A History of Whatcom Middle School

1903 - North Side High School (now Whatcom Middle School) was built. The communities of Whatcom, Bellingham, Sehome, and Fairhaven combined into Bellingham.

1908 - In North Side, the first play was put on by the Drama Club " The Revolving Edge." The money earned paid for the construction of the stage.

1910-1919 - In 1916 the new addition was built more than doubling the size of North Side High School and the school's name changed to Whatcom High School. Some classes at Whatcom High School included American History, Commercial subjects, and Manual training. General classes of were Math, French, and Language Arts. Sports were a large part of school life, girls were only allowed to play softball, basketball, and volleyball. All sports, except volleyball, were open to boys. There were many plays put on at Whatcom between 1910 and 1919. Some were " Miss Civilization", " Maggie Pepper " and "Miss Somebody Else". The dress during that time as very formal, the boys wore suits and the girls wore ankle length dresses.

1920-1929 - The style for girls was to keep their hair long and piled on the head or have it cut short, in a bob. Guys had their hair slicked back and wore high waisted jackets. The students had many clubs, a few were " Bike Club", "Traffic Squad", " Fire Squad" and about 17 more. Each class had a play each year.

1930-1939 - In the late 30's, Whatcom students moved to the new High School and Whatcom became a Junior High, for 7th, 8th and 9th grades.

1940-1949 - . The fashions were corduroys (the dirtier the better) for boys. In the forties there was hardly any drugs and rarely did they use foul language. If a student was bad instead of having detention they were sent to the principal for a spanking.

1950-1959 - School officially started at 8:55 and lasted until 3:25, and lunches lasted an hour. There were many clubs at Whatcom during that time.. Popular songs included " I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Cause", " Mr. Sandman" and " Blue Suede Shoes". Many dances were invented to go along with the songs. At this time Elvis became the King of Rock and Roll. In the fifties it was fashionable for guys to wear dark colored pants and T-shirts with the sleeves rolled up (some sleeves contained cigarettes). Some girls wore very put together clothes, like gingham dresses or poodle skirts. At this time our Home Ec. room was built and Battersby Field had a grandstand and bleachers. It was a very popular place for the students.

1960-1969 - In sports girls were allowed to play intramural games only. They also had many more clubs than we do now. Styles of clothes stayed the same for boys, but the girls were wore skirts with blouses and sweaters, never pants. Popular songs then were " I Want to Hold Your Hand ", " A Hard Day's Night " and " Mrs. Robinson ". In the 60's Whatcom was re-organized into a Middle School for grades 6, 7, and 8.

1970-1979 - On September 18, of 1974 Mr. Kennell's 8th grade science class sent balloons up as part of an experiment of weather and they put note in each one asking whoever found it to state location and time it was found. None were reported found until almost a month had past, and it had been found only 3/4 of a mile away from starting point. On June 1, 1976 Whatcom was closed due to a plugged sewer pipe that flooded the basement floor. Over 800 students had to be evacuated and Superintendent Roberts was quoted saying " We hope to have the problem under control by Monday". The biggest event in the '70's was the big fire on Tuesday December 13, 1977. The fire was started across the street and spread to Whatcom's Industrial Arts building (shop, orchestra, band). Flames were reported shooting from the roof of the Arts building at 1:30 am. It took 35 fire men and 5 fire trucks.

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Whatcom Middle School: 810 Halleck Street Bellingham, WA 98225. Principal: Jeff Coulter
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