10 Facts About WEMS You’ve Never Heard

As we embark upon a new year at West End Middle School and look forward to all of the excellence it’s sure to bring, we turned to one of our school’s biggest champions, Burton Dietz, to shed some light on the history of the school, which originally served as a high school. Burton was at West from 1963 till graduation in 1967. Below are 10 facts you’ve likely never heard about “West,” as it was known then, which will hopefully inspire you and make you prouder than ever to be a Blue Jay!

West High School, circa 1953 | CREDIT: Flickr CC user Howard33
West High School, circa 1953 | CREDIT: Flickr CC user Howard33

  1. Construction on West was begun in 1935 and finished in 1937.
  2. The first day of school for the first classes ever held in the building was September 1, 1937.
  3. The 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade classes all started in 1937.
  4. The school building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  5. The school did not have a name until November of 1937, two months after it opened. It was originally supposed to be named after Nashville Mayor Hilary Howse, but there was a rule that buildings could not be named for living people, so it was given the name West End High School.
  6. The bell in the clock tower was purchased from a monastery in Cincinnati.  It had been cast in Philadelphia for the monastery in the 1860s, making the bell about 150 years old.
  7. The first principal of West was Dr. W. H. Yarbrough.
  8. Two teachers hired for the first classes at West—Anne Battle and Anna Dembsky—remained on staff at the school through the last graduating high school class.
  9. A teacher hired to staff at West in the middle 1950s,Charles Frazier, became assistant principal at West and moved up through the ranks of the school system to spend more than a decade as director of schools for Metro from 1980-1992.
  10. West High School had only one band director: D.F. Bain.

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