B.M.C. Durfee High School is a public

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

located in the city of

Fall River, Massachusetts Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The City of Fall River's population was 94,000 at the 2020 United States Census, making it the tenth-largest city in the state. Located along the eastern shore of Mount H ...

, United States. It is a part of Fall River Public Schools and is the city's main public high school, the other being Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School.

History

In 2014 the school and Bristol Community College (BCC) were planning an agreement regarding early college classes.

Buildings

The school has been located in two buildings. From its opening in 1886 until the new building was completed in 1978 the school was located in the historic B.M.C. Durfee High School building on Rock Street, The iconic building, with its tall red-capped clock tower and red-domed observatory tower, overlooks the Taunton River and gives rise to the Fall River school district's seal, the school's athletics nickname, the Hilltoppers, their school colors of black and red (for the two roof colors), the school newspaper, the Hilltop, and their school alumni newspaper, the Chimes. For several decades prior to moving, the school also occupied the former Technical High School building across the street. Since 1978 the school has been located on Elsbree Street in the city's north end. Located in former swamp land, the school was built both to modernize the district and to alleviate the overcrowding at the former sites. The school also moved its athletic fields, which were nearby to the new school, to its new campus, as well as building the on-campus

Luke Urban Louis John "Luke" Urban (March 22, 1898 – December 7, 1980) was an American multi-sport athlete and coach. He played four seasons of professional American football in the National Football League and two years of Major League Baseball with the ...

Field House, as the school had formerly used the Fall River Armory for indoor athletics. Since 2011, there has also been a modern recreation of the Durfee clock tower located at the new site.

Athletics

Durfee's athletic teams are known as the Hilltoppers, a nod to the location of the old school building atop the Highland neighborhood hills overlooking the Taunton River, and their school colors are black and red. As of the 2018–2019 school year, their school mascot is Rocky the Hilltopper. The school fight song is sung to the tune of the

Notre Dame Victory March The Notre Dame Victory March is the fight song for the University of Notre Dame. The chorus of the song has been considered one of the most recognizable collegiate fight songs. It was ranked first among fight songs by Northern Illinois University ...

. *Fall **Boys' and Girls' Cross Country **Boys' and Girls' Soccer **

Cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

**Girls'

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

**Girls'

Volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

** Football **

Field Hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

*Winter **Boys' and Girls'

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

**Boys' and Girls' Winter Track **Boys'

Ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

Wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

*Spring **Boys' and Girls'

Outdoor Track Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping event ...

**Boys' and Girls'

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

**Boys'

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

Softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

Notable alumni

Many of the below are considered distinguished alumni of Durfee by the B.M.C. Durfee Alumni Association. *

Mark Bomback Mark Bomback (born August 29, 1971) is an American screenwriter, originally from New Rochelle, New York. Bomback is a graduate of Wesleyan University, where he studied English Literature and Film Studies. Biography In 1994, Bomback began w ...

, former

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

player ( Milwaukee Brewers,

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...

) *

James Chace James Clarke Chace (October 16, 1931 – October 8, 2004) was an American historian, writing on American diplomacy and statecraft. His 12 books include the critically acclaimed ''Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World'' ...

– (1949), historian * Warren A. Cole – (1908), founder of

Lambda Chi Alpha Lambda Chi Alpha (), commonly known as Lambda Chi, is a college fraternity in North America which was founded at Boston University in 1909. It is one of the largest social fraternities in North America, with more than 300,000 lifetime members a ...

International Fraternity *

Morton Dean Morton Dean Dubitsky (born August 22, 1935), better known as Morton Dean, is an American Broadcast journalism, television and Broadcast journalism, radio News presenter, anchor, news correspondent and author. Dean is a former weekend news anchor ...

– (1953), American television news journalist *

Margery Eagan Margery Eagan (born June 13, 1954) is a talk radio host and a frequent guest on CNN, ABC, Fox News, and the Imus in the Morning radio show. For many years she was a columnist for the '' Boston Herald''. Subjects of her commentaries include gende ...

