Baton Rouge Magnet High School ninth-grade geography students, including Taylor Kimball, center, and Caleb Shilling, foreground, sit below walls marred by peeling paint and plaster Wednesday. Since officials announced plans in July to demolish the high school, alumni and others have started a digital campaign, including a Facebook group and an online petition, to save the building. A list of contacts and Web sites is included at the end of the story.
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RICHARD ALAN HANNON
Barbed wire and crumbling plaster greet visitors, students and staff at Baton Rouge Magnet High School. School system officials say a complete renovation and modernization of the building may be too expensive.
Baton Rouge Magnet High School
1880: Baton Rouge High School founded as an all-boys school on site of the old courthouse on St. Louis Street.
1907: Girls admitted for first time.
1926: Baton Rouge High built at its fourth location at 2825 Government St.
1955: Elvis Presley played a concert at the school.
1963: Renovated and modernized.
1963: First black students enrolled. Full integration doesn’t occur until
1970.
1971: Central air conditioning installed, inadvertently speeding up school’s decay.
1976: Converted from neighborhood school to magnet school drawing from entire parish.
1983: Named Blue Ribbon School of Excellence by U.S. Department of Education. Named again in 2003.
1986: Placed on National Register of Historic Places.
1996: Changes in desegregation rules shift school from predominantly white to integrated racially, which it remains.
2001: Roof replaced.
2007: Partial renovations shelved because of costs. Committee convened to consider alternatives.