| Junius H. Rose High School (Junius Harris Rose) | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Greenville, North Carolina, US |
|
| Information | |
| Motto | Where Pride is Rampant and Achievement Abounds! |
| Established | 1957 |
| Principal | Dr. George Frazier (2001-2010) Charles Langley (2010-) |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Number of students | 1613 |
| Color(s) | Green, Columbia Blue, White |
| Mascot | Rampants, believed to be a combination of "Rams" and "Panthers", mascots of the previous Greenville High School and C. M. Eppes High School |
| Website | Official Site |
Junius H Rose High School (known colloquially as JH Rose, Rose High or simply Rose) is a comprehensive public high school in Greenville, North Carolina, in the Pitt County Schools system. Originally dedicated in 1957 on South Elm Street, it moved to its present location on Arlington Boulevard (the former Greenville Middle School) in 1992. Students that made up the original student body came from the former Greenville High School in downtown Greenville. Students from the former historically black C. M. Eppes High School were integrated in during the early 1970s.
J.H. Rose has a nationally recognized Advanced Placement (AP) program, cited by the Siemens Foundation as one of the top 50 US high schools for performance on science and math advanced placement tests in 2006-07 [1]. Rose students have been recipients of honors such as the PSAT Merit Scholarship, Morehead Scholarship, Benjamin N. Duke Scholarship, Park Scholarship, and the Presidential Scholarship.
In 2011 the school received a 3 out of 10 rating from greatschools.org. [1].
In 2005, the school was listed on Newsweek magazine's list of top high schools in the United States for the first time. In 2005, it was listed #645, #471 in 2006, and in 2007, #682. Typically, about 50 schools from North Carolina (primarily from the Charlotte, Research Triangle, and Piedmont Triad regions) make the list.
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The school was named for longtime Greenville area educator Dr. Junius H. Rose (1892–1972). Rose was a World War I veteran who came to Greenville in 1919 to serve as principal of Greenville High School, a predecessor institution to the present school. In 1920, he was appointed as superintendent of the former Greenville City Schools district, a position he was still holding as of 1957. He was also the Civil Defense Chairman of Pitt County and a Boy Scout Leader. According to local historian Roger Kammerer, "... Rose almost missed the life he found in education. He wanted to be a railroad man, but was persuaded by his professor at Trinity College in Durham (now Duke University) to take a position in education in Kinston. From there, he came to Pitt County and remained for the rest of his life. Known to be very involved with the students, Rose even missed the announcement of his appointment as superintendent because he was on a trip with students. Rose was active in his church, Jarvis Memorial [United Methodist Church], and in statewide civic organizations."[2] A portrait of Dr. Rose, which originally hung in the library on the South Elm campus, now hangs in the administrative area of the Arlington campus.
For many years, white students attended Greenville High School, which had been built in 1608 located in the downtown area on what was then known as the "Town Common" and the site of what is now a parking lot for East Carolina University. Principals of this school included E.S. Peele (c. 1915), Junius H. Rose (1919-), Vester M. Mulholland (c. 1939), and _____ (1983–1990, continuing as the principal of Rose).
The first public high school in Greenville was established in 1903 on Evans Street (on the present site of the Sheppard Memorial Library.
In 1915, a building designated for use as the high school was built on what is now an East Carolina University parking lot. E. S. Peele served as the first principal of this building.
On Wednesday, April 12, 1927, flood engulfed and destroyed the original building. A new building was constructed soon thereafter, soon to be followed by the addition of an auditorium-gymnasium.
The sixth grade was moved to the middle school building in 1937 and in the fall of 1938 the twelfth grade was added. Clubs at Greenville High included the Student Cooperative Association, "Black Maskers" (a drama and theater group), the Beta Club, Quill and Scroll, and the student newspaper and yearbook "Green Lights". Each year on Confederate Memorial Day, the school conducted a chapel program followed by a school-wide procession to the confederate memorial at the Pitt County Courthouse.
Until desegregation was hastened by a fire that destroyed most of the school on the night of January 28, 1970, African-American students attended C. M. Eppes High School near the intersection of what is now West 5th Street and Memorial Drive. Upon the opening of the Arlington campus of Rose in 1992, the name C.M. Eppes was given to the South Elm Rose campus.
For thirty-five years, the school was located on South Elm Street, directly east and adjacent to the College Hill section of the East Carolina University campus and within view of the university's Ficklen Stadium. Ground was broken in 1955, and the building was dedicated on November 14, 1957. At the time of its opening in 1957, it was under the jurisdiction of the Greenville City Schools district. Photographs of the groundbreaking are on file at Sheppherd Memorial Library.
