Vestavia Hills High School. Vestavia Hills High School (VHHS), founded in 1970, is a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

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 ...

Vestavia Hills, Alabama Vestavia Hills, colloquially known simply as Vestavia, is a city in Jefferson and Shelby counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is a suburb of Birmingham and it is made up of Vestavia, Liberty Park, and Cahaba Heights. As of the 2020 census ...

, a suburb of

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

, USA. It is part of the Vestavia Hills City Schools.

History

The land was acquired by Louis Pizitz, a Polish immigrant who settled in Birmingham in 1889. Pizitz lived here with his wife, Minnie and their son, Hortense. After their death, their son Hortense sold the land to the City of Vestavia Hills in the 1960s. The school was built in the 1970s, in the context of the establishment of

segregation academies Segregation academies are private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend desegregated public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the U.S. ...

in the 1970s, which enabled white children to segregate themselves from black children, who remained in public schools. Until 2016 the school mascot, known as Rebel Man, was a

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

owner. The school "picked a

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 ...

-waving Civil War Rebel because it saw itself as rebellious." In the wake of the Charleston church shooting in June 2015, ''

The Birmingham News ''The Birmingham News'' is the principal newspaper for Birmingham, Alabama, United States. The paper is owned by Advance Publications and was a daily newspaper from its founding through September 30, 2012. After that day, the ''News'' and its two ...

'' highlighted this history and called for a removal of the mascot. Meanwhile, the school superintendent called it 'a "point of contention for some members" of the community'. By early July 2015, some Vestavia Hills residents wrote an op-ed in ''The Birmingham News'' calling on the school board to change its name.Vestavia residents: school board must change Rebel mascot
''The Birmingham News'', July 7, 2015 By the middle of July 2015, comedian

John Oliver John William Oliver (born 23 April 1977) is a British-American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. Oliver started his career as a stand-up comedian in the United Kingdom. He came to wider attention ...

made fun of the claim that it was "heritage, not hate" on national television. He argued, "Your logo is a plantation owner. ..And saying that the image of a plantation owner is not used in a racist way is a bit like arguing the Hitachi magic wand is only used as a back massager." The Vestavia Hills City Schools System decided to keep the ''Rebels'' name but initiate a "rebranding" process. The new branding was approved by the school board on May 18, 2016. The new branding replaced the objectionable mascot and instituted the new slogan "You play one Rebel you play us all."

Academics

Vestavia has 150 courses available on yearly basis. Vestavia offers a number of AP courses (World History, U.S. History, European History, Human Geography, English Language & Lit., Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Computer Science Principles, Psychology, Physics 1, Statistics, Biology, Chemistry, French, Latin, Spanish, German, Government, Economics, Studio Art, Environmental Science, and Comparative Government). Vestavia also offers Honors courses for all core subjects to all grades. Dual Enrollment classes are available for both English and Math. The school has a music department. It publishes a newspaper, ''The Vedette'', and a literary and visual arts magazine, ''The Muse''.

Achievements

The school was recognized with the national

Blue Ribbon School of Excellence 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, ...

by the

United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department ...

in both 1991 and 2009. The debate team has won seven national championships, with the added distinction of being the first team in history to win both Lincoln-Douglas Debate and Policy Debate in the

National Speech and Debate Association The National Speech and Debate Association is an American student debating society. It was established in 1925 as the National Forensic League; the name was changed in 2014. It is one of four major national organizations that direct high schoo ...

's National Speech and Debate Tournament. In addition, only one other school has won two national championships in Lincoln-Douglas debate at the Tournament of Champions national high school debate tournament. The math team amassed 15 first place finishes at the

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 mai ...

national championships from 1987 to 2006. Over the same period, the team dominated most regional events throughout the Southeast, including four victories at the Furman University Wylie Mathematics Tournament from 1999 to 2004. In 2008, the school won the "Adam Smith Division" in the

Council for Economic Education The Council for Economic Education (the new name, since 2009 January, of the National Council on Economic Education) is an organization in the United States that focuses on the economic and financial education of students from kindergarten throug ...

's National Economics Challenge, and its students finished runner up in the national finals of the 22nd annual We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution competition in 2009.

