North Kansas City High School
Encyclopedia
North Kansas City High School, also known as "NKCHS," "NKC," and "Northtown," is a high school in North Kansas City, Missouri
with 1700+ students, ranging from freshmen to seniors. The first graduating class found of record was in 1917 with three known graduates. The school began as an all-white school, due to the inhabitants of the community, and is now one the most diverse and integrated schools in the nation.
The current main building was contracted to be built the first of March, 1925 as documented in the 1925 NKCHS Owl Yearbook for a total cost of $190,000. The contract was awarded to Fritzlen & Hufford Construction in Liberty, Missouri. The 1926 NKCHS Owl yearbook describes the opening and dedication of the new building on Sunday afternoon, January 24, 1926 by Missouri Governor Baker.
One of the most beloved buildings where classes were held, was the Hiram McElroy Dagg building.
. It has been ranked the Most Interesting High School Football
Field in the Kansas City
area by the Kansas City Star
, and has been used for local commercials, including Metro Sports
.
Men's and Women's teams
Men's only
Women's only
----
International Thespian Society Troupe 2191
weight-loss game show The Biggest Loser
. He made it to the ninth of eleven weeks, and was the second-to-last to be voted off. At one point, he came to the school with a film crew to film a segment for the show involving a group of his students. After the show, he quit his teaching position at the school, left his wife for a fellow cast member, and moved to Chicago.
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
with 1700+ students, ranging from freshmen to seniors. The first graduating class found of record was in 1917 with three known graduates. The school began as an all-white school, due to the inhabitants of the community, and is now one the most diverse and integrated schools in the nation.
Overview
The school colors are purple and gold. The school's mission statement is "The North Kansas City High School community strives to provide a safe and respectful environment in which all students can reach academic and personal potential through acceptance of responsibility and respect for self and others." Its motto is "Purple Pride Equals Golden Rewards." Since July 2001, Northtown has been an International Baccalaureate World School with Dr. Jane Reed as the program coordinator.History
Throughout the school's history, several buildings have been built and torn down. Currently standing are the three-story Main building featuring the original theatre, Fieldhouse, Business Technology building, and Norclay (formerly used as an elementary school). Other buildings in use on the campus are the "Academy" and the North Kansas City Public Library and Media Center. Northtown prides itself on its unique opportunity both as one of the only local schools to have an open campus but also as the only school in the state of Missouri to allow open lunch to all students.The current main building was contracted to be built the first of March, 1925 as documented in the 1925 NKCHS Owl Yearbook for a total cost of $190,000. The contract was awarded to Fritzlen & Hufford Construction in Liberty, Missouri. The 1926 NKCHS Owl yearbook describes the opening and dedication of the new building on Sunday afternoon, January 24, 1926 by Missouri Governor Baker.
One of the most beloved buildings where classes were held, was the Hiram McElroy Dagg building.
Mascot
The mascot is the Hornet. Although many have thought the original mascot was an owl, no evidence of that exists in published NKCHS yearbooks that we have found. There is; however, evidence of the Hornet mascot in the 1929 yearbook. The confusion comes with the name of the yearbook from 1924 through 1950; which was "The Owl" yearbook. High school jewelry like pins, etc. also bore the image of an owl; however, there is no evidence that the owl was the school's "mascot". The evidence is even stronger when you read in the 1929 Owl yearbook where the Pep Squad states, "All right, let's everybody give fifteen big "Rahs" for the "Hornets". Again in the 1930 NKCHS Owl yearbook you can see the Hornet on the Basketball player's shirts.Yearbook
The Owl yearbook was printed from 1924 through 1949. No yearbook was printed in 1933, 1932 or 1927 for reasons unknown. The school adopted a new name for the yearbook in 1950... the Purgold.Role in history
The stone wall around the football field was created as a work project during the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. It has been ranked the Most Interesting High School 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...
Field in the Kansas City
Kansas City Metropolitan Area
The Kansas City Metropolitan Area is a fifteen-county metropolitan area that is anchored by Kansas City, Missouri and is bisected by the border between the states of Missouri and Kansas. As of the 2010 Census, the metropolitan area has a population of 2,035,334. The metropolitan area is the...
area by the Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Star is a McClatchy newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes...
, and has been used for local commercials, including Metro Sports
Metro Sports
Metro Sports is a regional sports network serving the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, Lawrence, Kansas, and the state of Nebraska. It launched on December 12, 1996, and is currently available on cable systems including Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Knology....
.
Alumni
The Alumni Association of North Kansas City High School has sponsored an all school website that went live in January, 2010. Additionally, the alumni have recruited Henry Hornet on Facebook a retired mascot to pull all students, teachers, alumni and friends together for easy communication.Websites
- School Website
- District Website
- Alumni Sponsored Website
- North Kansas City Schools on Facebook
- Beloved Mascot, Henry Hornet on Facebook
Athletics
Competitive Teams Include:Men's and Women's teams
- Soccer
- Swimming and DivingDivingDiving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...
