September 2011

Page 1

The Merionite

September 9, 2011

Volume 83, Issue 1

The official student newspaper of Lower Merion High School since 1929

Photo courtesy of Lower Merion Historical Society

A birds eye view of Lower Merion High School and administration building in the 1940s, including the Ardmore Junior High School, which was torn down in 2008.

Thieves strike LMHS celebrates a century of education on Montgomery Ave. two local banks Zack Schlosberg

Class of 2012

bigger, 17-acre property on Montgomery Avenue, its present location, in a building that cost $100,000 to build. There were twenty-one staff members employed under the principal Charles Pennypacker.

was almost 1500 in that year. LM added a groundbreaking technical building in 1943, with shops for auto repair, metal, print, wood-working, and drafting. This was the only one of its kind in the

This year, LM is celebrating it’s 100th anniversary. There has been an LMHS building on this spot at Montgomery Avenue for a century. There were two other buildings before the shining edifice that stands today. Thousands of students have come through these school doors, each in pursuit of an education and a future that LM has provided. However, the school had humble beginnings, and it took one hundred years for the ever changing and growing school to morph into what it is today. On a cold night in 1834, planners met at the General Wayne Inn to form the Lower Merion School District, the first such district in Montgomery County. The district was formed from disparate academies and schoolhouses from across the Photo courtesy of Lower Merion Historical Society township. These schools only provided for grades 1-6, and it The open-air courtyard of LMHS in the 2000’s before the most recent wasn’t long before students began building was constructed in 2010. asking for high school curriculum. Three schools began to house high On the same site in 1922, Ard- area, and it attracted students from school classes, and they were con- more Junior High School was built, across the county, greatly increasing solidated in 1894 to Lower Merion and new wings were attached to the the school’s population and prestige. High School, which was attached high school in order to house the The library and cafeteria wings were to the Ardmore Avenue Elementary growing numbers of students. The School. teaching staff grew to sixty-one by See ANNIVERSARY, page 2 By 1911, the school moved to a 1940, and the number of students

G. Doron/M. Schaeffer

Class of ‘12/15

Over the summer, Lower Merion Township experienced multiple bank robberies. The first robbery occurred on August 9 at the Wells Fargo Bank branch in the Haverford part of Lower Merion. A man entered the bank on Lancaster Avenue around 1:00 pm, holding a silver handgun. He jumped over the counter, obtained the money and quickly exited. The suspect was last seen by witnesses in the back parking lot going towards Railroad Avenue. Police believe he crossed through Haverford College, but the rainstorm taking place at the time made the suspect difficult to follow. The suspect’s trail was lost in Ardmore close to Armat Avenue. This same man is thought to have robbed the same bank almost a year ago. “Wells Fargo Bank in Haverford was also robbed last year in similar style,” said Michael McGrath, the superintendent of Lower Merion Police. The police described the suspect as a black male wearing a black hooded jacket and gray sweatpants. He wore some sort of goggles. This mysterious man has so far gotten away with his crime. The LM police are investigating a second robbery that happened a short week later. Two men entered the First Trust Bank in Bryn Mawr on Tuesday, August 16. One of the two carried a handgun and took the money. The other did not appear to be armed. After exiting the bank with the money, the men walked in the direction of Town Place, and no witnesses saw where they went. The first suspect was described as a black male around five feet, eleven inches to six feet tall with an athletic build. He wore a dark blue or black sweat-

See ROBBERIES, page 3


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