Founding and first location

Oak Ridge High School was established in 1943 by the U.S. Army to educate children of the workers building and operating Manhattan Project facilities in Oak Ridge. The original school building was in eastern Oak Ridge on the hill above the community's first commercial center at Jackson Square. The school's football venue, Jack Armstrong Stadium and Blankenship Field, is adjacent to the original site of the school.^[2]

The schools' mascot and colors were selected in 1943 by Ben Martin, who was athletic director (1943-1971) and coached football (1943-1947), basketball (1943-1959), and track (1944-1965). As a graduate and former athlete at the University of Kentucky, Martin adopted Kentucky's "Wildcats" as the ORHS mascot. He chose cardinal red and gray as the school colors to emulate the successful sports programs at Dobyns-Bennett High School in Kingsport, Tennessee.^[3]

New campus

The high school moved to its current central location in Oak Ridge in 1951 after a new state-of-the-art campus was built under the auspices of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which then operated Oak Ridge and its public schools. The new school, which had a capacity of about 1500 students and cost $2,980,000 to build, consisted of four buildings (designated "A", "B," "C", and "D") in two groups, connected by an enclosed glass corridor. The auditorium had a seating capacity of 1400 and was intended to serve the community as well as the school. The school attracted national media attention for its innovative features. A Nashville newspaper dubbed the new buildings “Classes in Glass” because of the unusually large amount of glass used in their design.^[2][4][5] Two circular buildings, designated "E" and "F", were added in 1963.^[2] With the move to the new campus, the school's street address was 127 Providence Road for many years until the school's reconstruction in 2005 moved the administrative offices to the Oak Ridge Turnpike side of the school. The school's street address is now 1450 Oak Ridge Turnpike.

Racial integration

In its early years, Oak Ridge High School was racially segregated like other schools in the region. On September 6, 1955, it became the first high school in the southern United States to integrate after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. On that date, 85 African American students attended the first day of school.^[6] The integration of Oak Ridge High School was the result of a January 1955 directive by the Atomic Energy Commission. Oak Ridge's advisory town council had passed a resolution in December 1953 calling for school integration, leading to an unsuccessful attempt to recall council chairman Waldo Cohn, and during the summer of 1955 some citizens had urged a school boycott to protest integration, but the actual integration of the high school (which was photographed by Life magazine) was uneventful.^[7][8]

In the first year of integration, two African American students became members of the ORHS basketball team, but because segregation was still in force at all other Tennessee high schools, they were not permitted to participate in away games and the coach had to get permission from the opposing teams before they could participate in home games.^[7]

Grade level reorganization

Until 1995, the high school enrolled grades 10 to 12. Grade 9 was added in 1995 when Oak Ridge Schools reorganized grade levels.

School reconstruction

Oak Ridge High School underwent extensive reconstruction, starting in 2005 and completed in 2008, to update its facilities, incorporate significant energy-conserving features, and construct newer, better equipped learning areas. The total cost of the school renovation was $61 million.^[9]

Designed by DLR Group, the renovated Oak Ridge High School was featured in the December 2008 issue of School Planning & Design. It received several awards, including a Citation Award from the American Association of School Administrators, recognition as a Green Project of Distinction Winner in the 2008 Green Education Design Showcase, and a 2009 Learning by Design Citation of Excellence from the American School Board Journal.^[9][10] The Tennessee School Boards Association selected ORHS as the School of the Year for Excellence in Architectural Design; ORHS earned second place in the Renovation Division.^[10]

Oak Leaf controversy

Oak Ridge High School gained notoriety in November 2005 when principal Becky Ervin, then in her first year at the school, censored the student newspaper, the Oak Leaf. The November issue originally contained an article with information on birth control and another with photographs of students' tattoos. Though the paper had already been printed, Principal Ervin attempted to confiscate all 1800 copies. The newspaper's staff, with the help of the Student Press Law Center, brought the controversy national attention.^[11] On April 10, 2006, the incident led to Oak Ridge High School receiving a Jefferson Muzzle Award, issued annually by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression to focus attention on free speech and First Amendment violations in the United States.^[12] Also in April 2006, Ervin was released from her position as principal and notified that her contract would not be continued for the following school year. Administrators gave no reason for their decision not to renew Ervin's contract.^[13] She was temporarily replaced by vice-principal Chuck Carringer, who was appointed to the position on a permanent basis early in 2007.