Southern Alamance High School

History

In 1958, a school bond was passed to consolidate Alexander Wilson, Sylvan, E. M. Holt and Eli Whitney into one high school. The original plans for Southern High School were to accommodate eight hundred students with the guidance and leadership of Mr. L. M. Adcock as the founding principal. Although the location of the school is not centrally located to those four locations, the property was donated for the purpose of construction a new school in the southern part of the county.

The doors of the new high school officially opened on December 12, 1960 as the Southern High School Confederates. The first few years, the school operated without D building which was completed in 1965 and current auditorium which was added in the late 1960s. The 1960s hosted a lot of firsts for the new established high school. Miss Carolyn Layell was named the first Miss Southern. The year 1967 displayed Southern’s first marching band, while 1968 brought in the introduction of College Preparatory classes.

The 1970s brought new identity to the Southern High School community while Alamance County Schools transitioned the culturally sensitive mascot of the Confederates out and revealed the new mascot of as the Patriots. One misconception that commonly occurs is that the crosswalk sidewalks in senior circle and the area between the office and media center are remaining from the days of the Confederates. These exist because students wore out the grass as they made their way to class. Cement was laid to make sidewalks mirror the traffic patterns of students.

In 1983, the campus received new lockers which still adorn some of the original stickers and signatures of those who walked the halls. With continued growth in the southern part of the community, there was a need for expansion. The construction of E building was commissioned to accommodate for the rising number of students.

Campus growth would not stop there as the campus underwent a major overhaul in the early 1990s. Air conditioning was added to all classrooms. The old media center, once housed in the middle of campus, was converted into two chemistry classrooms (SC5 & SC6). During this same time, the Fine Arts wing was built as well as a new Media Center and Main Office. In 1990, Southern was the only school to offer AP US History, German, and a fine tuned ROTC program. The year 1996 brought county-wide changes as the Alamance County School System merged with Burlington City Schools.

-Athletics- Southern Alamance is classified as a 4A school by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association and is a member of the All Metro 4A conference. Southern competes against Page, Southeast Guilford, Grimsley, Dudley, and Smith in conference play.