The school was built on the former site of the National Youth Administration Center. According to local historian Roger Kammerer, the center's site included six to eight barracks, a mess hall, and an administration building.
For many years, white high school students in Greenville attended the Greenville High School in downtown Greenville, now the location of an East Carolina University parking lot. The South Elm Street campus of Rose High was dedicated in 1957, and was all white until the 1969-1970 school year, during which the integration of Eppes into Rose commenced. Meanwhile, African-American high school students attended the historically black C. M. Eppes High School (which began as a high school in 1942) near Memorial Boulevard.
In 1969, an addition was made to the Rose physical plant, most of which consisted of the classroom area on the right front of the building (downstairs consisted of science classrooms).
When the majority of the Eppes campus burned on January 28, 1970, integration at the high school level was accelerated (all that remains of the original Eppes campus is the gymnasium). Rose was closed for several days in the early 1970s when racial violence erupted on the bus lot and in the cafeteria, prompting the calling out of the National Guard.
In 1973, the school's Kiwanis sponsored Key Club was founded under the guidance of community business leader and future Greenville Mayor Leslie Garner. Over the years, the club produced several divisional and district leaders, including the organization's incumbent district administrator. The first Carolinas District Governor from Rose, Patrick Perkins, was elected at the district convention in Greenville, South Carolina in 1993. For many years, a female counterpart organization Keywanettes, also existed. However, this unofficial organization has in recent years been discouraged by Kiwanis International since the Rose Key Club began admitting women in the 1990s (many years after the official admission of women at the international level in 1976).
As of the 1980s and early 1990s, only tenth through twelfth grades were housed at the South Elm Street campus, while ninth graders were housed at E. B. Aycock Junior High School (opened in 1969, and named for a former chair of the school board) on Red Banks Road.
On July 1, 1985, the Greenville City Schools district was consolidated into the Pitt County Schools district. With the merger, came the introduction of the Junior ROTC program into Rose's curricular offerings.
Dan Peek, former lead singer of the band America, performed a concert in the South Elm Street campus' gymnasium in the fall of 1986.
Since the South Elm campus began housing Eppes Middle School in 1992, it has served as a middle school for sixteen years. Prior, it had served as a high school campus for a total of thirty-five years. In 2028, the time that the campus has served as a middle school will have surpassed the amount of time that the campus served as a high school.
In 1992, the Arlington Boulevard campus of Rose opened in the renovated and expanded Greenville Middle School campus (which had opened as a middle school in 1978). With the addition of ninth graders (previously housed at E.B. Aycock, which had opened in 1969), all four high school grades were housed under one roof for the first time in many years. Although there was much speculation and discussion regarding the South Elm campus being sold to East Carolina University upon the opening of the Arlington campus, the site now houses a middle school that carries on the C.M. Eppes name. The western most portion of the South Elm campus has been integrated into the East Carolina University campus, primarily as a storage and maintenance area. Although the Arlington Boulevard campus did not fully open until 1992, the football stadium was in use as of the fall of 1987. Prior to this, games were held in Ficklen Stadium on the East Carolina University campus.
Several "artifacts" of the South Elm Street campus were incorporated into to the Arlington Boulevard campus. The letters that were once on the front wall of the main building on South Elm are now on the sign directly in front of the current school. They were a gift of the Class of 19??. In addition, the memorial to David Samuel Johnson, a student killed in an auto accident in the fall of 1985 on Memorial Drive, was moved along with the school to the Arlington Boulevard campus. The memorial, a gift of the Class of 1988, was originally located just beyond the front doors of the main South Elm building. After a failed attempt to move the magnolia tree that was planted when the monument was installed in 1987, a replacement tree was planted at the memorial's new location on the Arlington Boulevard campus.
After the Arlington Boulevard campus opened in 1992, the first graduation held on the new campus in 1993 was abruptly interrupted by a power outage and heavy thunderstorm that quickly came up on the football stadium. Attendees huddled under the stadium, and/or fled to the main building, some believing that a tornado was approaching. After the storm passed, school administrators quickly set up for a scaled down ceremony in the school's gymnasium.
After the departure of Dr. B. Patrick Austin as principal in the summer of 1993, the school was served briefly by a collaborative team of administrators before the appointment of Shirley Carraway as principal. Carraway, a former elementary teacher and principal, was the first woman and first African-American to serve as principal at Rose. After Carraway left Rose in 1997 to serve with the central office of Pitt County Schools, assistant principal Barbara Mallory was appointed as principal. Mallory had previously served at both E. B. Aycock Middle School and Roanoke High School. Mallory left Rose in 2001 to serve at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction in Raleigh.
