HISTORY OF ZEPHYRHILLS HIGH SCHOOL

User Guide

The book is designed to be used by individuals or families who wish to identify themselves or their relatives or others in the alumni archives in a user-friendly manner. The compilation of news articles has a bolding of every student’s (including alums) name throughout time for the purpose of locating a name in an online search. At times, names run throughout the school’s history as an individual may have been a student, parent, community leader, etc. To illustrate how this online document might be used, my 13-year old daughter, Rachel, could cue in on the names of her siblings who were ZHS graduates and find where and when they were mentioned in the news archives.

The author included news articles without regard to filtering for importance. For example you will see honor rolls from the 1920s and notices of upcoming events. All give you a flavor for the era. News articles are included in full text—this means some redundancy, but because most users of this book have a familial connection with ZHS, thoroughness and accuracy is important.

In regard to filtering, I have also tried to be highly objective in the information included. I have not excluded controversial information and attempted to be as inclusive as possible. Please note that school yearbooks were not printed until 1945, so a collection of happenings and events prior to 1945 does not exist for ZHS. Also note that until 1959 when WZES opened, the Zephyrhills School was a 1-12 institution and continuing until 1975, it continued to house the majority of elementary students and all of the then junior high students in the community. During the first few years of ZHS, the majority of students were of the primary age (grades 1-3) and there were only 5-10 high school aged students. So in many ways this history is not just the ZHS history but in fact the history of schooling in the community of Zephyrhills since its inception.

In reviewing news articles, note the news focuses are different from period to period. Early newspapers often did not include student names and never printed photos because the technology of the day made it impossible. Judgmental filters are present at times in the articles and they do not reflect the author’s views. Up until the late 1960s, little confidentiality is afforded to students, teachers or other stakeholders. The articles pretty much tell you what happened, barring no embarrassment to the subject at hand.

The author invites you to please use other archives. Before 1946, ZHS yearbooks did not exist so the information in this book was collected from microfilm, ZHS documents and the local museums.

In order to highlight and summarize the information, I have placed the articles by school year. For each ten year interval, I have synthesized the key points and addressed what was going on in the rest of the country to put the information in a context of events. Particularly for young readers/users, information may not fit their image of the schooling in Zephyrhills, until they think through what was taking place in the country and the world. With this frame of reference, you can also see how the community of Zephyrhills addressed the issue at hand or perhaps reflected the national trend or event.

Please enjoy! My sincere hope is that this collection and my synopsis of each decade will be just the beginning in your reminiscing and learning about the school community.