A community celebration marking the centennial of Washington-Liberty High School brought students past, present and future to the school on Saturday.
In attendance were alumni who attended W-L as long ago as the early 1950s. Those who came said they retained fond memories.
“You never forget,” said Jim Sheedfar, a member of the Class of 1970 who today lives in Oakton.
The school’s “true anniversary” is Oct. 6, said Justin Bolfek, director of student activities at the high school and one of the organizers of the event. However, organizers opted to hold the celebration a weekend in advance because of SAT testing occurring next weekend.
Known originally as Washington-Lee High School, and a whites-only educational institution until integrated in the early 1960s, W-L grew to become the largest high school in the southeastern U.S. that same decade.
Today, with 2,700 students and more than 200 faculty/staff, it remains the largest high school in the county.
“Teachers had a major impact on me,” Sheedfar told ARLnow, reminiscing about his favorites. They included one W-L educator who ultimately left his position, moved west and joined a hippie commune.
Susan Prokop, a member of the class of 1974, recalled “wonderful memories” of a school that at the time was home to 10th-grade through 12th-grade students.
Sheedfar and Prokop are among an estimated 40,000 students who passed through the W-L halls during its first century.
Those attending the centennial open house received tours courtesy of the W-L Ambassadors Club, and were treated to performances by members of the school’s orchestra, choir and rock band.
Members of the choir delivered a combined presentation of the Washington-Lee and Washington-Liberty alma maters, then found themselves entranced — and maybe a little mystified — leafing through the pages of school yearbooks from the 1960s-70s.
All vestiges of the original Washington-Lee built have long since disappeared, but the spirit of the past lives on, Bolfek said. Planning for the centennial celebration began in the summer of 2024, he said.
“People wanted something to happen” for the centennial, Bolfek said. “None of us really knew the best way to approach it. We brainstormed.”
According to an online history of the school, the name “Washington-Lee” was approved by the School Board in July 1925. It honored Washington & Lee University, using a dash rather than an ampersand to distinguish the two.
Other notable details of the school’s earliest years, from a timeline maintained by the school system:
- The cornerstone was laid in the fall of 1924, with the school built on the site of a 19th-century silkworm farm
- The architectural firm was D.C.-based Upman and Adams
- The original school consisted of 18 classrooms, two laboratories, a gymnasium, a cafeteria, an auditorium, a library and a separate shop building
- Samuel Vanderslice was the first principal and Geneva Thomas the assistant principal.
- When it opened, W-L was the first high school in the commonwealth to offer free textbooks
- The first graduating class was in 1927, when 33 seniors received diplomas
- Population growth in Arlington resulted in the first of several expansions occurring in 1930
- Until completion of Swanson Middle School in 1930, Washington-Lee operated as a joint middle-high school, educating students in 7th through 12th grades
School Board members changed the name to “Washington-Liberty” in a contentious decision in 2019.
The name change did not come cheap to Arlington taxpayers: the cost was estimated at nearly a quarter-million dollars. And it didn’t catch everything; six years later, a sign noting rules for spectators at the school’s football stadium still says Washington-Lee.
Centennial events have been occurring since late 2024. They will conclude with the school’s homecoming football game, when Washington-Liberty hosts Herndon High School on Friday, Oct. 17 at 7 p.m.
The W-L festivities mark the second Arlington school-centennial celebration in the past month. The PTA of Barcroft Elementary School, which also opened in 1925, hosted special events to celebrate the occasion.
