Mulberry High School

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Mulberry High School
Motto ....where today meets tomorrow's goals
Established 1914
Type of institution Public
Principal George Hatch
Students 9th through 12th grades
Enrollment 1066 [1]
Location Mulberry, Florida, United States
Address One Panther Place
(Northeast Fourth Circle)
Mulberry, FL 33860
Colors Gray, royal blue, white
Mascot Panthers
School district Polk County Public Schools
Information +1-863-701-1104
Website schools.polk-fl.net/MHS/

Mulberry High School (also referred to as Mulberry Senior High School) is a four-year public high school located in Mulberry, Florida, serving the city and surrounding areas. Its enrollment is 1066 students from ninth through twelfth grades.[1]

Contents

[edit] History

Mulberry's then-only public school began high school classes in 1907. In 1914, a separate high school was constructed; it was a two-story brick building with six classrooms and an auditorium, costing approximately $12,500.[2]

In 1921, the first edition of the MHS yearbook was published, titled The Mulberry Tree in honor of the city's famed mulberry tree.

In 1922, land was donated for the construction of a new high school, on the east side of what is now Northeast First Avenue; construction was completed in 1924. Also in 1924, MHS began inter-school football play.

During the Great Depression, many schools cut their terms or lost their accreditation, and the state of Florida ran out of money, but MHS was able to stay open thanks to taxes paid by area phosphate firms.[2]

In 1955, the current school was constructed on 65 acres of land given by Virginia-Carolina Chemical Corporation and International Minerals and Chemical Corporation[3] ; the old high school was converted to an elementary school, Purcell. [4]

[edit] Notable alumni

  • John Vincent Atanasoff, 1920 graduate[5], inventor of the electronic digital computer
    • Graduated after two years[6]; in 1985, the school's computer center was named for him. [7]
  • Bob Murphy, 1962 graduate[8] professional golfer and sportscaster,

[edit] References

  1. ^ School Board of Polk County, Florida. Mulberry Senior General Info. Retrieved on September 7, 2006.
  2. ^ a b Fisher, James Arthur Fisher (1974). "The History of Mulberry and Frontier Florida: A Model for the Teaching of Local History". Xerox University Microfilms.
  3. ^ Huddle, James A. [1970]. Controlled Modular Scheduling with Complete Flexibility. Bartow, Florida: Polk County Schools. 
  4. ^ Purcell Elementary School. "School Improvement Plan" (PDF). Retrieved on 2006-09-07.
  5. ^ School Board of Polk County, Florida, Department of Community Relations. 1985 Polk County Schools Hall of Fame Inductees. Retrieved on August 10, 2006.
  6. ^ Scalable Computing Laboratory (Iowa State University and United States Department of Energy). Biographies. Retrieved on August 10, 2006.
  7. ^ "The Way It Was", The Ledger, 2005-10-15. Retrieved on September 7, 2006.
  8. ^ Polk Celebrities. The Ledger (2006-03-20). Retrieved on August 10, 2006.

[edit] External links