Richmond High School (Richmond, Indiana)

Facilities

Built in 1939-1941, the Colonial revival-style school originally consisted of an academic building called Morton Hall, a gymnasium called Civic Hall, and McGuire Hall, which houses the Richmond Art Museum, believed to be the only public art museum connected with a public high school. After outgrowing the Civic Hall gymnasium, the Tiernan Center was built as the home to boys' and girls' basketball, volleyball, and wrestling. It is the fifth largest high school gym in the United States, with a seating capacity of 8,100. The old Civic Hall gymnasium was converted into the Civic Hall Performing Arts Center, an auditorium which seats 924 and is home to the Richmond Symphony Orchestra in addition to other school and civic performing arts events. The current building consists of 500,000 square feet for instruction and student support services.

The Richmond High School Alumni Association is one of the oldest public high school alumni associations in the United States and boasts a significant scholarship endowment known as the Richmond College Incentive Plan.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

Course offerings

Richmond High School offers a comprehensive educational program for students in grades nine through twelve. Courses are offered at the general academic, honors, and college levels across four primary departments. Over 170 distinct classes are available to students in math and science, the humanities, creative and performing arts, and career and technical programs. RHS recently expanded its Advanced Placement course offerings through a partnership with the University of Notre Dame's Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program. Students can take AP courses in Biology, Calculus, Chemistry, English Language (composition), English Literature, Environmental Science, Government, US History, Physics, and Statistics. Additionally, students can undertake dual-credit coursework to earn college credit while attending the high school. Current dual-credit options are available through Earlham College, Indiana University East, Indiana University (for speech, US History 1A-B, Calculus, and Advanced Composition), and Ivy Tech Community College (for Pre-Calc. 1B, business, Project Lead the Way, radio-TV, automotive, and technical education classes).

Career center

The school is home to the Richmond Area Career Center, under the direction of Rusty Hensley. Created in 1980, the center annually serves more than 700 students from RHS, Northeastern High School, and Randolph Southern High School. It provides programs in 18 distinct career and technical fields, including nursing, engineering, automotive mechanics, construction technology, and child development.

Extra-curricular activities

Richmond High School students can participate in numerous extra-curricular and co-curricular student clubs. Some of the more active programs include the following:

Music Department

The Music Department at Richmond High School is housed within Civic Hall, a multi-million-dollar professional performing arts complex. It contains classrooms, practice rooms, and a 924-seat proscenium theatre.

Orchestra

The orchestra department at Richmond High was the first high school orchestra in the nation, established in 1899 by Will Earhart. A plaque commemorating this is located in McGuire Hall.

Wind Ensemble and Concert Band

During the school year, the band is divided into two parts: a Wind Ensemble and a Concert Band. The band is large enough to divide the better players into a separate group so that they may perform at a higher level. Richmond's wind ensemble is a high-level instrumental performing group. The band has performed at ISSMA from 2002 to 2007. They perform at a group one level, the highest out of four. The concert band, a lower division of Richmond's band, performs at a level three.

Marching Band

The Marching Band at RHS has competed at the Indiana State Fair Band Day since 1959 with the exception of 1984 and 1997. Some accomplishments include first place in the state competition in 1973 and 1988, and second place in the state competition in 1965, 1986, 2003, 2006, and 2011. Recent shows include "Miss Saigon," "Circ du Soleil," music from Pirates of the Caribbean, music from Disney's "Reflections," and, in 2006, "One Track Mind." The 2006 show received third place and two captions: General Effect caption and the overall Percussion caption. The marching Red Devils also won a third place in 2007 with "Chaos and Order" music from Conan the Barbarian. In 2008, Richmond Red Devils won second place with "There Can Be Only One". In 2009, fifth place was awarded with their show "The Phoenix", and second place in 2011 with their show "ENERGIZE!" 2009 was the 50th year in which Richmond High School's Red Devil marching band competed at the Indiana State Fair. In 2012, 2013, and 2104 they finished third with their shows "Now You See It", "As Luck Would Have It", and "Code Red". They finished fifth with the show "Above and Beyond" in 2015. In 2016 they placed seventh and Percussion caption with their show "Gravity".

Choir

The RHS choir program has been very successful, with the top group (Chamber Choir) competing at the Indiana Concert Choir State Finals and placing in the top 16 every year since 1997. In 2006, the group received their highest-ever ranking, sixth place. In 2007, Chamber Choir placed tenth at the state finals.

Sports

RHS offers numerous sports for student athletes. This includes baseball (boys'), basketball, cross-country, football, golf, gymnastics (girls'), soccer, softball (girls'), tennis, volleyball (girls'), and wrestling. A bowling team for both boys and girls competes on the club level.

Facilities

Richmond High School has extensive athletic facilities to support student athletes. The primary venues include:

Notable alumni