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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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Mesa High School (Mesa, Arizona)
Mesa High School is a public high school in Mesa, Arizona, United States. Mesa High School currently accommodates grades 9–12 as part of Mesa Public Schools. Mesa High School is the oldest high school in Mesa, Arizona, and is home of the Jackrabbits. Mesa High has more than 3,200 students and boasts award-winning athletics, music, theatre programs and more.

History

In early 1898, citizens in the Mesa area petitioned for and voted to establish a high school district. Its first classes began in September 1899 on the second floor of the red brick north elementary school, later rebuilt and known as Irving School.

On December 26, 1907, the high school district in Mesa was reorganized into the Mesa Union High School District. The Town Council had leased all of Block 20 to the University of Arizona for 99 years to use as an experimental farm. This was the land bounded by Center St and MacDonald, Second and Third Avenues. It didn't take long to discover that the block was not large enough. On January 4, 1908, they sold it to the school district for $75. Construction began immediately on the building known as "Old Main". The class of 1909 graduated from that original twelve room building. The school had a main floor auditorium with a swimming pool in the basement. The auditorium was used for assemblies, with folding chairs for the early comers and standing room only for the rest. Ten years later, eight more rooms were added plus a small auditorium-gymnasium. During basketball games, spectators sat in the balcony (above the freshman section) or on the stage because the gym was not wide enough for sideline bleachers.

Entrance to the school, adorned by a sign donated by the Class of 1998

In September 1932, a football player, named Zedo Ishikawa, was accidentally killed with a shotgun blast to the chest while attempting to break up a fight between two dogs. As he neared death he said, "Tell Coach Coutchie and the boys to carry on." As time went on, students began repeating the theme "Carry On" to one another. Eventually, it became the school's official motto.

In 1936, the WPA and PWA provided funds for new construction, and the New Building was constructed west of the Main Building with an arcade in between. The land for this was purchased from Harvey Bush, for $4,000. A new gymnasium building, which included an agriculture shop and auto shop, was also built south of the Main Building — the new site for school dances and basketball games.

In 1967, Mesa won their homecoming football game against rival Westwood High. Then, on Sunday night, October 1, 1967, a disastrous fire started in the science lab, completely destroying the sixty-year-old "Old Main." Classes continued to graduate from the old campus until 1972 when the new Mesa High was built, at a different location (farther east and south). The original Mesa High campus, minus the destroyed Old Main, would be reused in the 1970s as Mesa Central High School, which became the district's vocational school in the 1980s and closed in 1991.

In summer 2015, an aquatic center was added to the campus; it was run by the City of Mesa.

In 2016, the boys basketball team won state championship for Division 1, ending their 12-year championship drought.

Academics

In the 1983–84 school year, it was honored as a Blue Ribbon school.

AIMS test scores for MHS were below the state average in reading, math, and writing for 2002 through 2004, but they improved to substantially above average for 2005.

Athletics

The school won the 5A state championships in 2004 for boys basketball, and three straight 5A-I titles in wrestling from 2006 to 2008. Anthony Robles, who was born without a right leg, won individual state championships in 2005 and 2006. He later went on to win the 2006 Senior Nationals' and wrestled at Arizona State University on a full scholarship. Robles finished fourth at the 2009 NCAA Division I Championships at 125 pounds, seventh at the 2010 tournament, and was national champion in 2011. Home to the Ordaz brothers; Mayk (160) and John Ordaz (130). The only two-time state champion siblings that both recorded undefeated seasons; twice in their high school career, (2009–2012), on the top ten wrestler list from Arizona.

State Champions
Sport Years
Baseball (5) 1927, 1947, 1953, 1957, 1958
Boys Basketball (14) 1917, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1933, 1936, 1946, 1950, 1951, 1988, 2004, 2016
Football (11)* 1928, 1933, 1946, 1947, 1950, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1963, 1990, 1992
Boys Golf (2) 1957, 1979
Boys Soccer (1)* 1981
Softball (1) 1988
Boys Tennis (4) 1937, 1950, 1951, 1952
Boys Track & Field (5) 1950, 1952, 1962, 1982, 1988
Wrestling (4) 1977, 2006, 2007, 2008
State Runners-Up
Sport Years
Baseball (5) 1914, 1928, 1945, 1950, 1959
Boys Basketball (3) 1944, 1952, 1953
Girls Basketball (1) 1987
Girls Cross Country (1) 1988
Football (16)* 1924, 1925, 1926, 1930, 1935, 1937, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1944, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1957, 1979, 2009
Boys Tennis (2) 1948, 1957
Girls Tennis (6) 1945, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953, 1955
Boys Track & Field (8) 1926, 1936, 1945, 1956, 1972, 1984, 1985, 1989
Boys Volleyball (1) 2014
Wrestling (5) 1983, 1988, 1991, 2009, 2010

*The Arizona Interscholastic Association recognized these sports and the regular season games thereof as official during these years but did not conduct playoffs to determine AIA state champions for them until 1959 for football and 1983 for soccer. In such times, the press declared state champions (and state runners-up), similar to how the Associated Press independently crowns national champions for some sports at the college level.

