Mishawaka High School is a

public high school State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...

located in

Mishawaka Mishawaka is a city on the St. Joseph River, in Penn Township, St. Joseph County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 51,063 as of the 2020 census. Its nickname is "the Princess City". Mishawaka is a principal city of the South Be ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

. The school educates students in grades 9–12 and is part of the

School City of Mishawaka School City of Mishawaka is a public school district, headquartered in Mishawaka, Indiana. The district includes the central part of the city. History In 1991 the district began educating children under the care of the Family & Children's Cent ...

History

The first Mishawaka High School was proposed by the Mishawaka Town Board in May, 1873. It was a three-story building located on the corner of Hill Street and West Second Street (now Lincoln Way West) on the site of the Main Junior High School playground at 301 Lincoln Way West. On the third floor was Whitson Hall, used only for entertainment and graduation exercises. Five rooms on the second, including two grade rooms and three other rooms, were used for high school. On the first floor, there were five other class rooms. The first school board consisted of W. W. Butterworth and J. Q. C. VanDenbosh. David Zook was the first principal and E. L. Hallock, the superintendent. The school had only six teachers, two of whom were students in attendance. The first class graduated in 1878. The present Mishawaka High School was built by the Mishawaka Board of Education in 1924. It is a three story building on Lincoln Way East between Wenger and Gernhart Streets covering four square blocks including the track and football field. The auditorium and cafeteria were built after the main part of the high school was occupied. The auditorium was finished in 1925, just in time for the seniors to present their play, and the cafeteria was completed only a few weeks before the summer vacation. The original gym was remodeled in 1959 to accommodate two full-sized gymnasium floors and provide a total seating capacity of 4,000. An additional wing was added in 1963 providing nine classrooms, a reading laboratory, a foreign language laboratory, a music room, and a study hall. The grounds were carefully planned by landscape gardeners before the building was built. The present shrubbery in the foreground of the building was a joint effort in graduating classes and the student council contributions. The gold letters, Mishawaka High School, were put on the front of the building in 1931. The building and equipping of Mishawaka High School originally cost $800,000. The gym was remodeled in 1959 at a cost of approximately $600,000. The classroom wing built in 1963 cost $650,000 to construct and equip. The building and equipping of the stadium completed in 1939, cost approximately $130,000. The Board of Control provided approximately $55,000. toward in its construction and equipment. The Baldwin electric organ in the auditorium was given to the school in 1950 by the Lion’s Club of Mishawaka, in memory of Mr. W. W. French. The entire school was rewired and fluorescent lighting added in 1953–1954 at a cost of $125,000. A four-year renovation project (1976–1980) has resulted in an extensive modernization of the indoor and outdoor facilities of the high school. Major areas of improvement included the auditorium, the cafeteria, the gymnasium, the library, the administrative offices, the industrial education wing, the hallways, the classrooms, and the stadium. The total cost of the project was just under four million dollars. In 1984, another phase of the Mishawaka High School remodeling and expansion was completed. Newly constructed and located between the cafeteria and the Industrial Education Department is a two-story addition that houses the Music Department on the first floor and classrooms on the second. The kitchen and cafeteria facilities were expanded. In January, 1988, a new gym/pool complex was completed. Included in this facility are a wrestling room, a weight room, an all purpose room, and a 1/10 mile running track. In fall of 1999 the science and technology wing was completed along with a new television studio., The new addition features eleven brand new science labs equipped with all the amenities necessary for conducting science class in the year 2000 and beyond. The industrial technology portion of the facility houses a manufacturing lab where students learn about hydraulics, pneumatics, C-N-C lathes, and milling machines. The industrial technology wing also features a CAD (computer-aided design) lab where students are taught drafting skills with the aid of a computer. In the engineering lab the students learn to design buildings and community facilities. There is also a transportation lab where students learn about transportation of people and things on land, air, water, and rail. In the construction lab, students learn about each aspect of construction including foundations, framing, roof systems, and the materials used for various reasons such as climate and other purposes. The integrated lab melds all of the technologies from the other labs. As a result of the new construction, Mishawaka High School now totals and sits on .

