Athens Academy

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

This article is about the secondary school in the United States. For the ancient academy in Athens, Greece, see Academy.

Athens Academy is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school in Athens, Oconee County, Georgia, United States. The school sponsors grades K through 12, and also operates a preschool. Founded in 1967, it is one of many segregation academies that whites established in order to avoid federally-mandated desegregation.

The school's motto is Excellentia Cum Honore (or "Excellence with Honor"). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the school received substantial endowments from the Bertelsmann Foundation enabling it to expand. The money was spent upgrading the school's media networks and library systems, providing laptops for all students in grades 7-12, and construct a wireless cloud around the campus . The school is one of few high schools in the country that webcasts school events.

Origin of the Athens name

The campus was originally located in Clarke County, the county where Athens, Georgia is located and this is where the name orginates from. After a donation of land by Swanton Ivy, the school moved out to Oconee County to make use of the new land (including a small dam and lake). One of the requirements of the land was that no tall buildings could be built (perhaps to not obstruct the tree lines), causing most of the buildings to be single story. Those buildings of more than one story had to be partially or fully dug into the ground.

Notable alumni

• Vicki Goetze, professional golfer.
• Michael Shafer, coach of the University of Richmond Spiders women's basketball team.
• Michael Houser, former guitarist for jam-band Widespread Panic, whose son Waker is also attending the school.
• Billy Bennett, college football kicker notable for holding the SEC record for scoring.
• Elizabeth Guess, All-American soccer player at University of North Carolina.
• Jill Razor, Athens Athletic Hall of Fame for basketball.

Sports

Nicknamed the Spartans, Athens Academy competes in region 8-A of the Georgia High School Association (GHSA). They field teams in cross country, football, swimming, golf, track and field, basketball, volleyball (girls only), soccer, tennis, and baseball.

References

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 02:39:36 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation