Karns High School is a public high school in the Karns

Karns, Tennessee

Karns is an unincorporated community in western Knox County, Tennessee, United States, about west of the center of Knoxville. The United States Geographic Names System classifies Karns as a populated place.- Geography :...

 community of Knox County, Tennessee

Knox County, Tennessee

Knox County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Its 2007 population was estimated at 423,874 by the United States Census Bureau. Its county seat is Knoxville, as it has been since the creation of the county. The county is at the geographical center of the Great Valley of East Tennessee...

 administered by the Knox County Schools

Knox County Schools

Knox County Schools is the school district that operates all public schools in Knox County, Tennessee.- History :Before the 1987-1988 school year, the city of Knoxville and Knox County operated separate school districts...

 public school district.

A growing population in western Knox County required its establishment in 1913; prior to this time, students were assigned to Central High School

Central High School (Knoxville, Tennessee)

Central High School is a public high school located at 5321 Jacksboro Pike in the Fountain City neighborhood of Knoxville, Tennessee, operated by the Knox County school system...

, located several miles away in nearby Knoxville

Knoxville, Tennessee

Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...

. As of the 2008-2009 academic year there were about 1,900 enrolled students.

Since 1995, Karns High School has educated students in grades 9 through 12. In 2008, the school underwent construction to add additional cafeteria to serve the influx of new students.

Instructional program

Foreign languages offered at Karns are 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...

, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, and 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...

. Nearby Byington is considered to be the vocational portion of the school.

Extracurricular activities

Karns High School provides a number of extracurricular activities for its students.

Sports

The mascot for Karns High School is the Beaver

Beaver

The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...

. Sports offered include:

• Baseball
  Baseball
  Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
  
  
• Basketball
  Basketball
  Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
  
  
• Cheerleading
  Cheerleading
  Cheerleading is a physical activity, sometimes a competitive sport, based on organized routines, usually ranging from one to three minutes, which contain the components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games or to participate...
  
  
• Cross Country
  Cross country running
  Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...
  
  
• Dance Team
• Football
  American football
  American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
  
  
• Golf
  Golf
  Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
  
  
• Rugby
  Rugby football
  Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
  
   Girls State Champions
• Rock Climbing
  Rock Climbing
  Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...
  
  
• Soccer girls
• Softball
  Softball
  Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
  
  
• Swimming
• Tennis
  Tennis
  Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
  
  
• Track
  Track and field
  Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
  
  
• Ultimate Frisbee
• Volleyball
  Volleyball
  Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
  
  
• Wrestling
  Scholastic wrestling
  Scholastic wrestling, sometimes known in the United States as Folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling practised at the high school and middle school levels in the United States. This wrestling style is essentially Collegiate wrestling with some slight modifications. It is currently...
  
  

Fine arts and literary clubs

• Concert Band
  Concert band
  A concert band, also called wind band, symphonic band, symphonic winds, wind orchestra, wind symphony, wind ensemble, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of several members of the woodwind instrument family, brass instrument family, and percussion instrument family.A...
  
  
• Chorus
  Choir
  A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
  
  
• Drama
  Drama
  Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
  
  
• Drumline
  Drumline
  A drumline is a section of percussion instruments usually played as part of a musical marching ensemble. High school and college marching bands, drill and drum corps, drum and bugle corps, indoor percussion ensembles, and pipe bands usually incorporate drumlines; however, drumlines can exist...
  
  
• Ensemble
• Literary Arts Magazine (Lit Mag)
• Marching Band
  Marching band
  Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...
  
  
• Newspaper
  Newspaper
  A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
  
  
• Orchestra
  Orchestra
  An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
  
  
• Yearbook
  Yearbook
  A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks...
  
   Staff

Other clubs and teams

• Academic Team
• AFJROTC
• CDC & Peer Tutoring
• Chess
  Chess
  Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
  
  
• Color Guard
• DECA
  DECA (organization)
  DECA, also known as Collegiate DECA on the college level) is an international association of students and teachers of marketing, management and entrepreneurship in business, finance, hospitality, and marketing sales and service . DECA prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing,...
  
  
• Family Career Community Leaders of America (FCCLA)
• Fellowship of Christian Athletes
  Fellowship of Christian Athletes
  The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a non-profit interdenominational Christian organization founded in 1954 and that has been based in Kansas City, Missouri since 1956. It falls within the tradition of Muscular Christianity. Although established by evangelical Protestants, the concept has...
  
   (FCA)
• Floral Design
  Floral design
  Floral design is the art of using plant materials and flowers to create a pleasing and balanced composition. Evidence of refined floristry is found as far back as the culture of Ancient Egypt....
  
  
• Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA)
• Health Occupation Students of America (Hosa)
• Key Club
  Key Club
  Key Club International is the oldest and largest service program for high school students. It is a student-led organization whose goal is to teach leadership through serving others. Key Club International is a part of the Kiwanis International family of service-leadership programs...
  
  
• Leadership
  Leadership
  Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task". Other in-depth definitions of leadership have also emerged.-Theories:...
  