Governor James B. Hunt, Jr. spoke on campus in 1996. Dr. Marye Anne Fox, chancellor of North Carolina State University, spoke on campus in September 1998. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp spoke on campus in February 2009 (Daily Reflector, February 23, 2009).
In 2001, Dr. George Frazier, formerly of the Guilford County Schools, was appointed as principal. He was the first principal to be appointed at Rose from outside Pitt County since B. Patrick Austin in 1985.
Lauren Nelson, Miss America 2007 spoke on campus in March 2008 during the North Carolina Association of Student Councils conference.
As of 2008, the school has been located on Arlington Boulevard for sixteen years, almost half the time that the school was located on South Elm. The campus served as a middle school for a total of fourteen years (1978–1992), and as of 2008, a high school for sixteen years (1992–present). In 2006, the time the campus had served as a high school first exceeded the amount of time that it had served as a middle school.
There are several coincidences surrounding the two Rose campuses. A railroad track crosses both South Elm and Arlington near the campuses. Both streets have medians dividing the lanes. Finally, tennis courts and a city park are located across the street from both campuses. Also, the Evans family cemetery (namesakes of nearby cross street Evans Street) which predates the school by over a hundred years (some of the graves date to the 1860s), is located on campus near the football stadium.
Ella Harris, who served in several capacities at Rose for almost forty years, as assistant principal for almost twenty years, retired in 2009. The Ella Harris Lecture Hall is named in her honor.
The first principal of Rose was Orren Edwards Dowd. Dowd had served as principal of Greenville High School from 1943 until the opening of Rose in 1957, and continued to serve at Rose until c. 1961. Guy T. Swain served as principal from c. 1963 to c. 1966. T.S. Whitney served as principal c. 1967.
Edward Nelson Warren (November 9, 1926-April 24, 2003) served as principal from c. 1967 to c. 1974. After serving as principal at Rose, he went on to serve in the North Carolina General Assembly for twenty-two years, the longest of any state legislator from Pitt County. He served as a representative for ten years, and as a senator for twelve years, for a total of twenty-two years. In 2003, he was elected to the East Carolina University Board of Trustees but died prior to being able to take office. The Edward Nelson Warren Life Sciences Building on East Carolina's medical campus is named in his honor (Pitt County Chronicles, Vol. II, p. 803).
Robert J. Alligood served as principal from c. 1971 to c. 1977, and Frank Davenport served from 1977 to 1979. Former principals since the 1980s have included Howard Hurt (1979–1985), B. Patrick Austin (1985–1993), Shirley Carraway (1993–1997), and Barbara Mallory (1997–2001).
After Hurt's departure in 1985, he later served as associate superintendent in the Rowan-Salisbury Schools. Hurt, a native of West Virginia, had once played on the basketball team of Duke University.
B. Patrick Austin, a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, began his career as an English teacher, later serving in administrative roles in Wake County and Dare County. While at Rose, Austin began doctoral studies in educational leadership at East Carolina University, later transferring to the program at Campbell University. Austin resigned from Rose at the end of the 1992-1993 school year, announcing that he was taking a position at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.(A minor footnote of trivia: Like the namesake of the school, Austin was a member of Jarvis United Methodist Church).
Rose was served by an interim transitional team after Austin's departure, which included, among others, the late Bernard Haselrig. Upon Carraway's appointment in 1993, she became both the first female and first African-American to serve as principal at Rose. Carraway served at the district level in Pitt County after her departure from Rose. From 2003 to 2007, she served as the superintendent of Orange County Schools near Chapel Hill. She is celebrated as one of the outstanding and most successful female alumni of the School of Education at East Carolina University, where she earned all of her degrees, including her doctorate in educational leadership. After her retirement from Orange County Schools, she returned to Greenville and is now working with the Second Life early college pilot program, a collaboration between Pitt County Schools, East Carolina University, and Pitt Community College.
Dr. Mallory, who served at the state level in the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction after her departure from Rose, is now a professor of educational leadership at Georgia Southern University, and has been published in various professional journals for school leaders. Including her service as an English instructor (which began at Rose in the mid 1970s), Media Center Coordinator, Assistant Principal, and Principal, she probably has the most collective experience at Rose of any recent principal. In 1999, she was one of five finalists for Wachovia Principal of the Year in North Carolina. Mallory earned her doctorate in educational leadership from East Carolina University.
Dr. George Frazier, who came to Rose from the Alamance-Burlington School System in 2001. Frazier had spent many years at Western Guilford High School, and had also served in the Durham school district as principal of Hillside High School. Serving for almost a decade, he has had the longest term of service of any principal in Rose's history. He will retire on August 31, 2010.
