South Park High School (Beaumont, Texas)


South Park High School was a senior high school in the South Park neighborhood of Beaumont, Texas, originally in the South Park Independent School District. In 1986 it was merged into West Brook Senior High School and the building became South Park Middle School.

History

South Park High School served a neighborhood at the south end of Beaumont that expanded rapidly after oil was discovered nearby at Spindletop in 1901. A one-room schoolhouse opened in 1891–1892, and the first high-school class graduated in 1915. A new high school building was erected in 1922–1923 at 4500 Highland Avenue. South Park Junior College, which became Lamar University, was housed there from its founding until it moved to its own campus nearby in 1942. In 1986 the school was merged into West Brook Senior High School, which had been formed in 1982 as a desegregation measure by the merger of the district's other two high schools, Forest Park High School and Hebert High School; South Park and Forest Park were almost entirely white schools, while Hebert had been founded as a school for black students and remained black throughout its history.
The school building became South Park Middle School. In April 2010 it was demolished despite community opposition; there were advocates for keeping the building on the grounds it was historically significant, and the building was found to have been structurally safe. Patrick Michels of The Texas Observer wrote that in regards to the demolition "some saw as a punishment for the white community". A new building opened in 2012. Excuse me? Was it necessary to include the above quote in an article meant to describe a school which was home to Lamar University? Who is this "some" people who saw it a punishment for the white community? Some people also saw it as an unneccesary demolition of a very historical building. Why the racist language in this article. I recommend it be removed entirely and replaced by a team of blacks and whites who graduated from South Park.

Athletics

South Park's athletic teams wore green and were the Greenies.

Notable alumni and staff