Today, I give three cheers to Stratford High School in Houston--home of many memories and a lot of growth on my part. If this seems like an unusual date for a school to open, well, it was: As the story goes, the building wasn't done at the beginning of the year, and the Stratford populace was stuck in portable buildings on the campus of its rival, Westchester High, for most of the year. But on March 4th, they marched forth into their new building, and the school put itself on the map with a state football championship less than five years later. (The Stratford-Westchester connection would continue to spawn interesting tales for years: In the mid-'80s, during a spate of school consolidation, Westchester would close, and the majority of its students would end up going to Stratford, and in the 2004-2005 school year, Stratford students found themselves back on the Westchester campus--since reopened as a magnet school--while major structural defects to the building, discovered during routine asbestos removal, were repaired.
A march that I composed in high school (which was performed again a few years ago at one of the high schools where I now teach) is named "Spartania," in honor of Stratford's mascot, the Spartans. Happy anniversary, Stratford; long may your banner wave.
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