In July 2010, Charlie Langley was designated to succeed Frazier on September 1, 2010. He is the first known alumnus of Rose to serve as principal. He began his teaching career in 1992 at Ayden Middle School and transferred the next fall to E. B. Aycock Middle School. In the fall of 1997, Langley was appointed assistant principal at Rose where he remained until 1999. Langley was appointed to his first principal role at A. G. Cox Middle School beginning with the 1999-2000 school year and stayed until being transferred to C. M. Eppes Middle School (located on the former South Elm Street campus of Rose High) in 2004, where he will have served six years upon the commencement of his principalship at Rose. In 2004, Langley was named Pitt County Schools’ Principal of the Year.
All of Rose's known principals are presented here in chronological order. Clarification is needed of dates and names from the end of Dowd's administration to the end of Davenport's administration and the beginning of Hurt's:
The performing arts – band, chorus, orchestra, and theatre – have been staples of the Rose experience for years.
Betty Topper, late wife of East Carolina University violin professor Paul Q. Topper, served as chorus director on the South Elm campus for several years. Other choral directors include Patricia Hiss.
Rose's first band director was James Rogers, who was an honorary member of the Zeta Psi chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity at East Carolina University. Other directors have included Charles Allen, Mike Fussell, Richard Purvis, and K. Dean Shatley. Shatley is now a successful education lawyer with the Roberts and Stevens firm in western North Carolina, and has held state and national leadership roles in Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, most recently as Committeeman-at-Large.
In 1971 JH Rose was the first high school in North Carolina to establish jazz ensemble as a course credit offering. That initial group was directed by trombonist Tom Smith, later a musician for ABC Television's Captain and Tenille Show (1977–78).
For many years, Lynn Roberson conducted the orchestra. A highlight of the orchestra's history was the 1993 appearance on Good Morning America. The orchestra has won numerous awards, including one earned at a music festival in Toronto, Canada.. The orchestra programs at Rose and Aycock are now under the direction of University of North Carolina at Greensboro graduate Justin Swaim.
Legend says that the nickname "Rampants" comes from the mascots of the two predecessor high schools – Greenville High School's mascot was the "Rams," and Eppes High School's was the "Panthers." Although the mascot looks nothing like either of them, the word embodies the former mascots' names. The school colors, blue and green, also come from the old high schools, whose colors were blue and white and green and white.
A long-time fan of the Rose football program is Marvin Jarman, a Rose graduate for whom Marvin Jarman Drive is named. The street begins at Evans Street near the football stadium, and curves towards the main campus.
On September 20, 2008, junior running back Jaquan Waller died after collapsing on the sideline at the football game the night before. Waller had suffered a concussion during practice on Sept. 17, and the death was said to be a result of "second impact syndrome." His was the third high school football related death in North Carolina in the 2008 season, following deaths at Chapel Hill High School and R.J. Reynolds High School. His death continues to be investigated by Pitt County Schools officials.
The J. H. Rose Rampant baseball team won their sixth state championship in the 2008 baseball season. The five other state championships occurred in 1975, 1997, 1999, 2003, and 2004.
The J. H. Rose Rampant football team has won five state championships during the 1975, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 seasons.
The J.H. Rose Rampant volleyball team won two consecutive state championships in 2008 and 2009. Making it to the semi-finals in 2010, but falling to Apex breaking their 69 game winning streak.
J.H. Rose has an JROTC program, established upon the merger of Pitt County Schools and Greenville City Schools in the mid 1980s. Its official name is the Rampant Battalion.
The JROTC program is located in the annex, a small building on the school grounds formerly the Greenville Boys and Girls Club.
The program has a long standing tradition of excellence, as proven by its special teams' accomplishments.
The school's current Alma Mater is set to the tune of the Canadian national anthem, O Canada. The fight song Dear Old Greenville (still used as of the 2000s), was written by former Greenville High School band director Harold A. McDougle. It was sung at the 1957 dedication of the Elm Street campus. Ironically, McDougle also wrote the alma mater of East Carolina University, "Hail to Thy Name So Fair" while a student at East Carolina.
The current name of the yearbook is Reflections, a name that was chosen by yearbook advisor Sylvia Briley around 1986. Prior to that the name was Visa (which appears to have been selected during the 1969-1970 school year, the year of Eppes' consolidation into Rose). From 1957 to 1970, the name of the yearbook was Tau, which had been the name of the Greenville High School yearbook.
Since 1970 (the year of the Eppes consolidation), the name of the student newspaper has been Rampant Lines. Prior to that, the name of the paper was Green Lights, which had also been the name of the Greenville High School paper.
Its main scholarly rival is D. H. Conley High School.
Rose has had some interesting pranks in the past such as water balloon fights and funny writings on the outside walls and roofs, but rose is fairly consistent at keeping it to good clean fun.