UMS-Wright is an independent co-educational preparatory school in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...

. The school was founded in 1893 as University Military School, and in 1988 it combined with Julius T Wright School for Girls (founded 1956) to form UMS-Wright Preparatory School.

History

University Military School

UMS-Wright Preparatory opened as University Military School on October 2, 1893, at 559 Conti Street. The school's founder and first headmaster was Dr. Julius T. Wright (1871–1931). The school’s opening day coincided with the 1893 Cheniere Caminada hurricane. The school had a single teacher and twenty-five pupils at a

tuition Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spending (by governments and other public bo ...

of $8 a month. Dr. Wright served as the headmaster of the school until his death in 1931. William Pape took over after Dr. Wright. Pape died in 1943 and his family turned control of the school over to a

nonprofit corporation A nonprofit corporation is any legal entity which has been incorporated under the law of its jurisdiction for purposes other than making profits for its owners or shareholders. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, a nonprofit corporation may ...

, the UMS Alumni and Parents Association, Inc. UMS moved the school to its current location on North Mobile Street in 1956 to accommodate the growing number of students.

Girls Preparatory School

Thirty years after the opening of University Military School (an all male school) Julius T Wright opened Girls Preparatory School in 1923 to provide a similar education to the young women of the Mobile community. It only lasted eight years as it closed after the death of Dr. Wright in 1931.

Julius T. Wright School for Girls

Julius T. Wright School for Girls opened in 1956 at the same location as Girls Preparatory School at 1315 Dauphin Street, which had been newly renovated. It came after a long campaign by alumni of the original Girls Preparatory School to have a female equivalent to University Military School. The school moved to 1400 S University Blvd in 1972. It remained there until its merger with University Military School in 1988.

UMS-Wright Preparatory School

In 1988, University Military School and Julius T Wright School for Girls followed the trend of many other single-gender schools around the country and combined to form the co-educational UMS-Wright Preparatory School. Dr. Tony Havard, a member of the UMS English faculty, was named the headmaster and is now the current president of the school.

Description

Structure

The school has a three-level structure: the

Lower School Three-tier education refers to those structures of schooling, which exist in some parts of England, where pupils are taught in three distinct school types as they progress through the education system. Terminology In a three-tier local educ ...

(K-3 through 4th grade), the

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. ...

(5th grade through 8th grade), and the Upper School ( 9th grade through

12th grade Twelfth grade, 12th grade, senior year, or grade 12 is the final year of secondary school in most of North America. In other regions, it may also be referred to as class 12 or Year 13. In most countries, students are usually between the ages of 17 ...

Campus

Located on Campus are five Lower School buildings, two middle school buildings, and one high school building. All three have separate offices and principals. The campus also houses two full-size gymnasiums, a weight training facility, and an athletic training facility. The football stadium, Cooper Stadium, is surrounded by a four-hundred meter track. Also located on Campus are two multi-purpose fields, a twenty-five-meter swimming pool, a baseball field, and a softball field.

Athletics

UMS-Wright offers thirteen team sports for students from lower school to high school. The school competes in the

AHSAA The Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA), based in Montgomery, is the governing body for interscholastic athletics and activities programs for public schools in Alabama. The AHSAA is a member National Federation of State High School ...

division 4A. The Sports offered include cross country,

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

, soccer, tennis, swimming and

diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), a ...

, track and field, softball, baseball, bass fishing, and bowling. UMS-Wright also has a long-standing athletic rivalry with

St. Paul's Episcopal School St. Paul's Episcopal School is an independent, parochial, co-educational Christian preparatory school in Mobile, Alabama. Description The school has a four-level structure: the Lower School (Pre-K through 2nd grade), the Intermediate School (3r ...

, another local private high school that is just 2.2 miles away down Old Shell Road. In football and track and field, the two teams meet every year in the "Battle of Old Shell Road." Football Game at UMS

