Cary High School
Cary High School is one of six public high schools in Cary, North Carolina, and is part of the Wake County Public School System. In 1907, Cary High School became the first state-funded public high school in North Carolina. It was selected as a Blue Ribbon School in 2002.
History
Original campus
Cary High School opened in 1896 as a private boarding school. It was established to provide "a higher course of instruction" than could be found in the local one-room schools of the area. It was located in the old Cary Academy at the head of Academy Street. Its first class graduated in May 1897. The school's first principal was Edwin Lee Middleton.In 1907, the North Carolina legislature approved a state-wide public education system. Eight days later on April 3, 1907, the board of directors of Cary High School sold it to the Wake County Board of Education for $2,750—its estimated value at the time was more than $8,000. Half of the purchase price was paid for by the State under the new legislation. Thus, Cary High School is the first county high school in North Carolina, the first state-funded high school in North Carolina, and the first high school in the state system. The school was managed by the Cary School Committee under the leadership of C. W. Scott, chair.
The State Legislature approved the establishment of a Cary School District and authorized a school tax for residents of the area. The Cary School Committee could charge up to 30¢ in school taxes for every $100 of real estate owned in the district. The citizens approved the tax in a referendum held on May 7, 1907. The outcome of the referendum was 100 in favor of the school tax and two against it. Those who lived outside the Cary School District could attend the high school for $14 a term for freshmen and sophomores and $16 a term for juniors and seniors.
Middleton remained as the school's principal during the transition, retiring in 1908. His replacement was superintendent Marcus Baxter Dry. The curriculum consisted of one year of French, three years of science, and four years of English, history, Latin, and mathematics. The latter included arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. Domestic science was added for female students in 1910. Students could add art, elocution, music, or piano to their studies for an added fee.
In the fall of 1912, 119 students enrolled in the high school. This number included eighty boarding students from other counties. The curriculum expanded to include agriculture, botany, and chemistry as science options. That year, the Girls Athletic Club was formed so that female students could play tennis and basketball.
By 1913, the student body had outgrown the campus. Dry asked the citizens of the school district to increase the school tax so that the school could have a new building with a modern heating system. In May 1913, the voters approved $25,000 in bonds for a new 33-room brick building to be placed on the site of the original wood frame building. The State contributed an additional $5,000 to construct what was considered "the best high school building in the state". Dry recalled, "It can truly be said that this building led the way for better high school buildings in North Carolina. Many delegations of school people from all over the State came to Cary to see this building, and many a building in the next few years was modeled after it."
In 1914, the school changed its name to Cary Public High School and Farm Life School to reflect an expanded curriculum that included vocational agriculture and home economics. The next year, fifteen acres on what is now Walnut Street were donated by James M. Templeton Jr. for hands-on learning in farming. An additional $1,500 was donated by others and the Town of Cary to add a barn, farmhouse, dairy cows, and other stock to the model farm. Students enrolled in the agricultural program would arrive early to milk the cows; the milk was then served with breakfast at the school for boarding students.
In 1915, the Chsite yearbook premiered. In 1919, students organized a student council, a general athletic association, and The Echo campus newspaper. In 1921, a marching band was formed, and school colors of olive green and white were selected, along with the white rose as the school flower. The school motto was "service".
Also in 1920, Cary voters approve $45,000 in bonds for a new farm life department building. The result was Walter Hines Page Vocational Education Building which was completed in 1922. The next year, a State Normal Class for Teachers was started at Cary High School; this was one of four sites for this program in the state and it operated for five years. By 1924, students could receive either an academic, agriculture, home economics or teacher training diploma.
A new gymnasium, the James M. Templeton Physical Education Building, was added to the campus in 1925 at the cost of $12,000. The gym seated 500 people and allowed students to play basketball on a wooden court, rather than on dirt. By 1926, campus athletics included five organized sports—baseball, basketball, football, tennis, and track. Student clubs included the Boys Glee Club, the Dramatic Club, the Girls Glee Club, the Home Economics Club, four literary societies, and the Science Cub.
In 1926, the school acquired its first bus which traveled 24 miles a day for 22 students. Realizing the potential benefit of buses, the Wake County Board of Education expanded the Cary School District from the Raleigh City limits near the State Fairgrounds to the Durham County line in 1927. Busing allowed the county to consolidate schools in Morrisville, Reedy Creek, and Sorrell's Grove with Cary, closing the smaller locations. At the same time, the Board of Education allocated $38,000 to construct a new building for the Cary High School campus, and an additional $12,000 to update heating systems. The school also had a library with 1,970 volumes.
When the Great Depression hit Cary, property values dropped which reduced the school tax income. The Board of Education closed Mount Herman and Ebenezer schools, sending those students to Cary. The State legislature increased its funding which helped offset the loss of tax revenue, and eventually ended the local school tax altogether in 1933. However, there were still campus budget cuts such as no new books for the library and ceasing publication of the Chsite yearbook. The dormitories were also closed, ending the school's era of being a boarding school. At this time, grades 1 through 11 were taught at Cary High School under a consolidated school program. WPA funding allowed the school to expand its athletic fields by five acres. The community combined WPA funding, county funding, and local support to build what was then one of the finest football stadiums in North Carolina, with seating for 1,500 people.
