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Stephen Decatur High School, located in Decatur, Illinois, existed from 1911 to 2000. The original Stephen Decatur High School was simply known as Decatur High School until 1957, when the city's only high school was joined by Lakeview High School (absorbed by consolidation), and MacArthur and Eisenhower High Schools (newly constructed) to accommodate the student population that was exploding as a result of the post World War 2 "baby boom". The older building was located in downtown Decatur in the 400 block of N. Franklin St. The original portion of the building was constructed in 1911 of red brick and had marble columns on the main west entrance. An additional three-floor classroom wing was added on the north end of the building in 1932. A much larger gymnasium was added in the late 1940s to house the crowds packing in to watch legendary coach Gay Kintner chase his fourth state title at the helm of the Stephen Decatur "Running Reds" basketball team. No Illinois high school basketball team had ever won four state championships. On February 15, 1960, the last game of the regular season, Kintner had coached what many observers said was his best team since the 1945 state championship team to an 8-point lead over the crosstown rival MacArthur Generals.〔http://www.lisamccubbin.com/the-legacy-of-coach-gay-kintner/〕 He had just emerged with the team from the locker room to begin the second half, when he collapsed from a heart attack and died on the court.〔http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=25463091〕 The facility was renamed Kintner Gymnasium in his honor. The 64-year-old Kintner had coached the Running Reds for 32 years. Two years later, under Kintner's successor, Coach John Schneiter, the school won its fourth, and final state championship. All four championships were won under the older unified system, where all state schools competed in the same state tournament, before the introduction of the current class system that divides the state's schools by enrollment size and results in multiple "state champions" each year. Stephen Decatur High School is one of only a handful of Illinois schools with over 1000 basketball victories in its history (W-1352, L-912 for a .597 winning percentage 1913 - 2000)〔http://www.illinoishsglorydays.com/id384.html〕 For a school fight song, the high school adapted the Northwestern University fight song, "Go You Northwestern", restyling it as "Go You Decatur". A recording of the song, made in the 1960s by the school's Redcoat marching/concert band, can be found here〔http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTafAZmqSac〕 After an arson fire in March 1970 destroyed classrooms and school offices in the southwest corner of the building, the facility reopened some weeks later, but after a study recommended replacing, rather than rehabilitating, the building, the building was scheduled for demolition in 1975. In the final school year for the original Stephen Decatur High School (1974-1975), school schedules were changed to accommodate Lakeview High School students due to damage that school received in a railroad explosion on July 19, 1974.〔http://www3.gendisasters.com/illinois/13000/decatur-il-tank-cars-explode-july-1974〕 Stephen Decatur students attended the building in the mornings and Lakeview students used the facility in the afternoons.〔http://www.illinoishsglorydays.com/id278.html〕 When the new campus opened in 1975 it was the first high school in Decatur to be handicapped accessible (as it was all on one level) and to have air conditioning. The center jump circle from the old wooden floor at Kintner Gym was removed and hung on the wall in the new school's gym as a tribute to the original high school building. It could not be incorporated into the new gym's floor because the new gym floor's surface was rubberized rather than wood construction. Stephen Decatur was closed as a high school when Decatur Public Schools consolidated from three high schools to two due to reduced enrollment in District 61. It re-opened as Stephen Decatur Middle School in 2001. A 2012 high school renovation project for the Eisenhower and MacArthur facilities has once again caused the building to be used as a high school, while "Stephen Decatur Middle School" meets in another facility in the center of the city. Interestingly, the temporary facility of Stephen Decatur Middle School is directly across the street from the site of the original Stephen Decatur High School. ==References== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Stephen Decatur High School (Decatur, Illinois)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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