Mount Whitney High School

Mount Whitney High School is located in Visalia, California, in the County of Tulare.

The name "Mount Whitney", for one high school in Visalia, CA., was chosen by a vote of the student body of, what was then called, "Visalia Senior High School." This was done during the 1953-54 school year. Along with choosing the school name, other items were also chosen by vote; such as school colors, athletic team names, etc. The new name went into use the following school year, 1954-55. The new name was being chosen due to the coming into existence of a second high school in Visalia.

The name chosen for the second high school was "Redwood."

Previous to this time, there existed a "Visalia Junior igh" and a "Visalia Senior High" as required by the population of the school district. As the population increased; it was decided the time had come to have two high schools. Since "Visalia Junior High School" occupied the grounds of what had been "Visalia Union High School", it was decided to use that facility as the second high school. A decision was made to divide the attendees of two high schools by an north-south dividing line using Mineral King Avenue as the deliniating border. Children residing south of Mineral King would attend Mount Whitney and residents north of Mineral King would attend Redwood. (Various exceptions were made to this rule but generally this was the deciding factor.)

Mount Whitney High School is a highly respected school, with strong programs in sports and the fine arts, especially its award-winning choir program and very successful Cross Country and Track and Field programs.

Mount Whitney is characterized by its school colors of maroon and white, with black usually used as a complementary color. These colors can be seen on the buildings of the school, on the equipment and uniforms of the sports and fine arts programs, on school shirts/sweatshirts/flip-flops, etc.

Kevin Costner attended Mount Whitney High School for a short time during his Senior year.