Fair Park Middle School is a former

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 at 3222 Greenwood Road in

Shreveport Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population o ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, U.S. The school was originally named Fair Park High School when it opened in 1928, and it was the second high school in the city. C.E. Byrd High School had opened three years earlier in 1925. The institution was also previously named Fair Park College Preparatory High School or Fair Park College Prep Academy, and additionally had been named Fair Park Medical Careers Magnet High School. Trading paw and adds for portal

History

The school was built during the local

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

-driven boom of the late 1920s. The population of Shreveport increased nearly five-fold increase from 1900 to 1930; this created chronic school overcrowding. Fair Park has a three-story main section built of red brick trimmed with limestone. A wing was added in 1931. The entrance features a large pediment resting on colossal

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s. The building was originally crowned by a three-stage tower, however, the third stage and most of the second were replaced with a small dome-like top in the 1980s. Otherwise, though the building has been further expanded, the bricks sandblasted, and the windows replaced, it would be easily recognizable to its earliest students. With . From the middle 1950s until 1967, the

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

Hubert D. Humphreys taught at Fair Park. Fair Park High School was listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2001. In January 2017, Fair Park suddenly changed its principal after six consecutive years of "failed" ratings and continuing disciplinary problems. Three other high schools under the operation of the

Caddo Parish School Board Caddo Public Schools is a school district based in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States. The district serves all of Caddo Parish. History In 1965, the board was sued by Shreveport pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is th ...

are also rated "failed". Reports persisted that the school would close or be downgraded to a middle school. Booker T. Washington carries a "C" academic rating by the Louisiana Department of Education. Fair Park was rated "D" in its final year as a high school, improving from an "F." Meanwhile, Earnestine Coleman of the Fair Park Parent, Teacher, Student Association, said that she and fifteen others plan a

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

suit A suit, lounge suit, or business suit is a set of clothes comprising a suit jacket and trousers of identical textiles worn with a collared dress shirt, necktie, and dress shoes. A skirt suit is similar, but with a matching skirt instead of tr ...

under the

Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...

against the school board in a bid to halt the merger. Nevertheless, the merger proceeded, and Fair Park became officially a middle school in August 2017. Pupils from Lakeshore Middle School were transferred to Fair Park. Ten schools were converted to K-5 status. In an eight-to-four decision, the

voted in 2017 to merge Fair Park, with seven hundred pupils, with the

historically black Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. ...

Booker T. Washington High School. The combined thousand students will attend the Washington campus, with Fair Park becoming a

middle school A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

. In standing room only, citizens aired their views to board members on the feasibility of the merger. The board majority claims the merger would save public funds through the combining of resources.

Athletics

Championships

LHSAA Football championships *(1) State Championship: 1952

Coaches

Homer Prendergast Finis Homer "Boosky" Prendergast, Jr. (April 20, 1893 – June 3, 1975) was a college football player and high school football coach. Playing career Auburn University Prendergast was a prominent running back for Mike Donahue's Auburn Tigers f ...

, twenty-three years as head football coach and had a 154–78–13 (.655) record.''Jerry Byrd's Football Country'' (1981), pp. 103–106, 154–157 * A. L. Williams, head football coach

Notable alumni

* Tim Brando (Class of 1974)

CBS Sports CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W 5 ...

announcer * Roy L. Brun (Class of 1971), state district court judge and former member of the

Louisiana House of Representatives The Louisiana House of Representatives (french: link=no, Chambre des Représentants de Louisiane) is the lower house in the Louisiana State Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. This chamber is composed of 105 repr ...

* C.L. Bryant (Class of 1974), African-American Baptist minister and

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show ...

host on

KEEL The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

; a Shreveport native * Cecil K. Carter, Jr. (1929-1987), member of the

Louisiana State Senate The Louisiana State Senate (french: Sénat de Louisiane) is the upper house of the state legislature of Louisiana. All senators serve four-year terms and are assigned to multiple committees. Composition The Louisiana State Senate is compose ...

from 1972 to 1976 *

Morris Claiborne Morris Lee Claiborne (born February 7, 1990) is a former American football cornerback. He played college football at Louisiana State University (LSU), where he won the Jim Thorpe Award as the best defensive back in the country and was unanimous ...

(Class of 2009)

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisi ...

cornerback *

Wendell Davis Wendell Tyrone Davis (born January 3, 1966) is a former professional American football wide receiver who played for the Chicago Bears for six seasons from 1988 to 1993. He was selected by the Bears in the 1st round (27th overall) in the 1988 N ...

(Class of 1984),

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

athletics 1984-1987; consensus and SEC All American 1987,

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...

1988-1993 and

Indianapolis Colts The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) South division. Since the 2008 ...

1995 football wide receiver * Rick Edmonds (Class of 1974), member of the

for

East Baton Rouge Parish East Baton Rouge Parish (french: Paroisse de Bâton Rouge Est) is the most populous parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2010 U.S. census, its population was 440,171, and 456,781 at the 2020 census. The parish seat is Baton Rouge, ...

Lee Hedges Junior Lee Hedges (born November 2, 1929) is, with 217 victories, the winningest high school football coach in the history of Shreveport-Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana. In 2001, the Caddo Parish School Board renamed the football stadium ...

, American football coach * Pat Tilley (Class of 1971),

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals hav ...

football player, 1975-1986; leader of the

Fellowship of Christian Athletes The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) is an international non-profit Christian sports ministry founded in 1954 and based in Kansas City, Missouri. It has staff offices located throughout the United States and abroad. History FCA was found ...

* Tome H. Walters Jr. (Class of 1965), Lieutenant General,

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

, 1970-2004 * A. L. Williams (Class of 1953), Fair Park and Woodlawn high school football coach; Northwestern State University and Louisiana Tech football coach *

Faron Young Faron Young (February 25, 1932 – December 10, 1996) was an American country music producer, musician, and songwriter from the early 1950s into the mid-1980s. Hits including "If You Ain't Lovin' (You Ain't Livin')" and " Live Fast, Love Hard, D ...

(Class of 1951, 1932-1996), American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer and songwriter from the early 1950s through the mid-1970s. *

Hollis Conway Hollis Conway (born January 8, 1967) is a track and field high jumper and a two-time Summer Olympics, Olympic medalist. He is currently employed by Lafayette Consolidated Government as the PARC Director in Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory' ...

(Class of 1985) Olympian High Jumper Olympics 1988 Silver, 1992 Bronze * Robert Rochell (Class of 2016)

Los Angeles Rams The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The Rams play ...

cornerback

References

External links

Caddo Parish
public schools list {{authority control Public high schools in Louisiana Educational institutions established in 1928 Shreveport – Bossier City metropolitan area Schools in Caddo Parish, Louisiana High schools in Shreveport, Louisiana Magnet schools in Louisiana School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Louisiana Neoclassical architecture in Louisiana National Register of Historic Places in Caddo Parish, Louisiana 1928 establishments in Louisiana