The Journey to the Hilltop - Connected to our Past

Special contribution by Marc Rylander

Travel north through Celina on State Highway 289 to County Road 134, and atop a hill with one of the most scenic viewpoints in Collin County, sits the Celina High School. Bold, visionary leaders in the early part of this century recognized that growth from North Dallas was inevitably making its way to this community steeped in faith, family, and our Bobcats, and an aggressive bond package was passed for the completion of the current high school. Meaningful to Celina’s legacy families, the location selected for the new high school would sit on the same hill where generations of students from outside the city had, in previous years, attended the long-gone Alla School, named by the Hubbard family in honor of their daughter.

Long before the present home of Celina High School, over a hundred years of Bobcats were educated in some fascinating facilities, several which no longer exist. The journey to the hilltop began in a two-room wooden structure. Earliest documents state that a school in Celina was run by Mr. Karnes as early as the 1883-1884 school year and housed about 60 pupils. Eventually, the school was led by Sid Tolbert, who for the first time, allowed boys and girls to occupy the same playground and play games together.

Alla School

Built in 1896

The growth of this farming community eventually forced leaders in Celina to erect a larger and much more ornate school building. In 1906, the beautiful two-story brick Celina School opened on the site of the present-day Administration Building on Colorado Street. At a cost of $10,850.00, the school would open with 203 students and six teachers and boasted an auditorium that seated nearly 1,000 people. The location of this school campus would prove critical in just five years, when J. Fred Smith would design and build Celina’s beautiful downtown square just two blocks from the school.

Like so many structures from the early part of the 20th century, this beautiful school would succumb to a fire in 1915, just a little over eight years after it opened. School and community leaders would hurriedly partner to replace it with a three-story brick building that would be built at the same site. It, too, was a marvelous architectural structure that would provide Celina students a place to learn as the community would grow. However, that rushed structure immediately began to have problems throughout. By the late 1930’s, the Celina School was deteriorating to a point that would provide safety concerns for students, faculty, and staff. In 1941, preparation was underway to pass a bond and to seek federal funding under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to build a solid school structure in Celina that would stand the tests of time.

The second Celina School Building

Small town politics would soon erupt, and on January 23, 1941, just weeks after the WPA grant was issued, angry taxpayers filed a lawsuit to stop the bond. Seven days later the trial began, and by February 5, 1941, the school won the trial. Dissenters pled to a higher court, but they lost there as well. In November of 1941, work began on the next chapter of a campus for Celina schools. During construction, local churches opened their facilities for classes, using Sunday School rooms for core instruction. With World War II underway, reports of the progress of the school were hard to find. However, the Celina Record states that a grade school graduation was held there in May of 1943 and another article confirms classes began for the 1943-44 school year in that building. For three decades, Celina students of all ages called that facility on Colorado Street home.

During this same time period, schools in America were divided. In the late 1940’s, an aging school for African American students on Ash Street would be replaced by the George Washington Carver School on Elm Street. Built with a price tag of about $15,000, Celina Superintendent J.H. Reed opened the new red brick facility in July of 1950 under the leadership of Principal Cornelius Young. Students would attend Carver School through 8th grade then were bused to E.S. Doty High School in McKinney to complete their education.

By the 1960’s, forces of change swept across this country, and dividing walls fell. No longer would neighbors from the same town be prohibited from attending the same schools. In 1965, schools in Celina I.S.D. were integrated, and George Washington Carver School was torn down. A beautiful monument stands on the property today, just south of the old Bobcat Field, as a tribute to the students, teachers, and administrators who attended and served there.

By the mid-1970’s, the district was growing beyond available space. The Alla School campus was used to educate junior high students, and a bond issue would be necessary to build a new high school. The site would be selected just across the street from the football stadium, and in 1977, under the direction of Superintendent Perry Morris and School Board President Jack Stanton, Celina I.S.D. opened its first designated high school building.

Growth would continue through the 1980’s and 1990’s, and another high school building would be necessary to sustain the high-quality educational experience that has always been a trademark of this community. In the late 1990’s, Superintendent Don Newsom would convince Celina voters that a new high school would be necessary, and they responded in support. At the beginning of the 1996 school year, Newsom and School Board President Pat Hunn welcomed high school students to Celina High School’s newest location, just east of the previous building and on the prominent corner of State Highway 289 and FM 455.

From this building, Celina would become a household name around Texas. Bobcat football teams would win seven state football titles from this campus and set a state record for the most consecutive wins by a high school football team, among other records. At that location, fine arts facilities were enhanced, agricultural education facilities were expanded, and other boys’ and girls’ sports would experience milestones. From this building, the Celina baseball team won its only state championship on record.

After 20 years, more growth and more people moving in, the high school building at the prominent intersection in town would no longer be capable of providing the educational space that was desperately needed. Another bond issue would be considered. Another vote would be passed.

This time, when the district was ready to prepare for a high school to handle the demands that would soon follow, they imagined returning to that old Alla School hilltop. Longtime Celina resident and historian Jane Willard wrote about the generosity and vision of the Moses Hubbard family in her memoirs titled, History of Celina, “Upon their death in the early 1900’s they endowed the small country school three miles north of town with a land trust. Upon consolidation, the CISD became the recipient of this trust and...years later the Hubbards are still helping educate the descendants of the children of their friends and neighbors.”

In 2007, Celina I.S.D. opened the magnificent Celina High School campus that stands today. The beautiful structure, recently crowned with incomparable athletics facilities, is fit to educate another few generations of Celina students before growth and expansion will, once again, call for new campuses. However, this will be nothing new to a district and a community forged through changes to schools since the late 1800’s. Celina residents from across the decades would attest that, no matter the buildings or their locations, the heart and soul of this community embraces our schools, our students, our teachers, our coaches, and our administrators. While everything else has evolved or will continue to transform, that never will.