Windham Junior/Senior High School is a public

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 ...

Windham, Ohio Windham is a village in Portage County, Ohio, United States. It is formed from portions of Windham Township, one of the original townships of the Connecticut Western Reserve. The population was 2,209 at the 2010 census. In 1942, the US governm ...

Portage County, Ohio Portage County is a county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 161,791. Located in Northeast Ohio, Portage County is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Cleveland–Akr ...

It is the only high school in the Windham Exempted Village School District. Their mascot is the Bombers and compete as a member of the

Ohio High School Athletic Association The Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) is the governing body of athletic programs for junior and senior high schools in the state of Ohio. The OHSAA governs eligibility of student athletes, resolves disputes, organizes levels of compe ...

and is a member of the Northeastern Athletic Conference. Windham High School was founded in 1883.

Athletics

Windham High School currently offers: *

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

History

The Bombers have at least one league championship in every sport in which they participate. During the late 1950s, the school played a leading role in establishing the short-lived

Tomahawk Conference The Tomahawk Conference is a Minnesota State High School League sanctioned athletic conference comprising schools located in the south central region of Minnesota. Offerings Sports The conference offers the following: The conference schools foo ...

and was a longtime member of the former Portage County League and

Portage Trail Conference The Portage Trail Conference or PTC is an association of six high schools and their associated middle/ junior high schools located in the northeast region of the U.S. State of Ohio. Three member schools are in Portage County, two are in Stark ...

. In 1939, the school was ranked by ''

The American Boy ''The American Boy'' was a monthly magazine published by The Sprague Publishing Co. of Detroit, Michigan from November 1899 to August 1941. At the time it was the largest magazine for boys, with a circulation of 300,000, and it featured action sto ...

'' magazine as the 16th best in the nation for

six-man football Six-man football is a variant of gridiron football played with six players per team, instead of the standard 11 or 12. It is generally played by high schools in rural areas of the United States and Canada. History Six-man football was developed ...

. This selection was made by Stephen Epler, the creator of what was then a fairly new sport. The Bombers defeated Stamford Collegiate Secondary School in

Niagara Falls, Ontario Niagara Falls is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is on the western bank of the Niagara River in the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario, with a population of 88,071 at the 2016 census. It is part of the St. Catharines - Niagara Census M ...

for the first-ever international title on October 5, 1940, and were ranked in the top 10 in the nation by ''The American Boy'' magazine. Three members of the team, Harold and Fred Stanley and Robert Turner, were chosen as All-American players, the only Windham players ever so honored.

Tomahawk Conference

According to the Ravenna-Kent '' Record-Courier'', Windham competed in the Portage County League until 1953, when the Windham school district became the Windham Exempted Village School District. In Ohio, Exempted Village School Districts are given similar authority to city school districts; i.e. to "determine for itself the number of members and the organization of the district board of education". At this time, Windham withdrew from the PCL and competed as an independent. Prior to 1953, most schools in Portage County were given "A" classification in Ohio's system of measuring school size for athletics. Due to increasing enrollment from the construction of the Ravenna Arsenal a decade earlier, Windham was close to "AA" classification. In 1957, Windham had an exceptional year in football, posting an undefeated record of six wins and a tie. In order to maintain "A" classification, Windham cut freshmen from the team at the beginning of the season. However, in contests against

Garrettsville Garrettsville is a village in northeastern Portage County, Ohio, United States. The population was 2,449 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Akron metropolitan area. The village was formed from portions of Hiram, Nelson, and Freedom townshi ...

and Ravenna Township, football coach Leo Kot played two freshmen to prevent

running up the score Running up the score occurs when a competitor continues to play in such a way as to score additional points after the outcome of the game is no longer in significant question and the team is all but assured of winning. Sporting alternatives inc ...

. These contests led directly to Windham's classification as "AA" upon appeal from Mogadore High School, and the subsequent formation of the

. The Bombers won the Tomahawk Conference championship for football all three years of the conference's existence, sharing the title with Southeast in 1959. Windham also won all three conference titles in baseball, and in 1961 the Bombers were state runners-up, losing the state baseball championship to

Liberty Union High School Liberty Union High School is a public high school in Baltimore, Ohio. It is the only high school in the Liberty Union-Thurston Local Schools district. Their teams' name is the Lions. The school colors are red and black. The current high school ...

Later athletics leagues

In 1961, the Bombers returned to the reconstituted Portage County League. Windham continued to enjoy success in football, and numerous other sports. The PCL became the basis of the extant

, created through inter-county expansion in 2005. On July 2, 2011, Windham announced that it would be leaving the PTC following the 2012–13 school year and joining the Northeastern Athletic Conference, citing declining enrollment and a resulting decreasing ability to compete in the PTC. In its first three years of competition, Windham won several league championships in volleyball and girls basketball.

Stan Parrish

Windham served as the first head coaching job for later college and professional football coach Stan Parrish. Parrish coached the Bombers from 1972 until 1974 after serving as an assistant from 1969–71.Stan Parrish profile
at ballstatesports.com. Accessed June 10, 2008

Notable alumni

Thomson Jay Hudson Thomson Jay Hudson (February 22, 1834 in Windham, Ohio – May 26, 1903 in Detroit, Michigan), was a chief examiner of the US Patent Office and a psychical researcher, known for his ''three laws of psychic phenomena'', which were first published i ...

- world-renowned researcher in

parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...

* Laurin D. Woodworth -

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

major and member of the

United States House of Representatives 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 house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

Angela Johnson Angela Johnson may also refer to: *Angela Johnson (basketball) (born 1953), Canadian Olympic basketball player *Angela Johnson (writer) (born 1961), children's author *Angela Davis Johnson, American painter *Angela Jonsson (born 1990), Indian model ...

- Children's book author

Notes and references

External links

* {{authority control High schools in Portage County, Ohio Educational institutions established in 1883 Public high schools in Ohio 1883 establishments in Ohio