Walter M. Williams High School, the flagship school of the Alamance-Burlington School System, is a high school (grades 9–12) in Burlington, North Carolina, United States. It was named in honor of philanthropist, industrialist, and former Burlington City Schools chairman Walter M. Williams (1891–1959). The school entered its eighth decade of operation in the 2022 school year.
It has been recognized by the United States Department of Education as one of the top six high schools in North Carolina, and received the Blue Ribbon School designation in 1993. As of 2008, 30% of the staff held advanced degrees, and eleven staff members held national board teacher certification.2007–08 NC School Report Card
The campus is bordered on the north by Sunset Drive and Parkview Drive, to the east by Arlington Avenue, to the southeast by South Church Street (on which street the campus actually has its address), to the south by Country Club Drive (an homage to the property being the former site of a country club), and to the west by Tarleton Avenue. Bulldog Alley, a north–south private campus street, intersects the campus with athletic facilities to the west and academic facilities to the east.
Academy of Finance
Williams is home to the Academy of Finance, a Career and Technical Education program that is administered in collaboration with the National Academy Foundation, a national network of high school reform focused on smaller learning communities that focus in areas such as health sciences, tourism, entertainment, or finance along with other options. Established in 2005, the Academy provides a rigorous curriculum, enhanced by opportunities to build professional relationships with area finance and business leaders, as well as demonstrate relevance through community based internship and service-learning experiences. As part of this small learning community, students have contributed to service and social justice by providing tax assistance to low income families and individuals, some of whom have contributed almost 100 service hours to the project annually. In addition, students take college level courses for credit, hear guest presentations from members of the business community, participate in internships, and take exploratory field trips to area colleges and universities. A partnership with Alamance Community College makes the college level coursework possible.
Academics Williams has a strong Advanced Placement and Honors program. During the 2008–2009 school year, 211 students took 535 Advanced Placement courses, the highest number of students taking the courses in the district.Burlington Times-News, October 28, 2009
Demographics As of the spring of 2014, nationalities represented in the student body in recent years included the United States, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, El Salvador, Greece, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Kosovo, Mexico, New Zealand (Māori), Nicaragua, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, and Vietnam. Demographically, the student population is 52% white, 32% African-American, 10% Hispanic, 4% Asian, and 2% multiracial.
Partnerships with Elon University Along with the other high schools in Alamance County, selected students from Williams are able to participate in the Elon Academy summer residential program on the campus of Elon University. Students are eligible to take college courses during the regular school year. Williams hosts student teachers from Elon on a regular basis.
Namesake The school was named for Walter McAdoo Williams (March 1, 1891 – May 5, 1959), a native of Liberty, Randolph County, North Carolina, and son of Joel P. and Flora A. Spoon Williams. Considered a "giant in the textile world,” he was a member of the board of trustees of what is now Wake Forest University and a local citizen recognized for his role in making the high school possible from a financial standpoint. In April 1912, at the age of twenty-one, he moved to Graham, North Carolina. From 1930 to 1940, he served as chair of the Burlington School District's school board. He was also executive vice president and chairman of the board of Virginia Mills, based in Swepsonville, North Carolina. In 1940, he became executive vice president and chairman of the board for Virginia Cotton Mills in Swepsonville, from which he retired on February 17, 1959. In 1945, the Williamses made the purchase of the campus land possible. When the possibility was raised that the seating capacity in the proposed auditorium would be substantially reduced, they made it possible to retain the planned 2,500 seat capacity. It is believed that the auditorium is the second largest high school auditorium on the East Coast. They also donated the auditorium's four manual, 63 rank Standaart classical pipe organ as well as a Steinway grand piano. They were resistant to the idea of the school being named for them, and were informed of the name by a reporter. A member of both Kiwanis and Lions, Williams actively supported the Baptist Orphanage in Thomasville, North Carolina and the Masonic Orphanage in Oxford, North Carolina. The Williamses had no children of their own. In 1950, Williams was named Citizen of the Year by the Burlington Kiwanis Club.Burlington Times-News, August 1, 1993, p. G2
Williams served on the board of trustees of Wake Forest University during the period of the institution's transition from rural Wake County to Winston-Salem. In addition to the Williams's contributions to the high school, the organ in Wait Chapel on the Reynolda campus of Wake Forest University is named in honor of him and his wife Flonie Cooper Williams (1893–1975). The Williams donated the organ to Wake Forest in 1956. In addition, a three-manual Reuter organ was given and installed as a memorial to Williams in Binkley Chapel on the Olde Campus of Wake Forest. The Williamses were active in Hocutt Memorial Baptist Church. The school's colors of black and gold are the same as those of Wake Forest University, an institution with which Williams had ties. Williams was also a trustee for North Carolina Baptist Hospital.
