Article from the Arizona Daily Star

THS to hit big 100

Next month [September 2006] Tucson High School begins celebrating a milestone that is both memorable and noteworthy

Bonnie Henry

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.20.2006

Anniversaries ending with a zero always cause a commotion. Double the zeros and you get twice the commotion. Such is the case with Tucson High School — the first high school in the Arizona Territory — which celebrates its 100th anniversary with a series of events beginning next month. Not to take away from those double zeros, but the school — then just called "the high school" — actually goes back to the early 1880s, when it was holding forth from a two-room adobe north of town. In 1896, it was shut down so the fledgling University of Arizona could siphon off high school students into its own preparatory classes.

But by 1906, the high school was back. Student body: 45. For a time, classes were held at what is now Safford Magnet Middle School. A bond election in 1907 paved the way for high schoolers to shift to a brand-new school, name of Roskruge, that would house all grades, elementary through high school.

The high school portion was completed in 1908. And there the student body would matriculate for the next 16 years. Here would be born the school colors of red and white, a badger mascot and the legend of J.F. "Pop" McKale, who coached football, basketball and baseball and guided the football team to a state championship in 1911.

Overcrowding at Roskruge sent voters back to the polls again in 1921, where they approved a $750,000 bond issue to build a new high school.

Some 30,000 sacks of cement and a million pounds of steel went into the three-story building we all still know today as Tucson High, on the southwest corner of East Sixth Street and North Euclid Avenue. Dedication Day dawned Oct. 10, 1924, with a packed auditorium listening to the strains of the school orchestra and a host of oratorical wonders.

F.W. Boyd Allen, Class of '25, was one of the school's two male cheerleaders. He remembered train trips to Bisbee, Douglas and Phoenix to root for the team. In-town high school competition, after all, was years away. The curriculum for college entrance during Allen's senior year included English, algebra, plane geometry, history, civics, and Latin, French or Spanish. Electives ranged from millinery to salesmanship.

John Barringer, Class of '31 and leader of the school's swing band, remembered going through ROTC drills on campus with "real rifles." He also remembered the smell of cabbage occasionally wafting in from the cafeteria. No surprise, considering the cafeteria, band, gymnasium and choral rooms were all wedged into the third floor.

By early 1942, the entire school was swept into World War II. Students collected scrap metal by the ton, and millinery and salesmanship classes moved over for new offerings in preflight aeronautics and radio code. At least 141 graduates or former THS students were killed in World War II.

Meanwhile, the school continued to grow. Its annex, built in 1939, was remodeled in 1945 and again in 1951. A new cafeteria went up in '45. In 1950, the school's vocational wing was added. In 1956, Tucson High had a total enrollment of 6,800 students, claiming the title of largest high school in the country. Later that same year, 900 students, led by Principal Elbert Brooks, moved to the new Pueblo High School.

The whole exercise was repeated the following year when 2,000 students, led by Principal Rollin T. Gridley, moved to the new Catalina High School complex. In 1993, the school — now known as Tucson High Magnet School — dedicated its new $13 million building for visual and performing arts and science and technology.

Sprawled across 40 acres, the school today has close to 3,000 students.

From the THMS Web Site

Timeline compiled by Bill Baker and Rick Secrist.

1908 – Tucson High moves to what is now Roskruge Elementary/Bilingual Magnet Middle School.

1917 – The United States enters World War I.

1924 – The main building of the current Tucson High is completed.

1929 – U.S. stock market crashes.

1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes president. Prohibition is repealed.

1950 – Tucson High's vocational building is built. It contains 47 classrooms and 13 shops.

1956 – Tucson High is the largest high school in the nation. Triple sessions run from dawn to dusk.

1960 – Class of 1960 graduates.

1963 – JFK is assassinated in Dallas.

1968 – Tucson High graduate Frank Borman orbits the moon.

1981 – AIDS is identified.

1993 – Tucson High's Technological Sciences and Fine Arts Building is completed. Renovations on the old main building begin.

1999 – Tucson High School becomes the first school in the nation to achieve the following milestones in three major sports: 500 wins in football, 1,000 wins in basketball and 1,000 wins in baseball.

March 19, 2007

Here is some historical trivia submitted by Jim Sullivan: