate who lives in Iowa City with husband and fellow ’74 West High graduate, Bill Gay.
History and English literature were taught in the context of the political scandals of the time, such as the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War. Pace chemistry, in which students worked through the course mostly on their own, also was the rage.
However, things soon began to change.
Sports teams that had suffered through losing seasons began winning state championships, starting with the boys’ basketball team in 1977. The school was building a strong debate program under the leadership of Dave Kanellis. The curriculum also grew from offering only one advanced placement English class in the early 1970s to more than 25 AP and honors courses this year.
“The curriculum is more challenging (now),” said Wallace, who has sent two children through West High and currently has a daughter as a junior there. “There’s way more opportunities for kids.”
The opportunities have helped students such as Tara Meade, 22, a 2004 West High graduate who graduated in music education from Luther College in 2008. She said the curriculum, along with high expectations in activities, have pushed West High students to achieve.
“I got a sense of pride in athletics,” said Meade, who was part of West High’s state championship tennis team in 2004. “It kind of gives kids a big head, but it makes you work hard.”
The school also is looking ahead. Now at its capacity of about 1,800 students and with continued growth in Coralville and North Liberty, the school could be split up in the coming years with the construction of a new high school. Arganbright said he hopes the right decisions are made on dealing with the growth.
“There’s unlimited potential in what our students can do,” he said. “We try to get better in everything we’re doing. You don’t want to take a strong high school and through some decisions with kids make it an average high school.”