Hug High School
Encyclopedia
Procter R. Hug High School is a fully accredited public high school in Reno, Nevada
, and belongs to the Washoe County School District
. Hug High was built on a hillside in northeast Reno in 1968 to serve students from rapidly growing areas in northeast Reno, northwest Reno and the Northern Valleys.
Like many other local schools, Hug High was named for a member of the local school board. Procter R. Hug was a college athlete, teacher, athletic coach and Washoe County School Superintendent who went on after retirement to serve as a Nevada State Senator.
Enrollment peaked in the early 70's, and again in the early 80's. Hug High currently has an enrollment of approximately 1,274 students in grades 9-12.
Recent statistics on the ethnic origin of the student body of Hug High School (2007-2008 school year, with district-wide statistics in parentheses): American Indian/Native American: 1.7% (2.5%), Asian/Pacific Islander: 10.2% (6.4%), Hispanic/Latino: 57.9% (32.8%), Black/African American: 9.9% (3.8%), White/Caucasian: 20.3% (54.4%).
Its nine buildings (Academic Buildings A, B, C, and D, the Industrial Arts building, the Gymnasium, the Little Theater and Cafeteria building, the Library, the Administration building, and JROTC rifle range) are set on a multilevel series of terraces, and most are connected by covered outdoor walkways. The facades of most of the buildings are covered in dark green serpentine stone panels, and the equally green campus has been landscaped with a wide variety of trees and plants over the years. Reno's first "school on the hill," the campus offers a beautiful panoramic view of the Truckee Meadows to the south, and of the Sierra Nevada to the southwest. The campus has been decorated over the years with numerous murals and mosaics depicting the mascot, school colors and the letter "H" for Hug.
Today Hug offers classes in English
, from English as a Second Language up to Advanced Placement levels, mathematics from Algebra
I to Calculus
AB, sciences such as Biology
, Chemistry
and Physics
, Spanish
, French
, Industrial arts
and physical education
, as well as numerous elective courses. In 2003, the Academic Olympics (AO) team placed 4th in Washoe County and the Science Bowl team competed in the Nevada regional competition. In 2004, the AO team placed 3rd in the district, the Science Bowl team placed 4th in the Nevada
Regional, and the Robotics
team placed in the top third in the Chesapeake
Regional in Annapolis, Maryland
.
(large school). The campus has a lighted stadium for night games, tennis courts, and a baseball field, also on a descending set of hillside terraces. Hug has been successful in boy's basketball, football and boy's track this decade. The boy's basketball team won the Regional titles in 2002 and 2009, the football team was the state runner-up in 2005, along with the Northern Region championship, and the boy's track & field team won the division, zone & state title in 2001 with less than 30 members 1 of which was team captain Senior David Butler who went to state in 4 events. Many other members of the track team also had multiple events in which they all placed in the top 5.
Academic achievements. In the 1970s and 80's, it had a fine theater program under the direction of local actor and director Eve Loomis. Along with numerous musical, dramatic and dance performances, she founded a traveling children's theater troupe, the Hug High Harlequins, which traveled to elementary school audiences all over Northern Nevada. In the 1970s and 80's there was also a Shakespeare Club, active in organizing yearly fieldtrips to Shakespeare performances of professional theater companies under the supervision of English teacher Joanne Walen. This group was also commonly known as "Little Willy's Gang." Hug High, along with crosstown high school partner Wooster High, co-hosted the prestigious National Association of Student Councils conference in June 1982, bringing hundreds of high school student leaders from all over the country to the Hug campus for its three-day leadership workshop. At that time, Hug was also competitive in speech and debate at the state level, and had a marching band that eventually went on to represent the state in the 1997 Presidential Inaugural Parade in Washington, DC. The march written for the occasion by Hug High marching band director Gerald Willis was called the "Silver State Fanfare," and after being played by a number of other Nevada marching bands was eventually named the Official State March by the Nevada Legislature in 2001.
Cultural diversity at Hug. Whether the Native frybread lunches of the First Americans Club and Black History Month
pageants of the 1970s and 80's (both organized under the mentorship of counselor Dolores Feemster) or the Cinco de Mayo
celebrations planned by the Hug Unidos Club, and Polynesian
dancing that characterize student life today, students continue to add to the history of student life at Hug through exploring and sharing their multifaceted cultural heritage with others.
Traditions. The school mascot is the Hawk
. Although the school colors originally chosen by the student body were kelly green and white, the school administration later modified them in the 1980s to a darker forest green and white. The school yearbook is called the Talon, and the school newspaper is called "Soar." Its drill team, originally called the Shamrocks, is now called Hawk Havoc. The traditional school totem was the Spirit Claw, given to the class at each school assembly deemed to have shown the most school spirit.
As the Hawk soars overhead, rising high are we.
