Clear Lake High School is 40 years old this school year – the second oldest high school after Clear Creek High in League City, which is 55 years old.
“We celebrated at our Homecoming this year by having Lake’s first homecoming queen in attendance at the pep rally, half-time festivities and the game. She lives in Texarkana and drove all the way to Houston to help us celebrate,” Principal Debra Dixon says.
Lake was built back when Richard Nixon was president and we were still fighting the Vietnam War when the first principal, the late George Carlisle, welcomed about 1,900 students on Aug. 17, 1972.
Then, on May 19, 1973, the school’s first senior class of 393 students became the first to graduate from the new school on Bay Area Boulevard in Clear Lake City.
Today, Lake’s enrollment is 2,682 and 820 seniors graduated this past June. But for a time before Clear Falls High School opened in 2010, Lake’s halls were considerably more crowded.
The school had more than 3,000 students for a number of years and the Clear Lake area population grew at a fast clip. There were 3,379 students on campus in 2004, swelling to 3,621 in 2007 and staying in that range for the next couple of years.
Over the years, it has grown in size. A Ninth Grade Center was added, as was the Bill Krueger Field House for basketball and volleyball. But parts of the campus are not in the best of shape, and Superintendent Greg Smith mentioned that a rebuild would soon be needed when he gave his State of the District Address last month.
