Welcoming summer with vintage local junior high fight songs
Jun 21, 2024, 2:31 PM | Updated: Sep 27, 2024, 6:20 am
It’s the last day of school at Rose Hill Junior High, which is better known these days as Rose Hill Middle School. Summer is almost here, and some of us are feeling nostalgic about … junior high?
The Lake Washington School District’s educational institution for tweens and teens first opened in 1969 on the eponymous Rose Hill, roughly midway between Kirkland and Redmond. The original building was replaced in recent years, and the name was updated as well. Still, the quality of the school’s original fight song inspired the All Over The Map team to seek out a recording and then beat the bushes around the rest of the Puget Sound region in search of other memorable junior high/middle school fight songs.
In May, with help from Rose Hill alum Bill Wixey of FOX 13, KIRO Newsradio launched the Junior High – Middle School Fight Song Challenge. Three brave community members took the time to record the songs they remembered so that they could be shared with KIRO Newsradio listeners and preserved for posterity.
Audio entries included:
Julie, singing the Chinook Junior High Braves’ fight song
Robin, singing the Highland Junior High Eagles’ fight song
*David, singing the Central Kitsap Cubs’ fight song
NOTE: *David is Seattle’s Morning News producer/director David Burbank; his bold work inspired our legitimate participants!
Our lone video entry was from Stacey and a group of alums repping the Edmonds Junior High Trojans, and it’s a doozy!
Special thanks to Bill Wixey and David Burbank for their invaluable assistance with the first annual – and, probably, last annual – KIRO Newsradio Junior High – Middle School Fight Song Challenge. Extra special thanks to Rose Hill Middle School Band Director Angie Laulainen for directing the band and making a new recording of the Rose Hill fight song. Go Royals! Hear that lion roar!
You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Felik
