Kenmore West Senior High School
| Kenmore West Senior High School | |
|---|---|
| Address | |
|
33 Highland Parkway Town of Tonawanda, New York, New York 14223 United States |
|
| Coordinates | 42°58′26″N 78°51′51″W / 42.9738°N 78.8643°WCoordinates: 42°58′26″N 78°51′51″W / 42.9738°N 78.8643°W |
| Information | |
| Type | Public |
| Established | 1939 |
| School district | Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District |
| Principal | Dean Johnson |
| Grades | 8–12 |
| Enrollment | 1550 |
| Color(s) | Royal Blue and White |
| Mascot | Blue Devil |
| Website | School website |
Kenmore West Senior High School (nicknamed Ken-West) is one of two public high schools in the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District. The other is Kenmore East Senior High School.
In 1938, a WPA grant of about $700,000 was received from the federal government toward the creation of a separate building for the senior high school on Highland Parkway, and the school district provided over $1M in additional funds. The 20-acre (81,000 m2) plot on which the school is situated cost $35,000. The school opened in the fall of 1939 with fifty faculty members and 1,250 pupils. In 1959, Kenmore East High School was opened as the district continued to grow. At that time, the Highland Parkway school officially became Kenmore West High School. Raymond Stewart Frazier (1901–1998) was appointed of principal of Kenmore West in 1952.
The 20-acre (81,000 m2) plot is part of what used to be the Philip Pirson homestead, a 75-acre farm.
The community continued to grow in the subsequent years, requiring a classroom addition to the west wing of school in 1967–1968. In the late 1990s, the school district proposed building a new library information center on the west lawn and an athletic complex east of the original gymnasium. Voters narrowly approved funding for the projects in 1997. The additions were designed by Duchscherer Oberst Design, P.C., an architectural firm in Buffalo. Joseph L. Kopec was the lead architect. The library was completed at a cost of about $10 million in the fall of 2000. The design won an award for educational architecture in the summer of 2001.
Another capital enhancement to the building occurred after a May 2002 fire in the cafeteria bay, causing a multi-month relocation of the cafeteria to the Old Gym while a new cafeteria was erected, opening January 31, 2003, to an appreciative student body.
Additionally, in 2017 the athletic field at the school was ripped out and replaced with a turf field.
Kenmore West's enrollment grew steadily through about 1970, and reached its peak in 1969 with over 3000 students in grades 10, 11 and 12. Alan Hammon MacGamwell (1926–2004), a 1944 graduate of the school, was appointed its third principal in 1971, after serving as a teacher, coach and assistant principal in the Ken-Ton Schools. In that era, the school boasted large numbers of National Merit Scholarship winners. In 1969, Kenmore West, under coach Jules Yakapovich, won the Niagara Frontier League Football Championship and drew national attention as theoretical national champions, determined statistically by a computer match-up with a Florida high school team.
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