WISCONSIN RAPIDS -The end of this school year marks the end of an era for the East Junior High School building in Wisconsin Rapids.
For 87 years, the building has served as a hub of education for Wisconsin Rapids students — first as Lincoln High School and then as a junior high. In September, eighth-grade students will move to Wisconsin Rapids Area Middle School and ninth-graders will be taught at Lincoln High School.
While the East Junior High School hallways will be quiet after June 8, the school district has no final proposals for the building’s future. Wisconsin Rapids Superintendent Craig Broeren said there are no plans to tear it down.
The grade restructuring is mainly due to a significant drop in student enrollment, Broeren said.
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History of East Junior High School
The “New Lincoln School” building on Lincoln Street on the city's east sidewas dedicated in 1931 by Mayor George Mead and cost $600,000 for a building, fieldhouse and athletic field. The old Lincoln High School was next door and torn down after the new school opened.
In 1937, students attended Lincoln School and Witter Vocational school, but in 1958, a new $525,000 “vocational addition” linked the two together. The merger more than doubled the space available for vocational classes and the high school’s music department for ninth through 12th grades.
Another new addition was added in 1961, creating a new wing with 15 additional classrooms, physics, chemistry and language laboratories, a cafeteria, a vocal music room, a typing room, Board of Education area and storage. The fieldhouse floor was also extended and refinished.
Because of the addition, Lincoln saw an influx of students and teachers. Principal Marvin Maire told the Wisconsin Rapids Rotary Club that Lincoln was facing new problems. A Sept. 18, 1962, article in the Daily Tribune quoted Maire from that meeting.
“Lincoln High School is a big operation, too big in some respects,” Maire said. “Quantitative problems resulting from some 300 additional students and 18 new teachers are tremendous.”
With an enrollment of more than 1,600 students, Maire suggested breaking ninth grade from the high school and placing the class in a junior high school.
By November, the Daily Tribune reportedthat “the entire high school plant is already operating at almost full capacity.”
A new junior high school was created and opened eight years later to house eighth and ninth grades. The school board decided in March 1970 to name it West Junior High School.
By 1972, Lincoln High School expanded its enrollments in vocational programs and its course offerings. Principal Gerald Skaar said in order to provide any new courses in the future, Lincoln needed either an addition or a new building.
In January 1978, Lincoln High School was preparing for its new location on 16th Street, leaving the old building to become a secondjunior high school. The school board discussed what to name the old building once Lincolnmoved to its new location. A Jan. 4, 1978, Daily Tribune article said board members were hesitant to rename the building East Junior High School.
“Renaming the building ‘East Junior High School’ was resisted by board members at first as being colorless and unimaginative, but an appeal for suggestions from school district residents reportedly produced few names and almost no public concern over what name is eventually used,” the article said.
The school board president, Joan Holden, argued for the name “East,” noting that the city already had a “West Junior High School” that had been in operation for eight years by then.
“The committee accepted that argument and agreed that, if West is West, East should be East,” the Tribune article said.
In 1979, Lincoln High School had students attending classesin its new building and the old school opened as East Junior High School.
In 2010, the school system restructured, beginning with the 2010-11 school year. East Junior High School remained for eighth- and ninth-grade students, while the former West Junior High School became Wisconsin Rapids Area Middle School, housing sixth and seventh grades.
In January 2011, principal Kathi Stebbins-Hintz said the junior high needed a new name and mascot to help build a new identity after the restructure. In a Jan. 19, 2011, Daily Tribune article, she urged community members and students to come up with ideas for a name. The school is still called East Junior High School.
Seven years later, at the end of the 2017-18 school year, East Junior High School and Vesper Community Academy will close. About 50 students from Vesper will move to THINK Academy in Rudolph, eighth-graders at East Junior High School will move to WRAMS, and the ninth-graders will move to Lincoln High School.
Say goodbye to East Junior High
What: End of East Community Open House
When: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 30
Where: East Junior High School, 311 Lincoln St.
