Dearborn High School

History

The original 1893 high school building stood at the northeast corner of Mason street and Garrison avenue. An auditorium and gymnasium unit was added to the east of this structure in 1920. The 1893 building was razed in 1925 and a three-story 20-classroom structure erected in its place. An addition of 10 classrooms was added as a north wing in 1950. Dearborn High School moved to its current location on Outer Drive in 1956. The Mason Street building was remodeled as the Ray H. Adams Junior High School, named for the superintendent of schools when the 1925 building was erected. The junior high school closed in 1985 and the building was again remodeled to become part of a modern high-scale office complex.

Sports

Dearborn High School is currently a member of the Western Wayne Athletic Conference. In school history, the Pioneers and Lady Pioneers have won a combined 11 State Championships in 5 different sports with six of them coming in Boys Swimming. In addition, they have won numerous conference, district, and state regional titles in every sport. The school colors are Orange and Black and the Pioneer mascot is dressed as a mid-19th century frontiersman, wearing a coonskin hat with a brown leather jacket, pants, and boots with leather fringe. At one point, the mascot carried a 19th-century hunting rifle but that was ended by the Administration in the late 1990s. Their previous football field was nicknamed "The Boneyard".

The Pioneers' biggest rivals are the Tractors from Dearborn Fordson High School and the Thunderbirds of Dearborn Edsel Ford High School. According to T.C. Cameron, author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, the rivalry with Ford High "has always been spirited" and that Ford's teams "never pass on a chance" to challenge Dearborn High in games. In regards to the one with Fordson, he stated the games have been "scrubbed for years at a time" and that the rivalry was "love-to-hate". The rivalry was affected by the 2006 job change of Jeff Stergalas, previously the head coach of his alma mater, Fordson, into being an assistant coach at Dearborn High School. In 2015 both schools held food drives to coincide with the Dearborn-Ford football game.

Band and orchestra

Dearborn High School currently has 5 bands and one string orchestra.

The bands and orchestra have received the highest ratings consistently at the Michigan school Band and Orchestra Association Band and Orchestra Festival's for the past 22 years. They are ranked in the highest AA division. The groups play at local venues, as well as community events. The marching band has performed annually in the City of Dearborn's traditional Memorial Day Parade. In 2008 the Marching Band was invited and participated in the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington D.C. In March 2011, the Marching Band was invited and marched in Dublin, Ireland's St. Patrick's Day Parade and was honored as the Top Youth Band of the Parade. In the spring of 2013, the groups performed in New York City at the Josie Robertson Plaza outside of Lincoln Center, the Trump Tower, and the Church of the Intercession in Harlem.

Theater and drama program

The Dearborn High School (DHS) Theater program is one of the oldest secondary level theater programs in the state of Michigan, and the oldest continuous theater program of any kind in the City of Dearborn. Dearborn High School is the home of International Thespian Troupe #586 which was chartered at the school in 1944. The program's most famous alumnus was the actor George Peppard (class of 1946) who co-starred with Audrey Hepburn in the motion picture Breakfast at Tiffany's as well as in such films as The Blue Max, The Carpetbaggers, and How The West Was Won, appeared on Broadway in many plays including Barefoot in the Park, and starred in the television series Banacek and The A-Team.

Since 1994, the program has been honored with 10 consecutive nominations (2000–2010) to perform at the annual American High School Theater Festival as well as to the prestigious International Thespian Festival and has produced numerous State of Michigan Thespian Festival Competition Medalists.

WDHS Student Video

WDHS Video is a video program fully run by students at Dearborn High School. The program was founded by Russ Gibb in 1981. Since 1999, it is the only program in the state of Michigan where students produce a feature-length film every school year. Students annually premiere the films at the Michael A. Guido Theater in Dearborn, MI. In May 2014, the program won three student production awards from the Michigan Emmy Awards.

Demographics

Dearborn High School's students mainly live in the oldest neighborhoods of Dearborn. Fordson High students perceive Dearborn High as being more affluent than Fordson. As of 2012, according to Rashid Ghazi, the producer and director of Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football, about 30-35% of the students at Dearborn High were Arabs.

In 1990 the administration gave out a survey, developed by a journalism teacher and his students, to other students, asking about prejudices held against Arab Americans. Arleen Sorkin and Paul Slansky, authors of My Bad: The Apology Anthology, reported that the survey "created among students tensions that hadn't previously existed." Principal Ann Superko issued an apology after receiving criticism from leaders of the Arab American community as well as students and parents of that ethnic background.

Notable alumni