State titles

UMS-Wright has 156 total state championship titles: * Baseball ~ 1978 • 1988 • 1993 • 1995 • 1997 • 1999 • 2010 • 2011 • 2016 • 2017 * Boys Basketball ~ 1998 * Girls Basketball ~ 1978 * Boys Cross Country ~ 1971 • 1975 • 1980 • 1997 • 2008 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 * Girls Cross Country ~ 1977 • 1980 • 1981 • 1982 • 1983 • 2004 • 2005 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • 2012 • 2013 *Football ~ 1987 • 2001 • 2002 • 2005 • 2008 • 2012 • 2017 • 2018 • 2019 * Boys Soccer ~ 2010 • 2011 * Swimming and Diving ~ 1997 • 2018 * Boys Tennis 1968 • 1981 • 1989 • 1990 • 2001 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2006 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015 • 2016 * Girls Tennis 1978 • 1994 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015 • 2016 • 2017 • 2018 *Boys Outdoor Track ~ 1981 • 1982 • 1983 • 1990 • 1991 • 1997 • 1988 • 1999 • 2000 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015 • 2016 * Girls Outdoor Track ~ 1982 • 1983 • 2000 • 2001 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2015 • 2016 • 2018 * Boys Indoor Track ~ 1972 • 1981 • 1982 • 1983 • 1985 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999 • 2000 • 2006 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015 * Girls Indoor Track ~ 1981 • 1982 • 1984 • 1997 • 2001 • 2012 • 2013 * Junior High Indoor Track ~ 1968 * Boys Golf ~ 1961 • 1971 • 1980 • 1983 • 1990 • 1992 • 1993 • 1994 • 1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999 • 2000 • 2001 • 2002 • 2003 • 2008 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • 2014 • 2016 • 2017

Academics

UMS Wright was ranked second out of ninety-seven schools in Niche.com "Best Private K-12 Schools in Alabama" ranking. The average ACT score is 30 and the average

SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schola ...

score in 1360. 99% of graduating seniors attend a four-year college or university, with the 3 most popular being the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and la ...

Auburn University Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama. With more than 24,600 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 30,000 with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest uni ...

, and the

University of South Alabama The University of South Alabama (USA) is a public research university in Mobile, Alabama. It was created by the Alabama Legislature in May, 1963, and replaced existing extension programs operated in Mobile by the University of Alabama. The first ...

. The school currently has 1,150 students enrolled with a student-teacher ratio of 8:1. UMS Laptop

Clubs

* Art Guild * Azalea Trail * French Club * Spanish Circle * Theatre Guild * Wright Singers * Youth Judicial Weight room

Honor Societies

Cum Laude Society The Cum Laude Society is an organization that honors scholastic achievement at secondary institutions, similar to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, which honors scholastic achievements at the university level. It was founded at The Tome School in 190 ...

National Honor Society The National Honor Society (NHS) is a nationwide organization for high school students in the United States and outlying territories, which consists of many chapters in high schools. Selection is based on four criteria: scholarship (academic achi ...

* Quill & Scroll *

Mu Alpha Theta Mu Alpha Theta () is the United States mathematics honor society for high school and two-year college students. In June 2015, it served over 108,000 student members in over 2,200 chapters in the United States and in 20 foreign countries. Its main ...

* Science National Honor Society * Spanish/French Honor Society * National English Honor Society * Rho Kappa Honor Society

Honor Council

The Honor Council is composed of student representatives in grades 9–12 who are elected to promote honesty and integrity.

Notable alumni

Miller Reese Hutchison Miller Reese Hutchison (August 6, 1876 – February 16, 1944) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He developed some of the first portable electric devices, such as a vehicle horn and a hearing aid. His father was William Hutchison ...

(around 1895; there are very few records of the early UMS graduates); inventor of the vehicle horn and

hearing aid A hearing aid is a device designed to improve hearing by making sound audible to a person with hearing loss. Hearing aids are classified as medical devices in most countries, and regulated by the respective regulations. Small audio amplifiers su ...

Winston Groom Winston Francis Groom Jr. (March 23, 1943 – September 17, 2020) was an American novelist and non-fiction writer. He is best known for his novel '' Forrest Gump'' (1986), which became a cultural phenomenon after being adapted as a 1994 film of ...

(1961), Author of ''Forrest Gump'''''' *

Bradley Byrne Bradley Roberts Byrne (born February 16, 1955) is an American business attorney and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Alabama's 1st congressional district from 2014 to 2021. Elected as a member of the state Board of Education ...

(1973), former

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

. *

Jay Prosch Jay Prosch (born August 21, 1992) is a former American football fullback. He was drafted by the Houston Texans in the sixth round of the 2014 NFL Draft. He played college football at Illinois and Auburn. Early years Prosch attended UMS-Wright P ...

(2009), Professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player *

Sandy Stimpson William S. "Sandy" Stimpson (born April 4, 1952) is an American businessman and politician who serves as the current mayor of Mobile, Alabama. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected August 27, 2013, defeating incumbent Democratic Mayo ...

(1970), Mayor of Mobile, Alabama * Bobby Wyatt (2010), Professional golfer

References

External links

* https://www.ums-wright.org {{authority control Schools accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Schools in Mobile, Alabama Preparatory schools in Alabama Educational institutions established in 1893 1893 establishments in Alabama