Great Mills High School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Great Mills High school

Motto	"Forward Ever, Backwards Never"
Established	1929
Type	Public Secondary
Principal	Tracy Heibel
Students	1619 (2005-2006)
Grades	9–12
Location	Great Mills, Maryland ,USA
District	St. Mary's County Public Schools
Campus	Suburban
Colors	Green and Gold
Mascot	Hornets
Newspaper	Hornet's Buzz
Faculty	149
Website	Great Mills High School Official Link

Great Mills High School is a comprehensive public high school of 1600+ students in grades 9-12. It serves the community in the southern end of St. Mary's County, Maryland, at the confluence of the Potomac River, Patuxent River, and Chesapeake Bay. The area is a mixture of rural and suburban communities. Many of the families are employed by NAS Patuxent River, government contractors, St. Mary's College of Maryland, and others involved in the traditional agriculture and water related businesses. The ethnic population of the school reflects the community: 63% Caucasian, 31% African American, 1.3% Hispanic, 4.7% Other.

Great Mills High School is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and the Maryland State Department of Education. Great Mills High School belongs to the St. Mary's County Public Schools system, and is associated with two other county high schools: Leonardtown High School and Chopticon High School.

Great Mills High School was founded in 1929, as one of the original high schools in St. Mary's County, Maryland. It has since expanded from a school house to a school building rolling on several acres, with a football, soccer, and field hockey field, and tied to a county pool next door. Great Mills High School is among the oldest continually operating school in St. Mary's County and the State of Maryland

Great Mills High School Athletics belong to the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference, and competes in Division 3A in the state competitions.

At Great Mills High School, student-athletes are known as the Hornets and that mascot, according to Julius A. Levay, comes from a terse relationship he had with one of his students.

In the early 1950s, Levay, known to his friends as Hank, was teaching biology at Great Mills High School.

‘‘In my biology class was a young man whose name was John Hudson,” 81-year-old Levay said from his vacation home in Bradenton, Fla. ‘‘Now he tried to be an athlete and I guess I was rather strict with him so he nicknamed me ‘Hank the Hornet’.”

In 1954, Great Mills constructed a new gymnasium and according to Levay, Hudson was part of a group responsible for deciding on what to put on the gym floor.

‘‘Hudson led the team in the painting of a hornet in the middle of the basketball court,” Levay said, ‘‘and he called it ‘Hank the Hornet.’ I guess that name just stuck.”

(From Ian Blyth, Washington Post, 21 April 2006 Ian Blyth Article)

The motto of Great Mills High School is "Forward Ever, Backwards Never."