Smiths Station High School 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 ...
in
Smiths Station, Alabama, enrolling
grades 9 to
12. The school enrolls over 1,382 students, and is one of four high schools in the
Lee County School District along with
Beauregard,
Beulah, and
Loachapoka
Loachapoka () is a town in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is located less than 1/2 mile west of Auburn and approximately west of Auburn University, in west-central Lee County. The population was 180 as of the 2010 census. It is part of ...
High Schools.
History
Smiths Station High School was formed in 1918 with the consolidation of rural
one-room school
One-room schools, or schoolhouses, were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain. In most rural and s ...
s in the Smiths Station, Motts, and Oak Grove communities. Smiths Station High was the first full rural high school in the Lee County Schools, prior to its creation, all students wishing to complete high school had to travel to
Auburn to attend
Auburn High School. A new consolidated school was built in Smiths Station in 1918, and the high school soon absorbed Prince School (1919), Lee Bullard School (1928) and Salem High School (1929). J.B. Page served as principal of Smiths Station High from 1929 until 1972, during which time the school spun off Smiths Station Elementary School from its original K-12 configuration.
Integration came to Smiths Station in 1970, with SSHS absorbing the
black school
Black schools, also referred to as "colored" schools, were racially segregated schools in the United States that originated after the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. The phenomenon began in the late 1860s during Reconstruction era ...
Wacoochee High School in 1971, moving to a grades 10-12 configuration. Growth in the 1970s led to the shifting of grade 9 back to Smiths Station in 1976. Notable alumni of this great institution: Sir Conway Twitty
Between 1976 and the 2010 Smiths Station High School grew from an enrollment of about 600 to over 1800. In 2008, that growth, combined with expected future growth related to the
2005 Base Realignment and Closure involving nearby
Fort Benning, led to the decision to build a new $32 million Smiths Station High School. The new facility opened in August 2011, with Smiths Station High adopting a grades 10-12 configuration.
Introduced in 2021, SSHS Girls' Flag Football played its way through the inaugural season in the state of Alabama, under volleyball and now flag football coach, Meg Larsen, making the playoffs, and finishing Runners Up in the state championship game, in double overtime.
Notable faculty
*
Dieter Brock
Ralph Dieter Brock (born February 12, 1951) is a former Canadian Football League (CFL) and National Football League (NFL) player and coach. He is best remembered as the quarterback for the CFL Winnipeg Blue Bombers where he led the league in pas ...
, professional football player.
*
Woodrow Lowe, professional football player.
External links
Smiths Station High School
References
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Educational institutions established in 1918
Public high schools in Alabama
Schools in Lee County, Alabama
1918 establishments in Alabama