Here's to the Dear Old Woodruff High: Alumni Look Back as the School Changes Campuses

The Woodruff Times, in a story published June 8, 2026 and bylined to staff writer Garrett Mitchell, collected alumni memories as Woodruff High School moves to a new high school and its current building becomes Woodruff Middle School. Here is our summary.

The building opened in 1989, after the original high school burned in 1987, and served students for about 37 years. Graduates from the Classes of 1990 and 1991 recall attending classes at a temporary site nicknamed "Ele-High" in the meantime. The Class of 1990 was the first to graduate from the new building, and the Class of 1992 was the first to spend all three high school years there.

Alumni name a long list of people who shaped the school, including principals Mr. Simpkins, Mr. Harrell, Dr. Rallie Liston and Karen Neal, and teachers and coaches such as Coach Varner, Gordon Godfrey, Gary Robinette, Barbara Ropp and Frances Mason.

The memories span the decades: the school newspaper and yearbook of the early 1990s, homecoming bonfires and floats in the early 2000s, classroom conversations on September 11, 2001, a 2006 lunchroom protest over cafeteria food, and the girls' soccer team's trip to the state championship in Columbia in 2007, when early dismissal let the community attend. Later entries recall a 2020 graduation reshaped by COVID-19 and rain, a team state championship in 2021 and a golf state championship in 2023.

The writer, a 2003 graduate, says the school and the town's support carried him through hard times, and the piece closes as a tribute to the people and traditions the building held. A reader from the Class of 1961 also commented with memories of the original school.

This is our own summary for community reference. Read the full story and the alumni's own words at The Woodruff Times using the source link below.