- Tennis
- Golf
- Track and Field
- Cross CountryCross country runningCross 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...
Men's only
- Baseball
- FootballAmerican footballAmerican 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...
- WrestlingScholastic wrestlingScholastic 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...
Women's only
- SoftballSoftballSoftball 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...
- CheerleadingCheerleadingCheerleading 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...
- Pom/Dance SquadDanceDance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
----
Clubs
- Student CouncilStudent councilStudent 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...
- Investment Club (IVC)
International Thespian Society Troupe 2191
- National Theatre Association
- QuizbowlQuizbowlQuiz bowl is a family of games of questions and answers on all topics of human knowledge that is commonly played by students enrolled in high school or college, although some participants begin in middle or even elementary school...
- Science Olympiad
- Robotics Club
- Foreign Language Club (German Club, French Club, Spanish Club)
- Arrested Development Fan Club
- Frisbee Golf Club
- Northtown ForensicsDebateDebate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
League - National Honors Society
- RepublicanRepublican Party (United States)The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Hornets Club - Young DemocratsDemocratic Party (United States)The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Club - American Field Service
- Marching band
- Concert band
- Freshman Orchestra
- Varsity Orchestra
- Color Guard
- Guitar Club
In popular culture
In 2006 Marty Wolff, one of the school's theater teachers was chosen to represent the state of Missouri on the NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
weight-loss game show The Biggest Loser
The Biggest Loser (Season 3)
The Biggest Loser is the third season of the NBC reality television series entitled The Biggest Loser. The third season premiered on September 20, 2006 with fifty overweight contestants , each competing to lose the most weight...
. He made it to the ninth of eleven weeks, and was the second-to-last to be voted off. At one point, he came to the school with a film crew to film a segment for the show involving a group of his students. After the show, he quit his teaching position at the school, left his wife for a fellow cast member, and moved to Chicago.
Notable alumni
- Class of 1938 Robert Dixon Scharz, Mayor of North Kansas City, MissouriNorth Kansas City, MissouriNorth Kansas City is a city in Clay County, Missouri, United States and is an independent municipality that is a part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. The population was 4,714 as of the 2000 census but a large business/industrial base swells the daytime population by thousands more...
(1953–1962); State of Missouri Insurance Commissioner; Instrumental in the planning of North Kansas City HospitalNorth Kansas City HospitalNorth Kansas City Hospital is an acute care hospital located in North Kansas City, Missouri at 2800 Clay Edwards Drive.-Hospital Background:...
& the Paseo BridgePaseo BridgeThe Paseo Bridge was a suspension bridge over the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri. Before being replaced by the Christopher S. Bond Bridge, it carried Interstates 29 and 35 and U.S. Route 71 over the river.-Background and History:...
. - Class of 1939 Robert Kenneth Elliott, Served as a judge in Division II of the 7th Judicial Circuit Court of Clay County, Missouri for 33 years (from 1958–1991). The R. Kenneth Elliott Children's Justice Center in Clay County, Missouri was constructed in his honor. He led the drive in the 1970s to acquire the first Clay County juvenile facility to keep young people separate from adult detainees.
- Class of 1950 Benjamin L. Aaron, M.D., Saved the life of President Ronald Reagan following the assassination attempt on March 30, 1981
- Class of 1956 Charlie Broomfield, Missouri Democratic politician
- Class of 1956 Phil Snowden, former University of Missouri quarterback and Missouri Democratic state senator
- Class of 1958 Bill KelsoBill KelsoWilliam Eugene Kelso was an American professional baseball player who played four seasons for the Los Angeles/California Angels and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball....
, Major League Baseball player and scout, owner of Kelso's Pizza restaurants - Class of 1964 Katheryn ShieldsKatheryn ShieldsKatheryn Shields is a Kansas City, Missouri Democratic Party politician who served as Jackson County, Missouri County Executive from 1995 to 2006.-Early life:...
, Jackson County executive, Missouri Democratic politician - Class of 1967 Dick Wilson, Kansas City, Missouri radio and television personality
- Class of 1970 Rick Scott, Governor of Florida
- Class of 1970 Robin Wayne BaileyRobin Wayne BaileyRobin Wayne Bailey is an American fantasy and science fiction author. He is a past president of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America . He was South-Central Regional Director for SFWA nine years. He has also hosted three of SFWA's Nebula Awards weekends...
, a.k.a. Robert Bailey, Author - Class of 1971 Phil Deibler, political cartoonist
- Class of 1976 Connie DoverConnie DoverConnie Dover is an American singer-songwriter who primarily writes and performs Celtic music and American folk music. Born in Arkansas and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, she started her career playing bluegrass before joining Celtic band Scartaglen in the early 1980s...
, singer, Emmy Award-winning producer and composer - Class of 1990 Rodolfo "Rudy" Reyes, actor & author.,
- School Counselor Loman D. Cansler, Missouri folk song and folklore collection