Honor, spirit, make us proud, of our loyalty.
Sacrifice, pay the price, proud are we to be,
The Spirit of America: Hug High Hawks are we!
Fight Song (sung to the tune of "When the Saints")
Oh when the Hawks, go flying in,
Oh when the Hawks go flying in,
We'll be there to cheer the victors,
When the Hawks go flying in!
(Unlike most other schools in the area, Hug has two school songs: a School Anthem and a Fight Song. Traditionally, both school songs are played at pep rallies and games by the Hug High Pep Band, and each is accompanied by a short routine performed by the Hug High Cheerleaders and Songleaders. The Fight Song is usually played during games and rallies, whereas the School Anthem is only played at the end. )
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
, and belongs to the Washoe County School District
Washoe County School District
The Washoe County School District is a public school district providing public education to students in Washoe County, Nevada, including the cities of Reno, Sparks, Verdi, Incline Village, and Gerlach. As of September 2006, the school district had 63,098 students enrolled. It is the second...
. Hug High was built on a hillside in northeast Reno in 1968 to serve students from rapidly growing areas in northeast Reno, northwest Reno and the Northern Valleys.
Like many other local schools, Hug High was named for a member of the local school board. Procter R. Hug was a college athlete, teacher, athletic coach and Washoe County School Superintendent who went on after retirement to serve as a Nevada State Senator.
History
Hug High's first principal, Bud Garfinkle, opened the school for the 1968-69 academic year with only sophomores and juniors; the first senior class graduated in 1970. Hug was a three year high school until the 1972-73 academic year when freshmen were admitted as all Washoe County High Schools transitioned to four year schools. As Hug was founded in the late 60's when the U.S. was undergoing intense social change and political turmoil (especially in relation to guaranteeing equal rights to all of its citizens and fighting an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam), the events of this period contributed to the idealism of the school's first years. In a recent letter, Garfinkle reiterates these sentiments: "I feel as if I gave birth to a child... A child born at a time when our nation was wrestling with many new ideas: that all people should be treated equally, regardless of race, color or creed." As one of the most ethnically diverse high schools in the district, it could be said that shifts in Hug's fortunes have often provided a litmus lest to the community at large as to how far it has come to achieving these ideals.Enrollment peaked in the early 70's, and again in the early 80's. Hug High currently has an enrollment of approximately 1,274 students in grades 9-12.
Recent statistics on the ethnic origin of the student body of Hug High School (2007-2008 school year, with district-wide statistics in parentheses): American Indian/Native American: 1.7% (2.5%), Asian/Pacific Islander: 10.2% (6.4%), Hispanic/Latino: 57.9% (32.8%), Black/African American: 9.9% (3.8%), White/Caucasian: 20.3% (54.4%).
Its nine buildings (Academic Buildings A, B, C, and D, the Industrial Arts building, the Gymnasium, the Little Theater and Cafeteria building, the Library, the Administration building, and JROTC rifle range) are set on a multilevel series of terraces, and most are connected by covered outdoor walkways. The facades of most of the buildings are covered in dark green serpentine stone panels, and the equally green campus has been landscaped with a wide variety of trees and plants over the years. Reno's first "school on the hill," the campus offers a beautiful panoramic view of the Truckee Meadows to the south, and of the Sierra Nevada to the southwest. The campus has been decorated over the years with numerous murals and mosaics depicting the mascot, school colors and the letter "H" for Hug.
Academics
Over the years, Hug has offered both a general-education and a full college-preparatory curriculum, and many of its alumni have gone on to attend some of the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities, with some earning Ph.D.'s, J.D.'s and other advanced degrees. In recent years, Principal Andrew Kelly has instituted a "small schools" program, converting the A, B, and C buildings and the Gymnasium annex into semi-autonomous academic entities, in order to create a more individualized, less anonymous academic environment for students and teachers alike. He has also spoken out publicly about the racial and socioeconomic inequality still present in the Washoe County School District. More recently, Hug has received attention from the local television station KOLO for its improving academic standing as well as the introduction of gender-separate classes in its ongoing objective to boost student performance.Today Hug offers classes in English
English studies
English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
, from English as a Second Language up to Advanced Placement levels, mathematics from Algebra
Algebra
Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials, equations and algebraic structures...
I to Calculus
Calculus
Calculus is a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. This subject constitutes a major part of modern mathematics education. It has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus, which are related by the fundamental theorem...
AB, sciences such as Biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, Chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and Physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Industrial arts
Industrial arts
Industrial Arts is an umbrella term originally conceived in the late 19th century to describe educational programs which featured fabrication of objects in wood and/or metal using a variety of hand, power, or machine tools...
and physical education
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
, as well as numerous elective courses. In 2003, the Academic Olympics (AO) team placed 4th in Washoe County and the Science Bowl team competed in the Nevada regional competition. In 2004, the AO team placed 3rd in the district, the Science Bowl team placed 4th in the Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
Regional, and the Robotics
Robotics
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...
team placed in the top third in the Chesapeake
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
Regional in Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...
