R. L. Paschal High School

R. L. Paschal High School is a secondary school in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. It is part of the Fort Worth Independent School District, and is the oldest and largest high school in Fort Worth ISD.[2]

R. L. Paschal High School
The front entrance to PHS
Address
3001 Forest Park Boulevard

Fort Worth, Texas
,
Tarrant County
76110

United States
Information
TypeMixed-sex education, State school, Secondary school
School districtFort Worth Independent School District
Teaching staff145.70 (FTE)[1]
Enrollment2,405 (2019–20)[1]
Student to teacher ratio16.51[1]
Color(s)  
MascotPanther
Websitewww.fwisd.org/Paschal

The school is ranked 322nd in Texas and 3,892nd in the United States for best quality of education (in 2022) by U.S. News & World Report.[3]

The following elementary schools feed into Paschal: Alice Carlson, George C. Clarke, Lily B. Clayton, Contreras, Daggett, De Zavala, South Hills, Tanglewood, Westcliff, and Worth Heights.

The following middle schools feed into Paschal: Daggett Montessori, Daggett, McLean, McLean 6th Grade, Rosemont, and Rosemont 6th Grade.

History
Postcard of Fort Worth High School, undated
Fort Worth High School Photographed in 1895-96
Fort Worth High School
Former Fort Worth High in 2015
Fort Worth High School is located in Texas
Fort Worth High School
Fort Worth High School
Fort Worth High School is located in the United States
Fort Worth High School
Fort Worth High School
Location1015 S. Jennings Ave.,
Fort Worth, Texas
Coordinates32°44′08″N 97°19′46″W
Area1.2 acres (0.49 ha)
Built1911 (1911)
Built byInnis--Graham
ArchitectWaller and Field
Architectural styleNeoclassical architecture
NRHP reference No.02001515[4]
Added to NRHPDecember 12, 2002 (2002-12-12)

The school originated as the city's first secondary school, Fort Worth High School, which opened in 1882. Fort Worth High School was originally located at 200 Jennings.[5] Robert Lee Paschal, an attorney from North Carolina, became head teacher in 1906. Briefly known as Central High School, it moved to its current location on Forest Park Boulevard in 1955. When Principal Paschal retired in 1935, the school was renamed in his honor as RL Paschal High School.[2]

Its rival is Arlington Heights High School in west Fort Worth, and this is one of the oldest and most historic high school rivalries in Texas. In 1963, a prank on Arlington Heights led to 46 arrests, and a Heights High School bonfire being the center of a near riot.[6] In the incident, carloads of Paschal boys and exes descended on a crowd of 500 Heights students at Benbrook Lake with an armory of weapons including baseball bats, lead pipes, whips and Molotov cocktails. A private-plane flyover by a 20-year-old pilot, a 1962 Paschal graduate, dropped rolls of school-color purple-and-white toilet paper that fluttered down onto the Heights crowd, and a 1948 sedan covered in gasoline-soaked mattresses and labeled “The Panther Ram Car” was set afire by a burly graduate and rolled toward the bonfire woodpile. There was also a ground assault by boys with bows and arrows, storming over the spillway and sailing arrows in a scene a county deputy compared to a frontier Native American attack. When all was said and done there was only one injury, when wrecker driver Junior Slayton, 33, was grazed by buckshot while towing away a student’s car.[7] One week later, a visiting President John F. Kennedy smiled and asked at the mention of Paschal High School, “Isn’t that the school with its own air force?” [8]

On November 19, 1969 Apollo 12 astronaut, Alan Bean, a 1950 Paschal graduate, took a Paschal High School flag to the moon with him and safely returned it to Earth. He donated the flag to the school, where it was displayed for decades.

In 1979, a Paschal student stole a bulldozer from a county construction site and rammed it into the Arlington Heights field house the day before the annual Heights-Paschal football game, severely damaging the field house.[9]

In 1985, the school achieved a degree of notoriety when a gang called "Legion of Doom" was active at the school.[9][10][11][12]

In 2006, the school won the Boys golf state championship.[13]

Performing arts

Paschal has a competitive show choir, "Vox".[14]

Notable alumni

Rivalries

References
  1. "PASCHAL H S". National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved September 5, 2021.
  2. "History of R. L. Paschal High School". Forth Worth Independent School District. Retrieved February 25, 2020.
  3. "Paschal High School". U.S. News & World Report.
  4. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
  5. "About / Home Page".
  6. KENNEDY, BUD (September 5, 2013). "50 years ago, Paschal flew into history, with a high school prank gone wild Fort Worth Star Telegram". Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  7. https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/bud-kennedy/article265717731.html
  8. https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/bud-kennedy/article265717731.html#storylink=cpy
  9. Jarvis, Jan (July 1985). "Doomsday". D Magazine. ISSN 0161-7826.
  10. "American Notes Vigilantes". Time. June 10, 1985. ISSN 0040-781X.
  11. Goldstein, Patrick (May 17, 1986). "Teen Vigilante Films: Armed And Dangerous". Los Angeles Times.
  12. Kennedy, J. Michael (April 20, 1985). "'Legion of Doom' Accused of Bombings, Threats : Gang of Top Students Puzzles Fort Worth". Los Angeles Times.
  13. BURCH, JIMMY (May 21, 2013). "Former Paschal teammates ready for Colonial debuts". Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  14. "SCC: Viewing School - Paschal High School". Show Choir Community. Retrieved September 9, 2020.
  15. Kennedy, Bud; Ray, Jordan (May 28, 2018). "From Fort Worth boy to American hero: Capt. Alan Bean, 4th to walk on the moon, dead at 86". Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  16. "RICHARD RAINWATER (1944 - 2015)". Legacy.com.
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