Demographics

The demographic breakdown of the 1,476 students enrolled in 2013–14 was: *Male – 50.0% *Female – 50.0% *Native American/Alaskan – 0.7% *Asian/Pacific islanders – 0.6% *Black – 4.1% *Hispanic – 6.4% *White – 84.2% *Multiracial – 4.0% 57.4% of the students were eligible for free or reduced lunch.

Athletics

Mishawaka was part of the

Northern Indiana Athletic Conference The Northern Indiana Conference (NIC) is a high school athletic conference that was founded in 1927 and spanned from as far west as Hammond and Gary to South Bend/Mishawaka and Elkhart to the east and south to Plymouth. Since its start in 1927, a ...

. Their nickname is the Cavemen and the school colors are maroon and white. The following IHSAA sanctioned sports are offered at Mishawaka: *Baseball (boys) *Basketball (boys & girls) *Cross country (boys & girls) **Boys state champion – 1946 *Football (boys) *Golf (boys & girls) *Soccer (boys & girls) *Softball (girls) *Swimming (boys & girls) *Tennis (boys & girls) *Track (boys & girls) *Volleyball (girls) **State champion – 1980, 1983, 1988 *Wrestling (boys) **State champion – 1991, 2008, 2010

Notable alumni

* Achille "Chick" Maggioli – NFL

defensive back In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...

and halfback *

Adam Driver Adam Douglas Driver (born November 19, 1983) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award; making him one of few performers nominated ...

– actor * Anna Rohrer – long distance runner *

Conte Candoli Secondo "Conte" Candoli (July 12, 1927 – December 14, 2001) was an American jazz trumpeter based on the West Coast. He played in the big bands of Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Dizzy Gillespie, and in Doc Severinsen's NBC Orch ...

– jazz musician *

Freddie Fitzsimmons Frederick Landis Fitzsimmons (July 28, 1901 – November 18, 1979) was an American professional baseball right-handed pitcher, manager, and coach, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from to with the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. ...

–

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), ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

and

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

George Gulyanics George Gulyanics (June 11, 1921 – January 19, 1990) was born in Mishawaka, Indiana and was a professional American football player who played running back and punter for six seasons for the Chicago Bears. Gulyanics won the South Bend, Indi ...

– NFL

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offen ...

and punter *

Joy Lynn White Joy Lynn White (born October 2, 1961) (also known as Joy White) is an American country music singer-songwriter. White was born in Bentonville, Arkansas but raised in Mishawaka, Indiana.

– country western musician and composer *

Lisa Germano Lisa Ruth Germano (born June 27, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Indiana. Her album '' Geek the Girl'' (1994) was chosen as a top album of the 1990s by ''Spin'' magazine. She began her career as a violinist ...

– folk and alternative rock musician and composer *

Liz Richardson Elizabeth Ann Richardson (1918–1945) was a volunteer for the American Red Cross who served in a Clubmobile serving coffee and doughnuts to US troops during the invasion of France in the Second World War. She was killed in a Piper Cub plane ...

– Red Cross volunteer and clubmobiler in WW2 *

Pete Candoli Pete Candoli (born Walter Joseph Candoli; June 28, 1923 – January 11, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played with the big bands of Woody Herman and Stan Kenton and worked in the studios of the recording and television industries. Car ...

– jazz musician *

Sharon Versyp Sharon Versyp (born December 3, 1965) is an American former basketball player who is the head coach of the University of South Carolina Beaufort women's basketball team and the former head coach of the Purdue University women's basketball team f ...

– college women's basketball coach * Essel Pratt – Author Pseudonym (legal Name Scott Pratt) *

Donald Heirman Donald Nestor Heirman (August 16, 1940October 30, 2020) was an American electrical engineer, U.S. Navy Commander, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) expert, and IEEE Life Fellow. He was a major contributor to international EMC standardization, ...

–

Electromagnetic compatibility Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is the ability of electrical equipment and systems to function acceptably in their electromagnetic environment, by limiting the unintentional generation, propagation and reception of electromagnetic energy whic ...

expert and

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Life Fellow.

References

External links