Mesa High School (Mesa, Arizona)

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Mesa High School (Mesa, Arizona)
200px
Carry On
Address
1630 East Southern Avenue
Mesa, Arizona 85204-5220
 United States
Coordinates Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Information
Type Public secondary (U.S.)
Established 1898
Oversight Mesa Public Schools
Principal Lisa Creaser[1]
Faculty 187[2]
Grades 9–12
Enrollment 3,411 (2011-2012[4])
 • Grade 9 945 [Grade 9]
 • Grade 10 817 [Grade 10]
 • Grade 11 794 [Grade 11]
 • Grade 12 855 [Grade 12]
Campus Suburban
Color(s) Purple & Gold          
Mascot Jackrabbit
Newspaper The Jackrabbit
Yearbook Superstition
Feeder schools Kino Junior High School, Taylor Junior High School, Poston Junior High School[3]
Website http://www.mpsaz.org/mesa

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.

History

The first high school classes in Mesa began in September 1899 on the second floor of the red brick north elementary school, later rebuilt and known as Irving School. The first Mesa Union High School district was organized on December 26, 1907, with John D. Loper as superintendent. 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 and Macdonald, Second and Third Avenues. It didn't take long to discover that the block was not large enough, and so, on January 4, 1908, they sold it to the school district for $75. Construction began immediately on the building known as "Old Main". The 1909 graduating class 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.[7]

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. 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.[7]

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".[8] 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.

Academics

In the 1983-84 school year, it was honored as a Blue Ribbon school.[9]

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.[10]

Athletics

The school won 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.[11] 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.[citation needed][12]

State Champions
Sport Years
Baseball (5)[13] 1927, 1947, 1953, 1957, 1958
Boys Basketball (13)[14] 1917, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1933, 1936, 1946, 1950, 1951, 1988, 2004
Football (11)*[15][16][17][18] 1928, 1933, 1946, 1947, 1950, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1963, 1964, 1990, 1992
Boys Golf (2)[19] 1957, 1979
Boys Soccer (1)*[20][21] 1981
Softball (1)[22] 1988
Boys Tennis (4)[23] 1937, 1950, 1951, 1952
Boys Track & Field (5)[24] 1950, 1952, 1962, 1982, 1988
Wrestling (4)[25] 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)[26] 1987
Girls Cross Country (1)[27] 1988
Football (16)* 1924, 1925, 1926, 1930, 1935, 1937, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1944, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1957, 1979, 2009
Boys Tennis (1) 1949
Girls Tennis (6)[28] 1945, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953, 1955
Boys Track & Field (8) 1926, 1936, 1945, 1956, 1972, 1974, 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.

Feeder schools

Junior High Schools

The junior high schools that feed into Mesa High School (and elementary schools feeding into the high schools):[29]
  • Kino Junior High School (Elementary Schools: Edison, Eisenhower, Holmes, Kerr, Lehi, Lincoln, Lowell)
  • Poston Junior High School (Elementary Schools: Entz, Field, Hale, Hawthorne, Highland, Longfellow)
  • Taylor Junior High School (Elementary Schools: Irving, Johnson, Keller, Lindbergh, Porter, Robson, Wilson)

Notable alumni

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References

  1. ↑ Mesa High School Staff Webpage as of August 8, 2014
  2. ↑ MHS Website Staff List as of August 14, 2014
  3. ↑ Mesa Public Schools Feeder Schools as of July 1, 2013
  4. ↑ US News & World Report: 2011-2012 Mesa High School Study Body (Aug 14, 2014)
  5. ↑ US News & World Report Mesa High School Overview
  6. ↑ Mesa High School Homepage as of August 4, 2014
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 “Old Main” Mesa Union High School Mesa, AZ
  8. ↑ "Which high school holds title of state's oldest." Arizona Republic 25 September 2011: B3.
  9. ↑ http://www2.ed.gov/programs/nclbbrs/list-1982.pdf
  10. ↑ Mesa Public Schools: AIMS Test Scores: 2002-2003 through 2008-2009
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Arizona Republic Newspaper's azcentral.com Arizona high school sports history database; results from 1912-2013 as of August 2014.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Feeder Schools 2013-2014
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  38. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  39. ↑ http://www.mesasports.org/hof/2008_hof/
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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