The success of the football field project led to the collaborative funding of a new central school building, with the Board of Education providing $70,000 and the WPA providing the balance of the $132,000 cost of construction. The dedication stone of the new building read:
Cary High School
First State Public High School
Established in North Carolina on April 3, 1907
This building was erected in 1938.
However, the building was mostly constructed in 1939. The new three-story building included many modern features, such as a cafeteria, fire doors, a first aid room, an intercom system, a movie projector, a sound-proof typing room, and an auditorium with 834 seats. At the dedication ceremony on March 4, 1940, Governor Clyde Hoey said Cary was "a beacon of hope and inspiration to other communities of the State". The News and Observer wrote, "Cary High School and its predecessor, Cary Academy, has occupied a position of leadership in the field of secondary education, not only in Wake County but in the State as a whole for 75 years."
In 1941, Cary had the largest high school in Wake County, with 460 students. The next year, Dry retired after 34 years as principal. However, he then began teaching algebra in summer school. Thaddeus N. Frye became the new principal or superintendent. That same year, Wake County added the 12th grade to its curriculum, and the school year was extended from eight to nine months in 1943.
In 1956, Cary High School was the first school in Wake County to be accredited by the Southern Association of Secondary Schools. The next year, the Wake County Board of Commissioners purchased forty acres of land for $30,000 from Luther M. Maynard as a site for a new Cary High School. In 1958, 150 residents debate the proposed location with the Wake County Board of Education; while many liked the new site, others thought the property which was one mile from downtown was too far out in the country and lacked good road access.
However, plans went forward with construction at the new campus. The last graduating class to attend their senior year at the original campus was the Class of 1960; it was also the first class to have more than 100 graduating members. The original campus became Cary Junior High and Elementary School, then Cary Elementary School. On August 13, 2011, it opened as the Cary Arts Center.
Current campus
The new campus of Cary Senior High School opened on September 7, 1960, with new principal Samuel Arbes. The campus was filled to capacity when it opened with 573 students comprising the sophomore, junior, and senior classes. The campus consisted of three classrooms buildings, a gymnasium, a library, an auditorium, a cafeteria, and a shop building. Its architect was William A. Deitrick and the builder was J. M. Thompson Construction Company of Raleigh. The construction cost $771,251, with an additional $38,000 for design fees. By 1962, it was estimated that the high school needed ten more classrooms. The resulting building expansion allowed the student body to also include freshmen, starting in 1963. At this time, the school's name reverted to Cary High School.Also in 1963, the Wake County Board of Education approved the voluntary transfer of six students from the all-black Berry O'Kelly School to Cary High School under the "freedom of choice" policy adopted by the board following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on segregation. Cary the first school to be desegregated in Wake County outside of Raleigh. Board of Education member Ferd Davis recalled that Cary was specifically selected for integration because it was an area that was already rapidly changing and "would accept something new more readily". Some white parents sued the school system over the integration, and the suit was thrown out by the North Carolina Supreme Court.
These transfer students were seniors, Lucille Evans and Frances Louise White, juniors Gwendolyn Matthews and Brenda Lee Hill, sophomore Ester Lee Mayo, and freshman Phyllis Rose. These six African-American girls, chosen to be bright, outgoing, and "strong-willed enough to take what was inevitably coming to them", came to the school amid intense verbal opposition from whites. When the students arrived on campus, they were greeted by student protesters. Matthews recalls, "My parents…said it would get better, and it did. The demonstrations went on for ten days with fewer students participating each day. They were never more than fifty…and that's not many at a school the size of Cary". Evans and White graduated in 1964. That fall, Gregory Crowe became the first African American male student at Cary High School. In 1967, the Board of Education decided to integrate Cary High School by making the former black high school the 9th grade Junior High for all races, and transferring all black sophomores, juniors and seniors to what was again called Cary Senior High School. Under the scheme, the senior high school had 764 whites and 112 blacks, or a minority rate of 12.8%.
By 1972, the school was again overcrowded, resorting to the use of two mobile classrooms or trailers. When the school opened in the fall of 1973, there were more than 1,500 students, requiring the use of eight classroom trailers. In 1973, a county-wide bond referendum gave $700,000 to expand Cary High School. Construction began in May 1974 on an eight-classroom building to house foreign languages, a library expansion, an auto mechanics shop, a stadium field house, and a new lobby and expanded offices for Building A.
In 1989, a 4.5 million dollar school construction project brought more improvements to the school, such as the addition of Building 10 which included a new air-conditioned media center. This allowed freshmen to return to campus for the first time since the mid-1960s. However, in 1995 the school had some 1,800 students in a space designed for some 1,455 students. In 1996, there was a $3.44 million bond approved for school improvements, including a new classroom and administrative space, Building A renovations for the performing arts department, a career center, and computer labs—expanding the school's capacity to 1,585 students. Work also began on a new main entrance at the front of the school.
In 2004, plans by the architectural firm of Clark Nexsen were approved to renovate and expand campus facilities, including the construction of a new auditorium, gymnasium, music classrooms, and a new classroom building. Construction was completed by J. M. Thompson of Cary and the new three-story classroom building was opened in August 2008. As part of this project, the existing auditorium, band room, Building E, Building F and part of Building B were demolished. In total, 78,063 square feet were demolished, with 135,839 square feet being added, and 26,831 square feet being renovated.
In 2012, Clark Nexsen designed a master plan for Phase III of campus updates, including a dining addition and a 100,000-square-foot classroom. The project will be started when funding is in place.