Joliet West High School

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Joliet West High School
Established	1964
Type	Public secondary
Principal	Cheryl McCarthy
Faculty	322
Students	2392
Grades	9–12
Location	401 N. Larkin Avenue Joliet, Illinois, USA
Campus	Suburban
Colors	Black, Gold, and White
Mascot	Tigers/Steelmen
Yearbook	Alpha Omega
Newspaper	Tiger Tales
Website	[1]

Joliet West High School, along with Joliet Central, makes up the Joliet Township High School district in Joliet, Illinois. West's mascot is the tiger, although when various activities are combined with Central, Central's mascot is used, the Steelman.

[edit] Building

The school was originally constructed in 1964, one year after its identical sister school Joliet East, and has since been added on to 3 times. The first addition, completed in the early 1980s, added a bookstore to the cafeteria, additional space around the maintenance area, a multi-purpose room by the gymnasiums (primarily used for dance and wrestling), six additional classrooms, and a greenhouse.

The second and third additions (not shown in the picture) were completed as two consecutive projects, adding several additional classrooms, a new band room, cafetorium, conference room, dean's offices, and student commons area. The first phase broke ground on November 4, 2001 and was completed the following school year. The second phase began during the 2002-2003 year and was open for fall 2003 classes.Beginning in the summer of 2007 construction for the field house will be underway.

[edit] Music tradition

Joliet West has been known for its outstanding music programs for half a century. Many West alums continue on in music as a career. Some of which are listed below. The Marching Tigers, West's marching band, is one of the few groups that still carries the former mascot. There have been five band directors at West: Arthur D. Katterjohn, 1964-1967; Dean H. Sayles, 1967-1990; I. V. Foster, 1990-1992; Ted Lega, 1992-1993, and Kevin T. Carroll, 1993-present.

Recently, Joliet West High School's music program has come to note by being one of only a handful of High Schools to have an "Opera Scenes" program. The music department has performed scenes ranging from "La Boheme" to "Die Fledermaus" to" Dialogues of the Carmelites". In April of 2008, Joliet West High School will become the first high school to perform a comic opera of Edwin Penhorwood entitled "Too Many Sopranos".