Motto School of Champions Opened 1958 Grades 9–12 Mascot Warrior | Established October 30, 1957 Superintendent Robert M. Sullivan Phone +1 603-926-3395 Principal William McGowan | |
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Type Comprehensive Public High School Address 1 Alumni Dr, Hampton, NH 03842, USA District Winnacunnet Coop School District Similar Exeter High School, Portsmouth High School, School Administr Unit 21, Seabrook Middle School, Hampton Academy | ||
Winnacunnet High School is an American public high school located in Hampton, New Hampshire. It serves students in grades 9 through 12 who reside in the communities of Hampton, Seabrook, North Hampton, and Hampton Falls. Students from South Hampton attend Amesbury High School. The name Winnacunnet is a Native American word that means "beautiful place in the pines". The current principal, since 2010, is William McGowan.
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Winnacunnet high school 2008 graduation
History
Ground was broken for Winnacunnet High School on October 30, 1957, and it first opened in the fall of 1958 with an attendance of 474 students. Prior to 1958, area students attended the Hampton Academy and High School, a junior-senior high school which today still exists as the junior high school for Hampton. The official Winnacunnet High dedication ceremony took place on October 26, 1958. The school has recently finished major construction and renovations.
The school was in the national news in 1990, when Pamela Smart, conspired with 15-year-old sophomore student William "Billy" Flynn and, according to him, convinced him to murder her husband Greg Smart on May 1, 1990. Smart did not actually work at Winnacunnet High School, but at the SAU 21 building across the street, which is located on Winnacunnet school grounds. Smart was convicted of first degree murder in March 1991, and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility for parole. She is serving her sentence in a maximum security prison in New York State.
Notable alumni
Charles Claverie, known as Charlie Rocket, was a cast member of Saturday Night Live in the 1980s. Charlie graduated from Winnacunnet in 1967 and continued his education at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he became a well known and popular figure around the campus. In the late 1960s/early 1970s, while at RISD, he started a band called The Fabulous Motels. In the early 1980s he joined SNL as the news anchor for "Weekend Update" and creator of the "Rocket Reports". Charlie also had an acting career that spanned over a decade, playing roles in many TV shows and in movies, including a small role in Dances With Wolves. He committed suicide at his home in Connecticut at the age of 56, on October 7, 2005.
Scotty Lago, from Seabrook, was a 2010 winter Olympian in snowboarding who finished with a bronze medal on the half-pipe.