  
• Literary Arts Magazine
• Marching Band
• National Honors Society
• Scholars' Bowl
• Skills USA
• Student Council
  Student council
  Student council is a curricular or extra-curricular activity for students within elementary and secondary schools around the world. Present in most public and private K-12 school systems across the United States, Canada and Australia these bodies are alternatively entitled student council, student...
  
  
• Technology Student Association
  Technology Student Association
  The Technology Student Association is an international Career and Technical Student Organization made up of over 150,000 Middle School and High School Technology Education Students. TSA is the premier CTSO dedicated to STEM Standards: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics...
  
   (TSA)
• Ultimate Frisbee
• Young Life
  Young Life
  YoungLife is a worldwide, non-profit, Evangelical Christian organization. YoungLife consists of many branches of ministry , but most commonly the name "YoungLife" refers to the outreach arm of the organization directed toward high school students...
  
  
• Winter Guard

Notable alumni

Notable Karns alumni include:

• Andrew Carlton
  Andrew Carlton
  Andrew Carlton is an American Contemporary Christian music artist and singer/songwriter. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee where he was the costumed mascot, Smokey. His single "Jesus, Hold Me" spent 13 weeks on Billboard's Christian chart before hitting #18 and becoming the highest...
  
  , Christian singer
• Wilbert Cherry
  Wilbert H. Cherry
  Wilbert Harris Cherry participated in the desegregation of U.S. college basketball as the first African American to play basketball for the University of Tennessee, in 1970-1971, and one of the first two African Americans to play on the university's varsity team, in 1971-1972.Cherry was born in...
  
  , first African American basketball player at The University of Tennessee
• Trevor Bayne
  Trevor Bayne
  Trevor Bayne is an American NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide Series race car driver. He drives the No. 21 Motorcraft/QuickLane Ford Fusion for Wood Brothers Racing in the Sprint Cup Series, and the No. 16 Ford Mustang for Roush Fenway Racing in the Nationwide Series.Bayne began his racing...
  
  , Nascar Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series Driver
• Cylk Cozart
  Cylk Cozart
  Cylk Cozart is an American actor who has appeared in over 30 films and 20 television shows.-Early life:Cozart was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father is of African ancestry and his mother is Native American. Prior to becoming an actor, Cozart was an established model working in Miami, FL...
  
  , an actor whose credits include Conspiracy Theory
  Conspiracy Theory (film)
  Conspiracy Theory is a 1997 American action thriller film directed by Richard Donner.The original screenplay by Brian Helgeland centers on an eccentric taxi driver who believes many world events are triggered by government conspiracies, and the U.S...
  
   and 16 Blocks
  16 Blocks
  16 Blocks is a 2006 crime thriller film directed by Richard Donner. It stars Bruce Willis, Mos Def, and David Morse. The movie unfolds in the real time narration method.- Plot :...
  
  .
• Brian Wagner, artist and photoJournalist for the Los Angeles Times
  Los Angeles Times
  The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
  
  
• J.J. McCleskey, former corner back for the Arizona Cardinals
• Issac Iorg, former minor league baseball player in the Atlanta Braves organization
• Eli Iorg, current minor league baseball player in the Houston Astros organization
• Cale Iorg
  Cale Iorg
  Garth Cale Iorg is a minor league baseball player in the Detroit Tigers organization. He is the son of former Major League Baseball player Garth Iorg and nephew of former Major Leaguer Dane Iorg. Iorg graduated from Karns High School in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2004 and went on to play college...
  
  , current minor league baseball player in the Detroit Tigers organization
• Doug Roth
  Doug Roth
  Douglas Keith Roth is a retired American professional basketball player who was selected by the Washington Bullets in the 2nd round of the 1989 NBA Draft...
  
  , who played for the University of Tennessee
  University of Tennessee
  The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
  
  , and the NBA's Washington Bullets.
• Brent Smith
  Brent Smith
  Brent Smith is the lead vocalist and singer-songwriter of the band Shinedown. His biggest influences as a singer are Otis Redding, Billie Holiday, and Chris Cornell.-Personal life:...
  
  , lead vocalist of the American hard rock band Shinedown
  Shinedown
  Shinedown is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida, formed in 2001 and founded by members Brent Smith , Brad Stewart , Jasin Todd , and Barry Kerch . A few line-up changes followed, and the band's current line-up consists of Smith and Kerch, the band's only two remaining original...
  
  

Honors and awards

• Knoxville's Best Award
• Knoxville's Best Teacher Award
• PDK Principal of the Year - 2002 Diane Psihogios
• PDK Assistant Principal of the Year - 2002 David Boggan
• Leadership Education
• Five 21st Century Classrooms
• Optimist Club Sportsmanship Award
• Graduating classes averaging over $1.99 million in scholarships
• ACOM / Panasonic Cultural Exchange Program to Japan (Winners: Rosita Najmi, James Parnell, and Eric Levi Dixon)
• UT Whittle Scholars
• 7 National Merit Finalists
• Special Recognition Area 5 Special Olympics
• United Way Award of Appreciation
• 1 Profile in Courage Essay Contest Honorable Mention