, journalist and writer *

Edward Francis Harrington Edward Francis Harrington (born September 16, 1933) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Early life Harrington was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. He graduated from S ...

– (1951), United States federal judge * Tom Gastall – (1951), former

player (

Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter ...

) *

Russ Gibson John Russell Gibson (May 6, 1939 – July 27, 2008) was an American professional baseball catcher who played for the Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1967 and 1972. Listed at and , he batted and threw ...

, former

player (

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Y ...

) * Brandon Gomes, former

player (

Tampa Bay Rays The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since its inception, the team's home v ...

) *

Chris Herren Christopher Albert Herren (born September 27, 1975) is an American former professional basketball player and motivational speaker. He played in the NBA and several leagues overseas. Youth and high school Herren attended B.M.C. Durfee High S ...

– (1994), former NBA player for the Denver Nuggets, Boston Celtics *

Sam Hyde Samuel Whitcomb Hyde (born April 16, 1985) is an American comedian. He co-created the sketch comedy group Million Dollar Extreme (MDE) with Charls Carroll and Nick Rochefort. Hyde is known for his involvement in several public pranks and int ...

, comedian, co-creator of sketch comedy group Million Dollar Extreme, and actor and writer of Adult Swim's Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace * Brig. Gen. John J. Liset, USAF – (1938), chief of the USAF Section of the Joint Brazil-United States Military Commission, and chief of the Air Force Section, Military Assistance Advisory Group in Brazil *

James M. McGuire James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

– (1931), Supreme Court Justice of the State of New York *

Ernest Moniz Ernest Jeffrey Moniz, GCIH (; born December 22, 1944) is an American nuclear physicist and former government official. From May 2013 to January 2017, he served as the 13th United States secretary of Energy in the Obama Administration. Prior to ...

– (1962),

United States Secretary of Energy The United States secretary of energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was created on October 1, 1977, when Pr ...

under

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

Humberto Sousa Medeiros Humberto Sousa Medeiros, GCIH (October 6, 1915 – September 17, 1983) was a Portuguese-American clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Boston from 1970 until his death in 1983, and was created a cardinal in 1973 ...

– (1937), cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church; former

archbishop of Boston The Archdiocese of Boston ( la, Archidiœcesis Bostoniensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the New England region of the United States. Its territorial remit encompasses the whole of ...

* John Moriarty – (1948), vocal coach and accompanist and a conductor and stage director of productions at opera companies throughout America * Beatrice Hancock Mullaney – (1923), first female judge of the Massachusetts Probate Court * Jerome Namias – (1928), prominent American meteorologist; former Chief of the Extended Forecast Division of the

National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the ...

and was involved in the research of both the

Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) a ...

and

El Niño El Niño (; ; ) is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date ...

phenomena * William J. Porter – (1930), American diplomat; former ambassador to Canada, Saudi Arabia, and others * Joseph Raposo – (1958), musician and lyricist for Sesame Street * William K. Reilly – (1958), former administrator of the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it ...

and current director of DuPont * Andrew Sousa, former

MLS Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

Player (

New England Revolution The New England Revolution is an American professional soccer club based in the Greater Boston area that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), in the Eastern Conference of the league. It is one of the ten charter clubs of MLS, having compe ...

) * James M. Swift – (18??), first head football coach at Michigan State Normal School (now Eastern Michigan University) *

, former

player ( Boston Braves) * Gen. Melvin Zais, US Army – (1933), decorated

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

generalGeneral Melvin Zais's Biography

Sources

External links

Durfee High Website

Fall River Schools

Durfee Alumni
{{DEFAULTSORT:B.M.C. Durfee High School Schools in Bristol County, Massachusetts Public high schools in Massachusetts 1887 establishments in Massachusetts Educational institutions established in 1887

History

Buildings

Athletics

Notable alumni

See also

Sources

External links