Georgetown District High School or better known as GDHS is a

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

Georgetown, Ontario Georgetown is a large unincorporated community in the town of Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada, in the Regional Municipality of Halton. The town includes several small villages or settlements such as Norval, Limehouse, Stewarttown and Glen William ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The school is under the jurisdiction of the

Halton District School Board The Halton District School Board serves public school students throughout Halton Region, including the municipalities of Burlington, Halton Hills, Milton and Oakville. Its administration area is to the southwest of the city of Toronto. In 2006-20 ...

. As of the 2019–20 school year, approximately 1,500 students were enrolled at Georgetown District High School.

History

Georgetown District High School was first opened on January 3, 1887. At the time, there were a total of 69 students, with 2 teachers. In 2012 the school celebrated its 125th anniversary with a ceremony and town festivities. The construction of GDHS cost $12,000, and was designed by a famous Canadian architect, Edward J. Lennox

Athletics and nickname controversy

Georgetown's swimming team has consistently placed in the top 3 or won the OFSAA championships. The GDHS swim program has won 49 OFSAA titles starting in 1981. GDHS are the current OFSAA champions (2020) and have won the last twelve overall titles, setting the record for most consecutive OFSAA wins in history, in any sport.

"Rebels"

Until 1961, the school's nickname used in athletic competitions, was "the G's", until a schoolwide competition prompted by an improving football team resulted in a change to "Rebels"—a name inspired, according to the proponents, by rebellious notions current at the time, and a fancy for the movie ''

Rebel Without A Cause ''Rebel Without a Cause'' is a 1955 American coming-of-age drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Filmed in the then recently introduced CinemaScope format and directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social co ...

'' and the song "

Rebel-'Rouser "Rebel-'Rouser" is a rock and roll instrumental song written by Duane Eddy and Lee Hazlewood and originally released on Jamie Records in 1958 by "Duane Eddy and his 'twangy' guitar" as a single (Jamie 1104) with "Stalkin'" on its B-side. Both tr ...

". A logo was devised of a fox with an eye patch (and a "rebel hat"), symbolizing "the valiant underdog, the fearless fighter, the humble warrior"; the

Confederate flag The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and ...

was added later, including on athletic jerseys. Only one teacher, Lyn McLaren, protested at the time, realizing the associations prompted by the nickname and the flag. One student, in a letter to a newspaper in 2004 (after McLaren's death), recollected "events like slave day with the yearbook showing an awkward photograph of a black student as a slave. I recall the rebel flag and the overt bigotry. I recall Jewish teachers hiding their ethnicity". In the wake of the 2015

Charleston church shooting On June 17, 2015, a mass shooting occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Among those people who were killed was the senior past ...

, the association with racism and slavery was again questioned, though there had been earlier protests, including by an opposing wrestler of African descent in the 1980s; after 1992 the flag no longer appeared in the yearbook. By 2015, the flag had been removed, though the nickname stuck. The official process to change the nickname took place in the spring of 2017, and by the fall the nickname had been dropped. In 2019 the new nickname, "87s", was unveiled.

References

External links

Georgetown District High School
{{Authority control High schools in the Regional Municipality of Halton Halton Hills 1887 establishments in Ontario Educational institutions established in 1887

History

Athletics and nickname controversy

"Rebels"

See also

References

External links