Bremerton High School

Infobox_School | name=Bremerton High School


established=1921
type=Public
principal=Aaron Leavell
enrollment=~1400
free_label=Mascot
Colors
free_text=Knight
Blue & Gold
location=1500 13th Street
Bremerton, WA 98337
phone number=360-473-0800
fax=360-473-0820
website= [http://bsd.edgate.org/bremertonhs/index.php School Website]

Bremerton High School is a high school located in the port city of Bremerton, Washington, west across Puget Sound from Seattle, at 1500 13th Street. As of the 2007-2008 school year, Bremerton High facilitates grades 9-12. Prior to this year, the school only contained grades 10-12 while the 9th grade remained at Bremerton Junior High. The 1992-1993 school year was the last time the high school occupied 9th grade students.

History

The original Bremerton High School was founded in the 1930s. From at least the 1940s, the school was located in West Bremerton. In 1955 or 1956, the school was split into West High School (which remained in place) and East High School, located across the Port Washington Narrows in East Bremerton, on Wheaton Way.

In 1978, Bremerton High School came back into existence when East High School and West High School were combined. Its first commencements were held on June 8, 1979. Ronald K. Gillespie, former principal of West High School, was the first principal of the new Bremerton High. For the first few years, BHS occupied the buildings of former East High School. Then in 1989, following the completion of a new facility at the original location of Bremerton/West High, the student body was moved back across the water to 1500 13th Street.

School Colors, Mascot, and Emblem

Bremerton High School's mascot is a Knight carrying The Sword of Justice and The Cape of Truth. The Cape of Truth was handmade by Marialis Jurges and introduced by the Class of 1996. The school's traditional colors are Royal Blue and Gold. The official emblem is a Knight on a horse carrying a lance surrounded by a major arc with "Bremerton High School" written upon it.The origin of the school colors and mascot comes from the unification of West Bremerton Wildcats, whose colors were blue and gold, and the East Bremerton Knights, whose colors were black and white. They chose the colors of West Bremerton and the mascot of East Bremerton giving us Bremerton High School's Knight along with Royal Blue and Gold as its colors. The Bremerton High School yearbook is known as "The Gauntlet."

Fight Song and Alma Mater

The Bremerton High School fight song is set to the melody of "Anchors Aweigh". It is repeated a second time with shortened notes for the "Spell Off" (e.g. "K! - N!...") then finishes the same as it did the first time.

Fight for the blue and gold,
Fight for our school;
We never will say die,
We're with you win or lose that's why
So proudly our cheers will ring
Up to the sun
Bring back those victories Knights
And make the others bow to Bremerton.
K-N-I-G-H-T-S! Knights!
That's why so proudly our cheers will ring
Up to the sun
Bring back those victories Knights
And make the others bow to Bremerton.

The words to the school's alma mater are:

Hail Bremerton
Our Own Alma Mater
We Will Be True
We'll Honor the Gold and Blue
To Thee We Pledge
Our Loyal Devotion
And To Our Alma Mater
Hail Bremerton

Operation Pharmacy

Police and undercover detectives descended on Bremerton High School on the morning of January 23, 2007, making a wave of arrests and uncovering a multitude of drugs, including cocaine in one student's backpack. The bust was the culmination of a two-month long investigation by Bremerton Police Department's undercover narcotics unit, the Special Operations Group, which has ultimately led to total 17 arrests (including eight at school that day) for suspected charges of marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and gun possession.

Dubbed "Operation Pharmacy" - coined by a high school student who told detectives that getting drugs at the high school was as prolific as at a drugstore - detectives used operatives to make "controlled" buys in the weeks leading to the bust to collect evidence.

Sgt. Randy Plumb said the school day was both the safest and most effective way to make the arrests, and praised efforts and accommodation by Bremerton High School teachers and others. Detectives and police patrol units moved into the school at about 10:45 a.m., Plumb said. The breakdown of the suspected charges in "Operation Pharmacy," according to the drug unit: 13 are marijuana-related, six cocaine-related, seven are related to ecstasy and four are firearms-related (three of which were transported or sold on school property).

Krista Carlson, spokeswoman for the Bremerton School District, said school staff will help police whenever any suspected crime becomes known.

Notable Alumni

*American politician Norm Dicks grew up and graduated from Bremerton elementary and secondary schools. He has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1977, representing the Sixth Congressional District of Washington.
*American filmmaker Matt Tucker graduated from Bremerton High School in 1994 and credits that his high school career revived his acting. He was even the school mascot --the Knight-- his Senior year.
*Corporate Vice President Nick Ferate graduated from Bremerton High School in 1998. Nick is the Vice President of Operations and CFO of Underdog Sports Leagues, a Seattle based company that specializes in recreational sports for adults.
*Dana Kirk and Tara Kirk attended Bremerton High School and received scholarships in swimming to attend Stanford University. They have competed multiple times in collegiate and non-collegiate swimming, including the 2004 Olympic games - the first sisters to be members of a U.S. Olympic Swim team.
*Marvin Williams also attended Bremerton High School before winning a National Championship in basketball at the University of North Carolina. He was also the #2 pick in the NBA's 2005 Draft.
*Actor Joe Pichler graduated from Bremerton High School in 2005. He has been in several movies including the role of Brennan Newton in "Beethoven's 3rd" and "Beethoven's 4th". He went missing on January 5, 2006 and he remains missing.

External links

* [http://www.bremertonschools.org/BHSchool%20Site/bhssite.htm Official Bremerton High School Site]
* [http://www.bremertonschools.org/ Bremerton School District Site]