Performing Arts

Mesa High School has won many Marching Band titles.

Demographics

During the 2020–2021 school year, the demographic break of the 3,460 students enrolled was:

  • Male - 51.5%
  • Female - 48.5%
  • American Indian/Alaska Native - 2.1%
  • Asian - 0.8%
  • Black - 4.1%
  • Hispanic - 67.2%
  • Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander - 0.6%
  • White - 23.9%
  • Multiracial - 1.3%

Feeder schools

Junior high schools that feed into Mesa High School (and the elementary schools that feed into the junior high schools):

Kino Junior High School:

  • Thomas Edison Elementary School
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower Center for Innovation
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes Elementary School
  • John Kerr Elementary School
  • Lehi Elementary School
  • Abraham Lincoln Elementary School
  • James Lowell Elementary School

Charles D. Poston Junior High School:

  • Marjorie Entz Elementary School
  • Eugene Field Elementary
  • Nathan Hale Elementary School
  • Michael Hughes Elementary
  • Highland Arts Elementary School
  • Henry Longfellow Elementary School

Harvey L. Taylor Junior High School

  • Washington Irving Elementary School
  • Veora Johnson Elementary School
  • Helen Keller Elementary School
  • Ann Morrow LIndbergh Elementary School
  • James Madison Elementary School
  • William S. Porter Elementary School
  • Charles I. Robson Elementary School
  • Marilyn Wilson Elementary School

Notable alumni

References

  1. ^ "Mesa High School » Staff". Archived from the original on August 4, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
  2. ^ "Mesa High School". National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved September 9, 2024.
  3. ^ "The Mesa Free Press". The Mesa Free Press. February 11, 1898. There is a movement on foot, or being talked of, at least, for the establishment of a high school district to embrace the school districts of Mesa, Alma, Nephi, Jordan, Lehi, and Highland.
  4. ^ "The South Side". The Arizona Republican. February 26, 1898. A petition will be circulated next week for signatures praying for the establishment of a high school district to include the seven districts east of the Tempe canal, as follows: Mesa, Alma, Watrous, Barkley, Lehi, Crismon and Nephi.
  5. ^ "The South Side". The Arizona Republican. March 2, 1898. The citizens of Nephi held a mass meeting last night, ratifying the high school proposition.
  6. ^ "Report of the Mesa High School from Principal John D. Loper". The Mesa Free Press. May 5, 1902. In the autumn of 1899 when the ninth grade was added to the Mesa school, the English course of the territorial course was taken up and in 1900 the tenth grade was added and the same course was carried on another year.
  7. ^ Long, Robert (June 30, 1908). Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. p. 8. Mesa, which was a single high school district, has joined with districts numbered 10, 19, 26, 29, 41 and 57, and now forms part of a union high school district.
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  13. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on June 30, 2014. Retrieved February 17, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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  42. ^ "2007 Mesa City Sports Hall of Fame Inductees". mesasports.org. 2007. Retrieved January 16, 2021. [Carter] helped Mesa High to state golf title his senior year [1979].
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  52. ^ "Casa Grande wins title". The Arizona Republic. May 22, 1978. p. D-3. Retrieved January 16, 2021. Mesa's Dan Janicki set a state record in winning the mile run in 4:09.95
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  56. ^ "Jessi Colter - Country Music's Lady Outlaw Comes Home". Archived from the original on September 5, 2009. I immediately went from Mesa High to American Bandstand...
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  71. ^ Obert, Richard (May 27, 2020). "Forever Five: Finding Mesa High School's all-time greatest athletes". azcentral.com. Retrieved January 17, 2021. In 1960, [Willard] qualified for the Summer Olympics in Rome and placed fourth in the springboard diving. Four years later, she won an Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo in the 3-meter springboard.
  72. ^ "11/21: Latin pop star Yuridia talks Mesa High, stardom". AZCentral.com. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
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