Athletics

Vestavia Hills High School fields varsity teams in

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 ...

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

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 ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

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 ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

, cross country, and indoor and outdoor

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

. VHHS has won AHSAA state championships in the following sports: * Baseball (1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000) * Boys' Basketball (1992, 2009) * Girls' Basketball (1987) * Boys' Cross Country (1987, 2013) * Girls' Cross Country (1981) * Football (1980, 1998) * Boys' Golf (1991, 1994) * Girls' Golf (1973, 1974) * Girls' Indoor Track (2005) * Boys' Soccer (1991, 1995, 2013, 2014) * Girls' Soccer (2001, 2005, 2007) * Boys' Tennis (1995, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014) * Girls' Tennis (1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1998, 1999, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2016) * Boys' Outdoor Track & Field (2008) * Wrestling (1976, 1985, 1986, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2016, 2017) Buddy Anderson Field (at Thompson Reynolds Stadium) is home of the Vestavia Hills Rebels football team. The field is named after current head coach Buddy Anderson. Anderson has been coaching at Vestavia since 1972, and has remained the head coach since 1978.

Performing arts

VHHS has a competitive

show choir 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 ...

, "Singers".

Notable alumni

* Colter Bean (1995),

Major League Baseball 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 (

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

) * Steven Black, professional football player *

Chris Hammond Christopher Andrew Hammond (born January 21, 1966) is a former left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. Hammond was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in the sixth round of the amateur draft. Hammond had not sustained considerable success unt ...

(1984),

pitcher *

Josh Hancock Joshua Morgan Hancock (April 11, 1978 – April 29, 2007) was a professional baseball pitcher, who played Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds, and St. Louis Cardinals. He was killed in an au ...

(1996), former

pitcher (

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

) *

Trey Hardee James Edward "Trey" Hardee III (born February 7, 1984, in Birmingham, Alabama) is a retired American track and field athlete who specialized in the combined events. He is a former NCAA Champion, a two-time World Outdoor Champion, a member of t ...

(2002), track and field athlete, Olympian *

Smylie Kaufman Carter Smylie Kaufman (born November 30, 1991) is an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour. Early life and career Kaufman was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He attended Vestavia Hills High School. His middle name is a tribute t ...

(2010), professional golfer and winner on PGA Tour * Jo Kittinger (1974), children's book author * Rebecca Moore,

Miss Alabama USA Miss Alabama USA, previously known as Miss Alabama Universe, is the beauty pageant that selects the representative for the state of Alabama in the Miss USA pageant, and the name of the title held by its winner. The pageant is directed by RPM Pr ...

2006 *

Michael Papajohn Michael Papajohn (born November 7, 1964) is an American character actor, stuntman and former college baseball player for the LSU Tigers baseball team. He played Dennis Carradine in Sam Raimi's ''Spider-Man'' trilogy. Early life Papajohn wa ...

(1983), actor, film producer and stunt performer *

Vann Stuedeman Vann Stuedeman (born September 11, 1972) is the former head coach of the Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs softball team, which represents Mississippi State University in the Southeastern Conference. She has led the Lady Bulldogs to NCAA Tourname ...

, head coach of the

Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs softball The Mississippi State Bulldogs softball team represents Mississippi State University in NCAA Division I college softball. The team participates in the Western Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The Bulldogs are currently led by head ...

team *

Jordan Swing Jordan Tyler Swing (born December 31, 1990) is an American professional basketball player for the Birmingham Squadron of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for Western Kentucky and UAB before playing professionally in the NBA G League ...

, professional basketball player * Trevor Terndrup, Tommy Putnam and Tyler Ritter, members of alt-rock band

Moon Taxi Moon Taxi is an American indie-alternative rock band based in Nashville, Tennessee. The band was founded in 2006 by Trevor Terndrup (vocals, guitar), Tommy Putnam (bass), Spencer Thomson (guitar, programming), Tyler Ritter (drums), and Wes Baile ...

References

External links

Vestavia Hills High School
{{authority control Educational institutions established in 1970 Public high schools in Alabama Schools in Jefferson County, Alabama 1970 establishments in Alabama