• By ASHLEY M. BAILEY
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 18, 2009 - Page: 1A

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The campus of Robert E. Lee High School was bustling Friday evening with hundreds of alumni, former faculty and friends, most of whom were likely visiting the school for the last time.

Led by the sounds of the Michael Foster Project, a brass-funk band, the crowd of more than 300 people participated in a jazz funeral to bid their school a jubilant farewell.

Before the first trumpet sounded, members of the Lee High family greeted former classmates with broad smiles and squeals of delight. Many of them were decked out in the school’s colors of red, white and blue.

They strolled along the familiar sidewalks. Every now and then someone would peek through a window hoping to get a glimpse of the classrooms they once occupied.

“I’ve been here from the very beginning,” former Lee High Coach Bill Bofinger said.

Bofinger started out as a freshmen when the school first opened in 1959. Six years after graduating in 1963, Bofinger returned to Lee High as a coach.

He remained there coaching football and other sports until the doors closed at the end of this school year.

“It was kind of sad,” Bofinger said. “It’s been a good school with good people in it.”

On May 21, the East Baton Parish School Board voted 9-1 to close the school. The school faced a state takeover as early as August because of low standardized test scores.

The decision prompted a public outcry from some Lee High School alumni and supporters. Others, like Judy Collins, saw the closure as inevitable.

“It’s kind of bittersweet,” Collins said. “I knew it was time that it closed, but I’m going to miss it.”

Lee High has been a sort of tradition of Collins’ family. She graduated from the school in 1973. She also had two brothers and three children attend Lee High.

Despite her close ties to the institution, Collins said it was time for the school to close.

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