Mechanicsville High School (formerly Lee-Davis High School) is a public high school located in

Mechanicsville, Virginia Mechanicsville is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Hanover County, Virginia, United States. The population was 36,348 during the 2010 census, up from 30,464 at the 2000 census. History The area was settled by English ...

, United States. It serves students in grades 9 through 12 and is part of

Hanover County Public Schools Hanover County Public Schools is a school division headquartered in Ashland, Virginia. It serves approximately 17,000 students across 26 schools in Hanover County, including 15 elementary, four middle, and four high schools, one trade and technol ...

History

Mechanicsville High School opened in 1959 under the name Lee-Davis High School and received students from the consolidation of Battlefield Park and Washington-Henry High Schools. After the new high school opened, both Battlefield Park and Washington-Henry became elementary schools. Lee-Davis opened in the midst of

Massive Resistance Massive resistance was a strategy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia and his brother-in-law James M. Thomson, who represented Alexandria in the Virginia General Assembly, to get the state's white politicians to pass laws and p ...

, as the State of Virginia opposed desegregation of its public schools, despite the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregat ...

. After opening as an all-white school, Lee-Davis admitted a small number of Black students in 1963, but did not fully integrate until the 1969–1970 school year, after all legal avenues resisting full integration were exhausted.

Naming controversy

The Hanover County School Board named the school “in the memory and honor of two prominent members of the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee and

Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...

.” The two men were featured in the school's logo. The school's name and mascot were contested since the school was fully integrated in 1969–70. That year, the Hanover chapter of the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

appealed to the school board, on behalf of Black athletes, to remove the Confederate moniker from athletic teams because Black athletes didn't want to play as "Confederates." After a poll was taken of the Lee Davis student body, and it found overwhelming approval of the names, the principal decided to keep the name. In Fall 2018, shortly after the Charlottesville riots, a group of alumni, students, and local residents appealed to the School Board to change the name of Lee-Davis and its feeder school, Stonewall Jackson Middle School. Following a survey, the School Board voted in April to keep the names. In August 2019, the Hanover County NAACP sued the Hanover County School Board in Federal Court on constitutional grounds. The suit was dismissed by a federal judge in May 2020. In June 2020, the Hanover County NAACP said that it would appeal the ruling. After the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's n ...

in May 2020, another local movement to change the name of LDHS arose. On July 14, 2020, the Hanover County School Board voted to rename both Lee-Davis and Stonewall Jackson in a 4–3 vote. In mid-October, after considering other names such as Twin Rivers High School, the county and its residents agreed on the badge of Mechanicsville High School.

Athletics

The varsity 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 tea ...

Team were the

Virginia High School League The Virginia High School League (VHSL) is the principal sanctioning organization for interscholastic athletic competition among public high schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The VHSL first sponsored debate and also continues to sponsor sta ...

group AAA state champions in both 1997 and 2001. The girls

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 ...

team won the 2011 state championship. Mechanicsville is a nationally recognized

Blue Ribbon School The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program is a United States Department of Education award program that recognizes exemplary public and non-public schools on a yearly basis. Using standards of excellence evidenced by student achievement measures, ...

. In 2014 and 2015 the boys track team won back to back outdoor 5A state championships.

Performing arts

Mechanicsville has two competitive

show choirs A show choir (originally known as a "swing choir") is a musical ensemble that combines choral singing with choreographed dance, often with an overarching theme. It is most relevant in the Midwestern United States and was popularized by the America ...

, the mixed-gender Madz and the women's-only New Horizons. Together with Hanover High School, Mechanicsville hosts a competition every year.

Notable alumni

* Joe Douglas '94 - General Manager of the

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...

. *

Gordy Haab Gordy Haab (born 1976) is an American film, video game and television composer based in Los Angeles, California. His work has been featured in works associated with franchises including most recently ''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017 video game) ...

- Film, Television and Video Game Composer *

Ryan McDougle Ryan Todd McDougle (born November 9, 1971) is an American politician. A Republican, he served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2002 until 2006. He was elected to the Senate of Virginia. Since 2006, he has represented the 4th district, rep ...

- Virginia General Assembly Senator *

Jason Mraz Jason Thomas Mraz (; born June 23, 1977) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He rose to prominence with the release of his debut studio album, ''Waiting for My Rocket to Come'' (2002), which spawned the single " The Remedy (I Won't ...

'95 - singer/songwriterJoan Tupponce
"Jason Mraz,"
''Richmond Magazine'', March 24, 2010. *

Latrell Scott Latrell Scott (born July 17, 1975) is an American football coach who is currently the running backs coach at Maryland Terrapins football, Maryland. He was previously the head football coach of Norfolk State University, a position he held from 201 ...

– current head coach of Norfolk State University and former head coach of Virginia State University football and former head coach of the

Richmond Spiders football Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

teamSpiders to name HU graduate Scott as football coach
''Daily Press''. Retrieved on December 15, 2009.

References

External links

*
Hanover County Public Schools website
{{authority control Educational institutions established in 1959 Public high schools in Virginia International Baccalaureate schools in Virginia Schools in Hanover County, Virginia 1959 establishments in Virginia Name changes due to the George Floyd protests