To recognize this weekend’s Shinnston High School Alumni celebration, I thought it would be a good idea to have July’s article and photo be one pertaining to Shinnston High School with its first alumni.
You are looking at [what is most likely] the first group photograph taken of Shinnston High School’s faculty and staff. The photograph was taken in 1910, which was also the year that three students exited the school as the first graduates from Shinnston High School. They were: Mildred L. Jarrett (who later became a teacher and never married), Vera Radabaugh (later Mrs. Edward Allen), and Nellie Swiger (later Mrs. Harry Kuhn). All three of the young ladies are in the group photo.
Within a few short years, Shinnston High School established an official SHS Alumni Association.
The 112 year old organization is observing its final celebration this month. The students are gathered outside of the Mahlon Street school building. Known to most people as the
grade school building, it was also home to the first Shinnston High School. Built in 1895 to provide six large classrooms for primary education, the building was added onto during the summer of 1907 to provide three additional classrooms for students wanting to further their education past the 8 th grade.
At that time, the building became known as “Shinnston Public and High School” and was known as such until a separate building was constructed solely for a high school.
When construction of the high school building was finished on the hill at the head of Pike Street in 1916, that building opened as Clay District High School. It continued to be known as CDHS until the county- wide board of education was established in 1933, at which time the Shinnston High School name was adopted back.
The beginning of the alumni association is discussed with detail in the early editions of “The Courier”, which was the name of the early yearbooks for SHS. The last sentence of its history from the 1914 yearbook reads, “And we trust that the organization may grow in interest and that it shall never die so long as the S.H.S. shall last.”
Well, S.H.S. closed its doors with the Spring 1978 graduates and the alumni continued with celebrations for well over forty years. Hats off to all of those alumni who have dedicated the time it takes to plan those celebrations, and which also makes this month’s article possible for the story behind the photo.