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Los Lunas High School

Los Lunas High School is a high school (grades 9 - 12) in Los Lunas, Valencia County, New Mexico. In 2003 it had some 2,383 students. The school's student count before US Labor Day in September 2007 was 1,791.

Los Lunas High School was founded in 1926 as Solomon Luna High School. It was named for Solomon Luna, the most prominent political and financial leader of the area at the time. The school was created to ease travel to Belen High School in southern Valencia County. Solomon Luna High School was consolidated into the Los Lunas Public Schools in 1945 and later renamed to "Los Lunas High School."

The aging main building of old Soloman Luna High School still stands, and currently serves as the administration offices of Los Lunas Middle School. An engraving above that building's main doors continues to read "Soloman Luna High School."

Los Lunas High School is known for its emphasis on Athletics, and more recently, on Performing Arts.

Los Lunas High School's east side rival will be Valencia High School after the school is fully established; it's county-wide rival will continue to be Belen High School.

Principals

Previous Principals
Name	Starting Year	Ending Year	Tenure
Rex Hennington	1998	2003	5 years
Rex Hennington was hired as principal at Los Lunas High School in Spring 1998. Before LLHS he was an assistant principal at Los Lunas Middle School. Prior to being employed by Los Lunas Public Schools, Hennington was a football coach at each: Clovis, Las Cruces, Belen, and Hobbs High Schools. Principal Hennington passed away in April 2007 after a short battle with cancer.
Gina Sallie	2003	2006	3 years
Gina Sallie was named principal in the Spring of 2003 when Rex Hennington became district Athletic Director. Sallie was popular with students and was instrumental in changing several key policies at Los Lunas High School.
Dan Webb	2006	2007	1 year
Los Lunas High School's 2006-2007 principal, Dr. Dan Webb, of Pasadena, CA, brought changes to the school including a ban of all electronics from school grounds. Webb was also behind a controversial proposal to separate approximately 300 "at-risk" students, "voluntarily," from the general school population in the hope of earning their high school diploma. This proposal received critical feedback from the community as it would have created a "double standard" allowing some students to graduate with only 23 of the required 30 credits.
Claudia Krause-Johnson	2007		----
Claudia Krause-Johnson was named principal of Los Lunas High School in late June 2007. She replaces Dr. Dan Webb, who moved to Santa Fe, NM to lead Santa Fe High School. The hiring of Krause-Johnson comes after she left Santa Fe High School in March 2007 for health reasons. School district superintendent Walter Gibson joked at the July 3, 2007 board of education meeting that "it was a straight trade, no draft picks." In the interest of student safety, Krause-Johnson has instituted a policy requiring all faculty, staff, students on campus to display an ID card at all times; all visitors are required to check-in at the school's administration offices.

Schedule

Los Lunas High School has returned to using block schedule. With this system a student will have have 4 classes per semester and 8 classes in 1 year. The return to the regular block schedule comes after an experiment with a modified block schedule for the 2006-2007 school year.

In the modified block schedule any particular student could have up to 8 classes in one day. Modified block scheduling allowed some classes to be "half-block" and last year-round in oppositon to a "full-block" course which would last 1 semester. The modified block was implemented because some teachers and administrators felt that some courses needed to be year long. Courses offered as half-blocks were core classes such as Math, English, Science and other various electives including Spanish and Yearbook. Marching band remained full-block and concert band was offered as full-block in the spring as well.

Performing Arts

The Los Lunas High School Tiger Band received 3rd Place and Outstanding Brass in class 4A during the 2008 NM Pageant of Bands in Albuquerque, NM. The bands also received 10th place in finals competition and 7th place in preliminary competition at the 2004 NMSU Tournament of Bands; this was the first time the band placed in the top 10 at this event. A band website is located at: web.mac.com/llhsband

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Sports

In 2005 the Football team toppled the top ranked Las Cruces Bull-Dawgs for the first time since 1992.

Popular Culture

Los Lunas High School's campus and likeness were used to portray the fictional Division II school Los Lunas College in the USA Network original series In Plain Sight episode: High Priced Spread. The Episode aired on Sunday, July 6th, 2008. University Arena, more commonly known as "'The Pit,'" was used to establish shots during the film as all metro collegiate basketball games occur in this arena; however, the scenes were filmed at Los Lunas High School.