.
Athletics
Hug competes in the High Desert League of the Northern Nevada 4A RegionNorthern Nevada 4A Region
The Northern Nevada 4A Region is a part of the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, governing the northern half of Nevada for high school athletics. The Northern 4A league is the large-school level, which has schools with enrollments of 1,200 and higher. The region is split into two...
(large school). The campus has a lighted stadium for night games, tennis courts, and a baseball field, also on a descending set of hillside terraces. Hug has been successful in boy's basketball, football and boy's track this decade. The boy's basketball team won the Regional titles in 2002 and 2009, the football team was the state runner-up in 2005, along with the Northern Region championship, and the boy's track & field team won the division, zone & state title in 2001 with less than 30 members 1 of which was team captain Senior David Butler who went to state in 4 events. Many other members of the track team also had multiple events in which they all placed in the top 5.
History and Student Life
Sociopolitical background. While Hug has almost always had a higher percentage of students from ethnic minorities and low-income families than other schools in the district, since the late 80's the student body has undergone an even more extreme demographic shift, underscoring the underlying problem of racial and economic segregation that still could be said to characterize the school district as a whole.Academic achievements. In the 1970s and 80's, it had a fine theater program under the direction of local actor and director Eve Loomis. Along with numerous musical, dramatic and dance performances, she founded a traveling children's theater troupe, the Hug High Harlequins, which traveled to elementary school audiences all over Northern Nevada. In the 1970s and 80's there was also a Shakespeare Club, active in organizing yearly fieldtrips to Shakespeare performances of professional theater companies under the supervision of English teacher Joanne Walen. This group was also commonly known as "Little Willy's Gang." Hug High, along with crosstown high school partner Wooster High, co-hosted the prestigious National Association of Student Councils conference in June 1982, bringing hundreds of high school student leaders from all over the country to the Hug campus for its three-day leadership workshop. At that time, Hug was also competitive in speech and debate at the state level, and had a marching band that eventually went on to represent the state in the 1997 Presidential Inaugural Parade in Washington, DC. The march written for the occasion by Hug High marching band director Gerald Willis was called the "Silver State Fanfare," and after being played by a number of other Nevada marching bands was eventually named the Official State March by the Nevada Legislature in 2001.
Cultural diversity at Hug. Whether the Native frybread lunches of the First Americans Club and Black History Month
Black History Month
Black History Month is an observance of the history of the African diaspora in a number of countries outside of Africa. Since 1976, it is observed annually in the United States and Canada in February, while in the United Kingdom it is observed in October...
pageants of the 1970s and 80's (both organized under the mentorship of counselor Dolores Feemster) or the Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo is a holiday held on May 5. It is celebrated nationwide in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla...
celebrations planned by the Hug Unidos Club, and Polynesian
Polynesian culture
Polynesian culture refers to the indigenous peoples' culture of Polynesia who share common traits in language, customs and society. Chronologically, the development of Polynesian culture can be divided into four different historical eras:...
dancing that characterize student life today, students continue to add to the history of student life at Hug through exploring and sharing their multifaceted cultural heritage with others.
Traditions. The school mascot is the Hawk
Hawk
The term hawk can be used in several ways:* In strict usage in Australia and Africa, to mean any of the species in the subfamily Accipitrinae, which comprises the genera Accipiter, Micronisus, Melierax, Urotriorchis and Megatriorchis. The large and widespread Accipiter genus includes goshawks,...
. Although the school colors originally chosen by the student body were kelly green and white, the school administration later modified them in the 1980s to a darker forest green and white. The school yearbook is called the Talon, and the school newspaper is called "Soar." Its drill team, originally called the Shamrocks, is now called Hawk Havoc. The traditional school totem was the Spirit Claw, given to the class at each school assembly deemed to have shown the most school spirit.
School songs
School Anthem (sung to the tune of "Aura Lee")As the Hawk soars overhead, rising high are we.
Honor, spirit, make us proud, of our loyalty.
Sacrifice, pay the price, proud are we to be,
The Spirit of America: Hug High Hawks are we!
Fight Song (sung to the tune of "When the Saints")
Oh when the Hawks, go flying in,
Oh when the Hawks go flying in,
We'll be there to cheer the victors,
When the Hawks go flying in!
(Unlike most other schools in the area, Hug has two school songs: a School Anthem and a Fight Song. Traditionally, both school songs are played at pep rallies and games by the Hug High Pep Band, and each is accompanied by a short routine performed by the Hug High Cheerleaders and Songleaders. The Fight Song is usually played during games and rallies, whereas the School Anthem is only played at the end. )