General William J. Palmer High School

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General William J.

Palmer High School

Name	General William J. Palmer High School
Address	301 North Nevada Avenue
Town	Colorado Springs, Colorado
Established	1874
Community	Urban
Type	Public Secondary
Religion	Secular
Students	Coeducational
Grades	9 to 12
Accreditation	Western Association of Schools and Colleges
District	Colorado State Department of Education
Subdistrict	Colorado Springs School District 11
Nickname	Terrors
Mascot	Eagle
Colors	Brown and White
Motto	"A Tradition of Excellence"
Military	(no JROTC)
Newspaper	The Lever
Yearbook	Retrospect
Distinctions	National Register of Historic Places
Website	Link
Email	Link

General William J. Palmer High School is a modest sized secondary school located in downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado. The school has a student body of approximately 1800, and attracts enrollment from all over the city. The flagship high school of School District 11, Palmer has the oldest International Baccalaureate (IB) program in the area, founded in 1993. William J. Palmer High School should not be confused with Lewis Palmer High School located in Monument, Colorado about 20 miles north.

Contents 1 History 2 Notable alumni 3 References 4 External links

[edit] History

Palmer High School is located at 301 North Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs. The present building was built by the Works Progress Administration under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. Originally named Colorado Springs High School, Palmer High School was re-named in 1959 after the city's founder, General William Jackson Palmer. At that date, the city had expanded enough to warrant the building of a second high school, Roy J. Wasson High School.

The school traces its history back to the 1870s and still uses a "C" for varsity letters, which through 1986 was referred to as the Broken Circle Tribe. In 1894, the successful football team earned the nickname "holy terrors," and so the school adopted the nickname "Terrors." In 1923, the football team won the national championship, the same year that Fred Fink wrote the beloved "Terror Fight Song." Prior to 1945, the school's mascot was a pit bull. In 1945, a Native American student, Don Willis, designed Eaglebeak, a caricature of a fictitious Indian chieftain, beloved and respected by students and faculty alike, and the teams became the Terrors. Despite this, in 1985 a local political hopeful made an issue of racism for political gain, making Palmer one of the very first cases of controversy over an Indian mascot in the United States. This upset the community at large, even rival high schools who understood the respect Eaglebeak was treated with, and the politician lost the election very soundly. Despite the fact that he later publicly apologized to the student body and retracted the charge of racism, the damage was done, Eaglebeak was not to return. In the following years, Palmer experimented with a variety of mascots, to include a two-month flirtation with the Tasmanian devil from Warner Brothers, which very nearly ended in a lawsuit.

In the early 1990s the high school chose an eagle as its mascot, naming it "Eaglebeak", but without the historical background of the original.

[edit] Notable alumni

Notable alumni of Palmer High School include:

• Cassandra Peterson (1969), who played Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
• YTCracker, rapper, former hacker, and internet entrepreneur
• Chris Fowler (1972), host of ESPN College Gameday

[edit] References

• Student's art battle winds up unifying, Mark Arnest, The Gazette (May 20, 2005)
• Class dismissed: Planned Parenthood ejected from District 11 schools, deYoanna, Michael, The Independent (February 24, 2005)

[edit] External links

• Official Palmer High School Website