Loachapoka High School is a
high school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...
in
Loachapoka,
Alabama
Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...
, enrolling
grades
Grade most commonly refers to:
* Grading in education, a measurement of a student's performance by educational assessment (e.g. A, pass, etc.)
* A designation for students, classes and curricula indicating the number of the year a student has reach ...
7–
12. The school enrolls 296 students, and is one of four high schools in the
Lee County School District along with
Beauregard,
Beulah, and
Smiths Station High Schools.
History
While Loachapoka had its own high school in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, by the 1930s students in Loachapoka attended high school at either
Drake
Drake may refer to:
Animals and creatures
* A male duck
* Drake (mythology), a term related to and often synonymous with dragon
People and fictional characters
* Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family ...
or
Auburn High Schools in nearby
Auburn.
["Three New Schools in Lee County", ''Opelika Daily News'', May 17, 1923; Albert Burton Moore, ''History of Alabama and Her People'', Vol. 3, (Chicago: American Historical Society, 1927), 344.] In 1968, the
Auburn City Schools
The Auburn City School District or Auburn City Schools is the school district of Auburn, Alabama
Auburn is a city in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is the largest city in eastern Alabama. The population was 76,143 at the 2020 Un ...
ceased providing regular high school services for the Loachapoka area, and Loachapoka students were
bused to
Beauregard High School, so that students from the mostly
African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
Loachapoka area would have an opportunity to attend an integrated high school. Attendance at Beauregard, however, required some students to take round-trip bus rides of up to 96 miles daily; to limit this, the Lee County Schools Board of Education requested to expand the existing Loachapoka Junior High School (grades 7–10) to a full high school. The federal courts rejected this request to create Loachapoka High four times: in May 1970, July 1970, October 1970, and January 1971, arguing that opening Loachapoka High would "substantially decrease the desegregation in the Lee County School System".
[Lee v. Lee County Bd. of Ed, 639 F.2d 1243 (5th Cir. 1981).]
In October 1971, Lee County Schools again requested to create Loachapoka High, with the courts opposing the request yet again, but allowing that they would reconsider if all of the students in the Loachapoka area were required to attend the school.
Auburn High School agreed to stop allowing transfers from the Loachapoka area by 1973 so that Loachapoka High would be allowed to open. In the fall of 1973, Loachapoka High School opened, offering a full high school education in Loachapoka for the first time in decades.
Athletics
Athletic Director
Jerome TateFootball- Headed by
Jerome Tate
Basketball- Headed b
Terry MurphBaseball- Headed by
Mason WilsonSoftball- Headed by Damien Sinclair
Track- Headed b
Derrick Levitt
Mighty Marching Indian Band
Loachapoka is widely known for their marching band. And with their dynamic drum majors and dance team they are who they say they are "The Baddest Band in the Land". The Mighty Marching Indians band formed in the late 1970s. They are a show style band. They perform at every home and away football games. In the 2004–05 season, the marching band reached its highest number of members with 72, making it one of the biggest Class 1A band in the state of Alabama. Current band director Shane Colquhoun has led the Mighty Marching Indians in a positive direction. In the past the Mighty Marching Indians have performed at the Battle of the Bands in Montgomery, Mardi Gras Parade in Mobile, Star Musical Festival in Atlanta, etc.
References
External links
Loachapoka High School– official site
{{authority control
Educational institutions established in 1973
Public high schools in Alabama
Schools in Lee County, Alabama
Public middle schools in Alabama
1973 establishments in Alabama