Founded in 1950, Louisville Eastern High School is located off Old Shelbyville Road in

Middletown, Kentucky Middletown is an independent, home rule-class city in Jefferson County, Kentucky, United States, and a former neighborhood of Louisville. The population was 7,218 at the 2010 census. The city is also home to the main campus of the largest ch ...

, United States, a city within the merged government of

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

, KY. With an enrollment of over 2,000 students, this school has been the pilot for education partnerships with companies such as IBM, Dell,

CompTIA The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is an American non-profit trade association that issues professional certifications for the information technology (IT) industry. It is considered one of the IT industry's top trade associ ...

, Adobe, and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

History

Eastern opened in 1950 on its present site in Middletown. The library was later added to the front of the school, giving the building a layout in the shape of the letter "E". The school has been part of the Jefferson County school system since before the county system aborted the old

city school system. The school was co-educational from its start and was integrated long before busing was ordered in Jefferson County. In 2009, James A. Sexton, principal at Eastern for 20 years, retired. His place was taken by Lana Kaelin.

Academics

Eastern has been repeatedly ranked in the top 1,300 high schools in the United States by ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

''.http://www.newsweek.com/id/39380/? It has produced numerous National Merit finalists including Airforce Cpt. R. Scott Kiser in 1989. s=Louisville

Athletics

Eastern offers varsity and junior varsity teams in

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

, cross country, field hockey,

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

, golf, ice hockey, rifle, cardboard sword fighting,

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

, ping pong, softball, soccer, swimming, track and field, tennis, colorguard/winterguard, marching band, volleyball and wrestling.

Special classes

Eastern is the only school within the Jefferson County Public Schools to offer ballroom dancing classes,

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

as a language course, and has 36 different technology classes.

Notable alumni

* Ned Beatty, class of 1955, award-winning character actor * John Cowan, musician, currently a member of the Doobie Brothers *

Chris Dowe Chris Dowe (born August 26, 1991) is an American professional basketball player for Dinamo Sassari of the Italian LBA. He played college basketball for Bellarmine University before playing professionally in Portugal, France, Belgium and Israel. S ...

(born 1991), professional basketball player for

Maccabi Haifa Maccabi Haifa ( he, מכבי חיפה) is one of the biggest sports clubs in Israel and a part of the Maccabi association. It runs several sports clubs and teams in Haifa which have competed in a variety of sports over the years, such as Football ...

Hugh Durham Hugh Nelson Durham (born October 26, 1937) is a retired American basketball coach. He was head coach at Florida State, Georgia, and Jacksonville. He is the only head coach to have led two different programs to their first Final Four appearances. ...

, class of 1955, former head basketball coach at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

Ashley Eicher Ashley Eicher is a host, producer, podcaster and storyteller. She is the host of ''Guest List Radio with Ashley Eicher'' on Apple Music. She is the co-host and co-founder of the ''All Our Favorite People Podcast with Ashley Eicher and Hunter Kel ...

, class of 1998, 2004

Miss Tennessee The Miss Tennessee competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Tennessee in the Miss America Scholarship Competition. Lauren Dickson of Parsons was crowned Miss Tennessee 2022 on June 25, 2022 at the Cannon Cente ...

* Colin Holba, class of 2012, NFL long snapper * Carroll Hubbard, class of 1955, former member of the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

* Nate Morris, Founder and CEO of

Rubicon Technologies Nathaniel Ryan Morris (born October 16, 1980) is an American businessman. He is the founder of Lexington, Kentucky-based recycling company Morris Industries. He also founded the software company Rubicon Technologies, where he formerly served as CE ...

* Myron Pryor, class of 2004, football player for the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...

and New England Patriots *

Rajon Rondo Rajon Pierre Rondo (, born February 22, 1986) is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A point guard, Rondo played two years of college basketball for ...

, professional basketball player *

Felton Spencer Felton LaFrance Spencer (January 5, 1968 – March 12, 2023) was an American professional basketball player who was a center for the Minnesota Timberwolves, Utah Jazz, Orlando Magic, Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, and New York Knic ...

, class of 1986, former NBA basketball player for the

Minnesota Timberwolves The Minnesota Timberwolves are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis. The Timberwolves compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. Founded in 19 ...

Utah Jazz The Utah Jazz are an American professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City. The Jazz compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference, Northwest Division (NBA), ...

, Orlando Magic and

San Antonio Spurs The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division. The team plays its home ...

; 6th overall pick in the 1990 NBA draft * William S. Wallace, class of 1965, four-star general in the

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 ...

, commanded all U.S. forces during the

2003 invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

* Todd Wellemeyer, class of 1997,

Major League Baseball 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

References

External links

* {{authority control Jefferson County Public Schools (Kentucky) Public high schools in Kentucky Magnet schools in Kentucky Middletown, Kentucky Educational institutions established in 1950 1950 establishments in Kentucky High schools in Louisville, Kentucky