Ironically, Mr. Williams stopped attending school at age twelve and was largely self-taught.
Williams died on May 5, 1959, after spending seven months in a coma following suffering from a brain tumor. He is buried in Pine Hill Cemetery, only a few blocks from campus, and almost within view of the school.
The Burlington Board of Education had voted in November 1945 to name the school after Williams. However, the decision was not announced until October 27, 1949.
Mascot and traditions
The school seal was approved by vote of the student body on September 29, 1961, as was the school's Alma Mater, with words by athletic director Fred Miller and music by Harold Grant, director of bands. The seal was among forty potential seals submitted for consideration. The creator of the winning design received a prize of $7.00. The fightsong Onward Bulldogs is set to the tune of On Wisconsin.
The mascot is the bulldog, which has manifested itself over the years by costumed students and real dogs (one of which was named George I). An avant-garde statue of George was dedicated outside the auditorium in 1974 in memory of Cynthia Lamar Ledbetter (a student who died in 1971) and other deceased students. The statue which sits prominently on a pedestal in Bulldog Plaza on the east side of campus, is a focal point of school-wide celebrations, and is an object of scorn and derision of students from rival high schools. It was designed by sculptor Norman Keller of East Carolina University (The Barker, December 16, 1971).
School colors are black and gold, the same colors as Wake Forest University, where Williams served on the Board of Trustees.
The names of the yearbook is the Doe-Wah-Jack, an American Indian term meaning "the first, the best" and has been the name of the yearbook since the school opened in 1951 (and had been the name of the Burlington High School yearbook since 1926).
The newspaper is The Barker, taking its title from the sound made by the mascot. The newspaper has received awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
Upon the consolidation of the former Jordan Sellars High School into Williams at the time of school integration, a student task force representative of both schools attempted to incorporate traditions from both schools into the newly integrated Williams (1999 Williams Alumni Directory).
History
On October 27, 1949, the school board announced its decision to name the facility "Walter M. Williams High School." It was constructed as the successor campus to Burlington High School.
The school was built on the site of the former Piedmont Country Club. "The land the school is on was once a golf course; hence, the name Country Club Dr[ive]. About ... 42 acres [of the country club were] auctioned off in September 1945 or 1946. Walter Williams bought the land from the estate of Ben May. The clubhouse (now a house) sits across from the stadium."E-mail from Annette Grant, September 17, 2008
The stadium on the site, now known as Burlington City Schools Stadium, was dedicated on Veteran's Day, November 11, 1949. The field house was also completed in the late 1940s.
Construction began on the main building in 1949. Two cornerstones flanking the base of the front stairwell, one reading "AD" and the other "1949" attest to this fact (the cornerstone contains a sealed copper box including financial records and newspaper clippings from the period of the school's construction). The 1951 graduating class from the former Burlington High School graduated on the stage of the Williams High School Auditorium in the spring of 1951, some three months before the new school officially opened.
Williams High officially opened its doors on September 5, 1951, with an enrollment approaching 1,000 (today, it has a student body approaching 1200, and in the early 1970s surpassed 1700) and a staff of 43 (as of November 2008, the school has a combined certified and classified staff of 124). The first student to arrive at school that day was Roger Cheek, who thus might be compared to Carolina's Hinton James, and be considered Williams's "first student." Jack Lindley was the first student body president.
What is now Spikes Gymnasium was completed by the opening of school in September 1955. The "Spikes Spaz" are the student supporters of Williams High's basketball teams, named for the gym's namesake, and patterned after the "Cameron Crazies" of Duke University. Prior to the completion of the gym, students in P.E. classes showered in restrooms adjacent to the cafeteria. The showers remain intact to this day. The gym was the scene of the highest points scored by any one player in the 1960s when Pistol Pete Maravich played against the Bulldogs while a student at Raleigh's Needham B. Broughton High School. The gym was the scene of a pivotal event during the period of integration.
During the 1956–1957 school year, classrooms in the west wing on the Ground Floor served as overflow space for fifth grade students from nearby Hillcrest Elementary School.
Prior to the school district merger between the Burlington City Schools and the Alamance County Schools (creating the Alamance–Burlington School System in 1996), Williams was one of two high schools in the former Burlington City Schools district, along with Hugh Cummings High School, which was constructed in the early 1970s to accommodate the expanded student population at Williams. Prior to integration, Williams was historically white, while Jordan Sellars High School across town was historically black. The period surrounding integregation at Williams is documented in the book Black Coach.