Several dozen graduates, local dignitaries and present students turned out for the Sprayberry High School 65th anniversary celebration on Saturday, and not just for old time’s sake.
Artifacts from the school’s rich history were certainly on display, including a video compilation and yearbooks that told the story of the first high school in East Cobb, long before it became the busy suburb it is today.
The festivities also allowed current school leaders to tout Sprayberry’s evolution into a diverse, high-achieving school in an East Cobb community noted for public education.
When it opened on what is now Cobb Parkway in 1952, in a facility now occupied by The Walker School, Sprayberry had only 20 teachers. When it moved to its present campus on Sandy Plains Road at Piedmont Road in 1973, the building was the largest for a school in the Southeast and the second-largest structure of any kind in Cobb County.
“Boy, have things changed,” said Principal Joe Sharp, who recounted all 13 of his predecessors and their accomplishments.
The connections between tradition and innovation were noted frequently at Saturday’s event, held in the gym and that included a performance by the Sprayberry orchestra.
“Sprayberry and I are the same age,” said Frank Wigington, a landscaping company owner, Northeast Cobb civic leader and a 1970 Sprayberry graduate who’s also the public address voice of Yellow Jackets sports teams.
“It has aged a lot better than I have.”
The Sprayberry graduates who have enjoyed nationwide success include Mike Greene, who had his own band in high school and later became president of the Grammy Awards, and John Bridges, is now the chief marketing officer for Chick-fil-A.
Perhaps Sprayberry’s most famous graduate is another entertainment industry figure, country music star Travis Tritt.
Regardless of their school popularity or claim to fame as adults, Wigington said, they came “from this little school, this little community. . . . Their foundation was Sprayberry.”
Maddie Wonders, the 2018 senior class president, said she chose Sprayberry for its mix of academic programs and social atmosphere. Like many of Saturday’s speakers, she was proud of the school’s diverse student body and academic programs that reflect it.
“It has unlocked opportunities I never knew existed,” she said. “It’s my home away from home.”
Among them are the Sprayberry International Spanish Language Academy, a dual-language immersion program for native and non-native speakers, and other Scholars Academies for STEM and leadership, law and public service.
On another video presentation, current Sprayberry students and teachers emphasized how their school is “a microcosm of America.”
Sprayberry’s enrollment of around 1,700 students is the second-lowest for a high school in the Cobb County School District. Its sense of family and community is something that “you can’t script,” superintendent Chris Ragsdale said. “You can tell what people feel about Sprayberry. It’s awesome.”
Cobb Board of Education member David Chastain represents the Sprayberry district, and as a graduate of Wheeler High School, appreciates his old rival’s sense of tradition, and how its student body today “really represents America.”
That sense of community spreads to civic and cultural institutions that support from organizations the Piedmont Church and the Northeast Cobb Business Association.
The Sprayberry community, Chastain said, “is built around that school. It’s unlike any other in the county.”
After the speakers, guests were treated to refreshments and visited classrooms devoted to specific decades to revive old memories, and renew longstanding friendships. The Sprayberry Foundation was holding a gala fundraiser Saturday night at Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church.
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