Richwoods High School
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Richwoods High School is the most northern of the four regular public high schools in Peoria, Illinois. The current principal is Mr. John Meisinger. The principal from 1994-1998 was Mrs. Jeanne Williamson. Richwoods or "RHS" is currently a member of the Midstate 6 Conference which includes: Peoria High School (Central), Woodruff High School, Manual High School, Peoria Notre Dame High School, and Quincy Notre Dame High School.
Richwoods was originally the high school of Richwoods Township. The name of the school when it opened in 1957 was "Richwoods Community High School". In the 1960s, the school was annexed to the city of Peoria, causing it to come under the purview of Peoria Public Schools (District 150). A lengthy legal battle ensued, and District 150 was required to allow students from the original school district to attend Richwoods until Peoria Heights High School could be built to replace it. Once PHHS was completed, Richwoods became an exclusively District 150 school.
Richwoods High School is the only school in the Peoria area to offer the International Baccalaureate program to students. Richwoods has forensics, football, ultimate, and basketball programs, among others.
Feeder middle schools are Mark Bills, Lindbergh, and Rolling Acres Edison.
Richwoods uses an unweighted grade point average system, and a weighted class-ranking system.
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[edit] Activities
[edit] Forensics program
The team regularly produces state qualifiers.[citation needed] The Richwoods speech team also hosts the Camelot Classic each year at Richwoods High School.
[edit] Marching band
The band plays at three concerts a year, at two parades, and at the home football games. It has a large percussion section, and also plays at the home games of the Boys' Basketball team.
[edit] Operation Snowball
Richwoods High School holds an Operation Snowball event annually. In 2006, the theme was "Stayin' Alive in the Seventies" and was led by adult sponsors, JoAnna Moe, and Tracy Ziegenhorn. This event promotes awareness of substance abuse, suicide, and healthy relationships.
[edit] WYSE Academic Challenge
Every year, Richwoods sponsors a team for the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering Academic Challenge, which regularly qualifies for the state tournament. In 2005, the team placed fourth overall at State with three individual medalists.
[edit] Plays and musicals
Twice a year, Richwoods High School students perform onstage. Richwoods put on fall musicals in 2004 and 2005. The last was "Suessical" in 2004. However, with the arrival of Mrs. Steffeck, a new speech coach and debate teacher in the 2005-2006 school year, the fall musical was switched to a fall play. In 2005, RHS put on The Bad Seed, and in 2006, Peter Pan. RHS continues to have a spring musical.
[edit] Madrigals
Every year, Richwoods has a Madrigal Dinner. It is done in a traditional 16th-century style. Much of the singing is a capella. Along with a core group of Madrigal Singers, there are other musical student groups which participate, including Ladies in Waiting, Men in Tights, a recorder ensemble, and a string quartet. As well as music, a variety of actors are involved in the Madrigal Dinners. There is usually a king and queen.
[edit] School dances
RHS hosts three dances for the entire school yearly: Homecoming, Vice Versa, and Prom. Homecoming involves
- Spirit Week with dress-up days for the whole school and Class Colors day (freshman-green, sophomores-white, juniors-blue, and seniors-red).
- Pep assembly. Part of the competition for the Spirit Stick and to encourage the football players for their game later that evening.
- Assembly introducing the Homecoming Queen nominees. Since the whole school votes for the Homecoming Queen, the candidates are introduced during a second hour assembly.
- Stunt Show involves the Olympics (three point shot contest, wheelbarrow race, tug-of-war) and a skit by each class. Each skit contains two dances by dancers from each respective class.
- Homecoming Game; a home game that is usually well-attended.
- Homecoming Dance takes place in Richwoods' terrazzo area (like a foyer) and lasts until 23:00.
Vice Versa is not as well attended as Homecoming, but there is a theme and the dress is based on that theme. Traditionally, girls asked the boys to Vice Versa, hence the name of the dance. Vice Versa involves:
- Assembly introducing the Vice Versa King nominees during second hour. This assembly usually has more excitement because the candidates have on thematic dress.
- Vice Versa Dance. Couples dress up according to the theme. Voting and crowning of the Vice Versa King occurs before the dance ends at 11:00 P.M.
[edit] Sports
Richwoods has a quality athletic program with several state qualifiers and medalists over the years.
[edit] Women's track
In the past eleven seasons, Richwoods has won seven conference titles. They have a detailed website that is regularly updated. The head coach of the track team is Rich Thole. The assistant coaches are Mark Rose, Terry Camp, Shad Hickman, and Joe Maier (Coach Maier coached for 30 years before retiring after 2005 season).
[edit] Cross country
Richwoods has a large cross country program. Memorable teammates include Tyno Carter, Nic Rogers,Matt Peharda, and Amy Guard.
The teams are coached by Todd Hursey, Ed Ricca, and Michelle Allen.
[edit] The International Baccalaureate Program
In 2005, the first class of International Baccalaureate students graduated from Richwoods High School. Students in the IB Diploma program must take Higher Level Biology, History, and English, and have a good variety of choices as to their Standard Level Classes. The class size of IB has been steadily growing, from 17 in 2006 to 48 in 2007.
[edit] Trivia
- The school colors are green and white and their mascot is the Knight.
- The dean of students L-Z, Dave Poehls, just recently was dean of students at Peoria High School (Central High School).
- The Richwoods High School speech team is one of the largest in Illinois south of Chicago.
- The school publishes its own in-school newspaper, The Shield.
- The school's yearbook is called The Excalibur.
- Carol Imhof (her maiden name), Playboy Magazine's Playmate of the Month for December, 1970 is currently a teacher at Richwoods.
