John Glenn High School (Westland, Michigan)
John Glenn High School is a public high school in Westland, Michigan. It is a part of the Wayne-Westland Community Schools district. The school mascot is rocky the rocket.
History[edit source | edit]
One of two traditional high schools serving the Wayne-Westland Community Schools, John Glenn High School is located in the city of Westland, Michigan. The school, which opened in 1964, was named for astronaut John Glenn, who just two years prior had become the first American to orbit the earth. The "space" theme dominates at JGHS, including the nickname (Rockets), the yearbook (the Satellite), the newspaper (the Echo, named for the first telecommunications satellite) and the school store (the Gantry). Glenn went on to serve as a United States Senator, and returned to NASA at age 77 to become the oldest human to visit space; the school that bears his name, similarly, has had a long and distinguished career.
Like its namesake, who was born in rural Cambridge, Ohio and grew up in even smaller New Concord, Ohio, the school comes from humble beginnings. When John Glenn High School opened its doors in 1964, it did not have its own football field, having to play home games on the field of rival Wayne Memorial High School for the better part of its first decade. The building was only a fraction of its current size. To keep up with expanding enrollment in the 1970s and 1980s, new wings were added for Fine Arts and Special Education, as well as a new gymnasium and its own football and baseball fields. (Also, fitting for a school named for an astronaut, JGHS is one of the few high schools in the state to feature a planetarium.)
When John Glenn High School opened under principal Frank Higgins, it served students in grades 7-11, expanding to grades 8-12 from 1965-67. After a brief stint as a four-year high school (9-12), it stabilized as a 10-12th grade school in 1970, finally returning to its 9-12 status in 1995 when the Wayne-Westland district adopted the current middle school format. It currently serves approximately 2,250 of the 14,100 students in the Wayne-Westland district, accepting its students from Marshall Middle School and Stevenson Middle School.
Clubs and Organizations[edit source | edit]
John Glenn allows their students to run clubs with the assistance of a sponsor (normally a teacher). The clubs have to be approved by an Administrator to be official.
Clubs By Name[edit source | edit]
- Rocket Marching Band
- mathletes
- Film Club
- Art Club
- Drama Club
- Ninja Club
External links[edit source | edit]
{{42°18'57"N, 83°23'45"W[1]|Michigan}}
Notes[edit source | edit]
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