Marshall College High School

Marshall College High School, also known as the Jenkins Laboratory School, was a high school in Huntington, West Virginia. It was a division of Marshall University, then still known as Marshall College. The school was established in 1932, and moved into a permanent facility in what is now Jenkins Hall on the Marshall campus in 1938. The ostensible purpose was that the school was a demonstration or laboratory where teacher education majors could do "student teaching" and new education theories could be practiced. However, another purpose of the school was that the college found recruiting professors difficult as those with children were unwilling to send them to the public schools of that era. Such college affiliated schools were not uncommon in the south and midwest of that era. West Virginia University operated a similar venture which later became University High School.

The school mostly drew students from among the children of professors and the wealthy of the Huntington community. The school fielded teams in various sports, using Marshall's facilities, mascot, and school colors, and competed against both public and private schools. As the quality of the public schools improved, the need for the school was diminished and the university closed it in 1970, and repurposed Jenkins Hall into the general university.

The school maintains an active alumni group which erected a memorial to its students killed in World War II in front of Jenkins Hall.


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