Homewood-Flossmoor High School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School
Established 1959
Type Public (magnet) secondary
Principal Dr. E. Von Mansfield
Students 1367
Grades 9–12
Location Flossmoor, Illinois, United States
Campus Suburban
Accreditation Blue Ribbon Schools Program
Website hfhighschool.org

Homewood-Flossmoor High School (HF) is a public high school (grades 9-12) in Flossmoor, Illinois, in the Chicago metropolitan area. The majority of HF students live in Flossmoor and nearby Homewood, Illinois, but the school also serves areas of Olympia Fields, Chicago Heights, Glenwood, and Hazel Crest. The school as of late has seen a lot of growth, currently the school has a population of 3,000 students.

The school was ranked in Newsweek magazine's 2007 list of "Best High Schools in America."

The campus consists of a North and South building. The North building has been alternately used and rented out in the decades since its construction. The South building consists of a number of lettered buildings, including a radio station, science labs, a swimming pool with diving well and seating for 700, the music building, and a newly-renovated auditorium.

Contents

[edit] History

Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School opened in 1959. HF's opening year saw enrollment in all four grades at 1170 students. There were 51 classrooms, which included ten English classes, ten Social Science, eight Science, six Mathematics, five Foreign Language, three Physical Education, one Homemaking, three Industrial Arts, two Art, and three Music classes. A cafeteria, library and administrative area were also included.

In 1990, HF became the first high school in Illinois to require mandatory random drug testing for its student athletes. Today, HF has 32 varsity sports, the most in Illinois. Some of these sports include field hockey, water polo, and badminton, along with more traditional sports such as basketball, baseball, football and hockey.

1994 IHSA Class 6A (the largest classification at the time) football champions, defeating Naperville North 13-12 in the title game for their first and only football state championship.

In 1996, the school gained publicity from a Bill Clinton visit during his 1996 reelection campaign. Before having thousands show up to watch Clinton speak at the school, security searched the area for anything that could prove to be harmful to the president. Secret Service divers found a Volkswagen Beetle at the bottom of HF's campus pond. In 2007, a student at the school is believed to have found the steering wheel to that car in the lake.

In 2003-04, junior Julian Wright led the Vikings to a school best second place finish in the IHSA class-AA state playoffs, losing 53-47 in Peoria to Peoria Central in the final game. Peoria Central was led by 27 and points and 9 rebounds from Shaun Livingston, who was drafted 4th overall later that year by the Los Angeles Clippers. H-F would finish the season ranked 25th in the USA Today national high school poll.

In 2004, H-F encountered controversy over a campaign led by three students, Alissa Norby, Jamison Liang, and Myka Held. The campaign aimed to promote homosexual acceptance. Students were encouraged to buy shirts of various colors that read "Gay? Fine by me." Students who did not share the belief of acceptance responded by creating T-Shirts that read "Crimes committed against God." These shirts were black with text that ran in a circle. The opposing campaigns were profiled in many local and national news publications. The HF administration was criticized by several news publications and local parents for not taking an official stance on the matter. As a result of the "Fine By Me" project, Norby, Liang, and Held formed an official school-wide Gay-Straight Alliance and persuaded the Homewood Flossmoor School Board to include sexual orientation under its non-discrimination policy.

In 2005, H-F encountered another controversy when students attending a state playoff basketball game at Chicago's United Center engaged in an alleged gang-related riot. Students were told the following day that H-F students had no involvement in the incident. This statement has been criticized by both students and parents for being seen as a cover up by H-F's administration.

On Wednesday May 7, 2008 a student found a bullet and a note in a bathroom in the south building explaining that the next day there would be a shooting. An extra amount of authorities were brought in for safety.

[edit] Trivia

  • HF's Viking Choir was the first United States high school choir to perform in the Soviet Union in April, 1971
  • HF's Viking Choir was featured in the 1986 movie Lucas. The scene, however, was filmed at Glenbard West High School.[citation needed]
  • HF is one of the only two schools in the nation with an ice arena on campus.[citation needed]
  • WHFH 88.5 FM is the highest powered high school radio station in the nation, at 1,500 watts[citation needed]
  • Former college counselor, guidance department and English department chairman Charles J. Shields is the author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee (Henry Holt & Co, 2006), which was a New York Times bestseller for 12 weeks. Mockingbird was also an alternate selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Literary Guild; a main selection of the Quality Paperback Book Club; a nominee for the Quill Awards in nonfiction, and winner of the 2007 Southern Independent Booksellers Association award for best nonfiction book of the year. He is currently at work on the authorized biography of Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse-Five and other novels.[citations needed] [3]

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] References

  1. ^ NFL Draft History: Full Draft - by Alphabetic Order
  2. ^ This is the USFL 1984 Michigan Panthers Roster
  3. ^ http://www.hfhighschool.org/hfmain/home/archives/Admin_Teach_Staff.pdf

[edit] External links