Highland Middle School (Louisville, Kentucky)

Coordinates: 38°13′24″N 85°42′21″W / 38.22340°N 85.70580°W / 38.22340; -85.70580

Highland Middle School teaches grades 6-8, in the Highlands section of Louisville, Kentucky, for which it is named. It is in the Deer Park neighborhood and adjacent to Bellarmine University. Highland is part of Jefferson County Public Schools, the largest school district in Kentucky.

Programs

From 1989^[1] onward, Highland has offered a magnet program in international studies, initially with the assistance of a Federal grant. Highland also offered a Spanish immersion program in the mid-1990s.^[2]

History

Highland was founded in February 1928^[3] and has operated continually on the same location. Jackie Robinson spoke at the school in 1955.^[4]

The three-story building faces Norris Place to the east and Richmond Drive to the south. To the north is a two block long field used for recreation. A driveway on the school grounds runs on the edge of the field between it and Norris Place, which is used for parking and school bus staging purposes. The drive was enlarged and first paved in 1933, replacing an earlier cinder path that proved useless after rains.^[5]

The initial building was intended for 500 students, and by the 1960s the building had become overcrowded and dilapidated. In 1964 a new wing was built, adding 9 classrooms, an expanded library, a kitchen, two shops and a teachers lounge as well as a new entrance.^[6] In 1996 a $1.5 million, 9,200-square-foot (850 m²) addition fronting Richmond Drive was completed.^[7] The wing contains a science lab, band room, chorus room and classrooms.^[4]

A newspaper, the Highland Echo (no longer running), published its first edition in November 1937.^[8]

The school has a fight song set to the tune of the Washington and Lee Swing. It was long forgotten until 1990 when an alumnus sponsored a contest for the students to learn the lyrics, which had to be updated by the school's chorus teacher, as the school's name had changed from Highland Junior High since the last time the song had been sung.^[9]

Media

Highland Middle School hosted a scene in the movie Elizabethtown (film) (2005) (starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst), as Elizabethtown High School in which Drew (Orlando Bloom) spoke to his mother on his cell phone in the middle of a grass field, with kids playing in the background.

Notable alumni

• Fred Cowan, Kentucky Attorney General^[4]
• Benjamin M. Friedman, economist^[4]
• Hunter S. Thompson, writer^[4]

Principals

• Thomas Aberli (2016–present)^[10]
• Steven Heckman (2004–2016)^[11]
• Holly Nolan (1997–2004)^[12]
• Robert Knight (1991–1997)^[13]
• Ron Crutcher (?–1991)
• Terry Brooks (early–mid 1980s)
• Robert Sanders (1947–1961)
• Samuel Noe (1946–1947)^[4]
• Eva T. Mason (1928–1946)^[4]

See also

• Public schools in Louisville, Kentucky

References