Meet the Students, Teachers Behind Fairfax High School's Start

June, 1934. City and school officials break ground at the old Fairfax County fairgrounds along Lee Highway to build the county's first centralized high school. Fairfax City, as it was then, looked nothing like it does today.

"Our Depression-era high school, the first in Fairfax County, was for many years the western edge of a suburb beyond which dairy cows munched placidly around villages like Chantilly and Centreville," said Mitch Sutterfield, Fairfax City school board member, former FHS teacher and student. 

The city bought the county land with a $153,000 federal grant and $189,000 borrowed from the Literary Fund of Virginia, according to memos from Joyce Leigh Gross, found in the Fairfax City Public Library archives.

It was finished in time for the first class to start on Feb. 22, 1935.

FHS bused students in from all over. It wasn't unheard of to spend two hours on the bus each day, especially for those living as far away as Clifton and McLean.

The first graduating class in 1936 had 47 students out of the school's total 800. Though they were nothing compared to the graduating classes we see today. Click the thumbnails to the right to see student and faculty photos from the high school's 1936 yearbook.

From 1935 to 1970, FHS built eight new facility additions and made constant changes to the curriculum. Then city and school officials set their sights on an even bigger goal.

Construction of the new FHS started in May 1970, according to an archived Virginia Sentinel issue. It opened on Jan. 3, 1972. The $8 million, 48-acre site in the eastern part of the city offered expanded athletic complexes, movable partitions, carpeted classrooms, among other modernities. Johnny Reb (Or, at least until 1985) athletes took advantage of a new football stadium equipped with permanent bleachers big enough to seat 4,000 spectators on one side of the field. A new field house, four tennis courts, a lighted baseball field and other features catered to the school's growing appetite for sports programs.

"This is not the 'new' Fairfax High School, this the Fairfax High School," said then-principal Robert R. Tabor.

Board of the George Mason Foundation leased and eventually purchased the old FHS site from the city. It became GMU's North Campus until June 1982, when it was sold it to the Arlington Catholic Diocese. Fairfax City didn't make an offer.

What stands there now, Paul VI Catholic High School, opened in fall, 1983.

Fairfax City renovated FHS throughout November 2004-2007, adding 86,500 square feet of classroom space and the first public school turf field in the county.

It made Newsweek's top 131 best high schools in the nation list for the 2008-2009 school year. Only 6 percent of U.S. public schools receive this honor.

From architecture and commercial studies to Advanced Placement course, these principals helped introduce and shape new educational programs throughout the school's history:

• 1936 - 1946: Gordon Smith, Harold Weiler, Robert Walker
• 1947-1960: Samuel Coffey
• 1960-1969: Cyrus Doub

In the new school:

• 1969-1976: Robert Tabor (with 1-yr sabbatical in 1973)
• 1973: Robert Russel as acting principal
• 1977-1982: Clarence Drayer
• 1982-1983: Joan Curcio
• 1984-1988: Harry Holsinger (1954 grad of FHS)
• 1989-1999: Dr. Donald Weinheimer
• 1999-2002: Lillian Lowery
• 2002-2005: Linda L. Thompson
• 2005-2009: Scott Brabrand
• 2009-today: David Goldfarb

This Friday, FHS celebrates its 75th anniversary. Check back for celebration details.