Shinnston High School

Alumni Association, Inc.
PO Box 352
Shinnston, WV  26431
Shinnston High

Thanks to Beverly Paushel at the Lowe Public Library for providing information about the history of the school. The library has all the school’s yearbooks, except for periods during the Great Depression and World War II, when no yearbooks were published.

 

Information up to 1946 came from James Meredith Currey’s booklet, Shinnston High School: Class of 1946…Looking Back. Information for 1947 through 1978 was gleaned from the school's yearbooks.


Early History

of Clay District High School

In the early days of the 20th century, the citizens of Harrison County’s Clay District felt the need for a high school in which to educate the young men and women of the district. Under the leadership of Dr. Waitman T. Barbe of West Virginia University, a number of local residents campaigned for their cause. In the fall of 1907, the Clay District High School opened with 18 enrolled students. The school was housed within the Shinnston Grammar School on Mahlon Street.

 

The first principal was Isaac E. Ash, a graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College. John B. Wyatt, a Shinnston native and graduate of West Virginia University, was the only other teacher. Ash taught classes in his office, and Wyatt had a classroom on the first floor.

 

The first class graduated in 1910, three years after the school opened. The class had completed four years of high school work, having been tutored in freshman subjects by high school teachers from Clarksburg during the summer. The college preparatory course taught at the time included four years each of English, Latin, mathematics and history; two years of German; physics or chemistry; and several electives, especially in natural science.

 

The school’s first athletic coach was W. E. McCarty, who coached the 1912 track team to a state championship. In the first decade of the school’s history, the baseball, basketball and football teams won several Monongahela Valley High School League championships.

 

The first literary contest – between the Franklin and Shakespearean Literary Societies – was held in 1912. In the same year, the yearbook, The Courier, was published for the first time, and the first Senior Class Play was performed.

 

In the fall of 1916, the school moved into a brand new brick building on Pike Street.


The 1920s and 1930s

The school newspaper was called The Mirror during the 1920-21 school year. This was the same year that the school started the first orchestra, the first boys’ glee club and the first student council. During the 1921-22 year, the jazz band was organized, which performed during athletic events to increase school spirit. In 1923-24, a boys’ quartet was organized, which performed at several school functions, including commencement. There was no yearbook published during the 1929-30 school year, but there was a yearbook for the 1930-31 school year. During 1931-32, neither yearbook nor school newspaper was published, although the class of 1933 did print a mimeographed booklet with no pictures that they called The Depression Courier. The next yearbook printed was in 1939.


The Lowe Public Library's collection has yearbooks for Clay District High School up to 1937, and for Shinnston High School beginning with 1940, so apparently the school's name was changed sometime between 1937 and 1940.


The Spartans

During the 1938-39 school year, the school adopted a new team mascot – the Spartans - and this may be the same year the school's name was changed. Prior to this, athletic teams had been called the Wildcats, then the Tigers. The name of the school yearbook was also changed this year from The Courier to The Spartan. The school newspaper was called The Tattler. The school started its first chapter of the National Honor Society of Secondary Schools during the 1939-40 school year. This year was the first that the Letter Club selected a girl to represent the school, and the first Miss Spartan was Phyllis Mearns. The class of 1942 did not have a yearbook due to the paper shortage during World War II, but the newspaper, The Spartan Echo, did have seven issues that year.


The 1950s

1950 - The first year for a hardcover yearbook.

1951 - The alma mater was adopted, composed by Dick Jones, a 1941 graduate of SHS.

1952 - Mr. Loy Griffin started a girls' shop class in which students learned to repair electrical appliances, build small wooden articles such as table lamps, shelves and wooden beach shoes, and "flirt with their teacher."

1952 - An injured crow took up residence around the school, eating scraps from students' lunches and filching small items for its nest.

1953 - The 100th anniversary of the signing of Shinnston's charter.

1953 - The yearbook notes that the building, constructed in 1913, had changed little physically, but notes these changes:  "The shop classes which were originally on the first floor of the building have been moved below the bridge. A boardwalk that led from the dirt road to the side entrance has been replaced by cement steps and a walk. The large tennis court was the chief form of amusement for the students. The study hall which once included the library was divided in the early 1940s.

The 1960s

Several of the yearbooks in the 1960s list a timeline of important historic events that happened during that school year:

1961/62 - The year of Hurricane Carla, the Twist, the first manned orbital flight (accomplished by John Glenn), civil rights demonstrations and family fallout shelters.

1962/63 - The Space Needle and Monorail train were hallmarks of the World's Fair in Seattle. Sabin oral vaccine offered nationwide offered the promise of complete immunity from all types of polio. Live transoceanic TV transmission began as AT&T's Telstar relayed an image from the United States to Europe over a privately owned satellite. A doctors' strike in Saskatchewan, Canada against a government medical plan left hospitals all but deserted and without means of caring for patients.

1963/64 - The assassination of John F. Kennedy; Lee Harvey Oswald, his accused slayer, was shot fatally before a national TV audience. Ransomed for $240,000, Frank Sinatra Jr. returned home safely two days after being kidnapped. Pope Paul VI began his reign after the death of Pope John XXIII.

1964 - Meredith Sue Willis, award-winning author of A Space Apart, Higher Ground, Only Great Changes and 12 other titles, was the editor of the yearbook in 1964.

The 1970s

The school's final decade saw many firsts:

1970 - The first year for Phi Sparta Kappa, a spirit organization for boys.

1972 - The first year for the Stage Band, which earned excellent and superior ratings in competition. Also the first year for the Drama Club.

1973 - The first year for the Spanish Club.

1974 - The first year that a group from SHS (and possibly Harrison County) visited Paris. The following year, students traveled to Spain.

1975 - The first use of color photos in the yearbook, and the first year for girls' basketball and track teams.

1976 - The nation's bicentennial.

1978 - The final year of the school. The senior class pictures in this very special book are in color.

Alma Mater
Composer: Dick Jones, class of 1941


Hail to Shinnston High School, hail!
Honor to thy name.
Dear old Alma Mater,
You will always be the same.
From your hill you watch on high
Sons and daughters true.
Hail, oh hail our Alma Mater
Here's a toast to you.








Fight Song
Tune: Washington & Lee Swing
When Shinnston's orange and black team
       falls in line,
We're out to win a game another time,
For the dear old school we love so well.
And for the orange and black
       we'll yell and yell and yell.
And when the dear old ball goes up on high,
We're out to make a touchdown/basket
       on the side.
And for the orange and black
       we'll yell and yell, yell and yell
Fight! Fight! Fight!







Principals
1907-11............... Isaac E. Ash
1911-15................ B. F. Haught
1915-20............... A. P. Morrison
1920-21............... A. T. Stanforth
1921-22............... I. O. Ash
1922-23............... D. W. Parsons
1923-39............... Clyde R. McCarty
1939-42............... Wade O. Stalnaker
1942-46............... Kenneth E. Cubbon
1946-50............... J. Edward Powell
1950-69............... Noah B. Anderson
1970-78.............. Jerry M. Toth






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