West Anchorage High School is adjacent to
Romig Middle School and is connected to Romig by a hallway. The schools share a library and running track, the former of which was designed and built as a joint library for both schools. The school's original library, known in later years as "The Cove", has served primarily as classroom space in the years since. The school's
gifted and talented programs were held in this part of the school for many years. The
Good Friday earthquake of March 27, 1964, destroyed most of the school's second floor, as well as damaging the first floor. Currently, the band/orchestra and choir rooms are all that is left of the second floor. The destruction was a determining factor in the design of
Dimond High School and
Chugiak High School, both of which were built in the years immediately following the earthquake. The school's science wing was added in 1996 with an indoor planetarium and eight science classrooms with attached labs. A major renovation to the school in 1998 added a new hallway, classrooms, a pool and additional lockers.
Auditorium and gymnasium West High is also home to a 2,000 seat auditorium, the largest of any
high school in Alaska. From the time of its construction in 1954 until 1984, it was the largest meeting space in the city. The auditorium hosted many events and concerts including
Steppenwolf, the
Paul Taylor Dance Company,
A Prairie Home Companion (1986),
Ozzy Osbourne,
Blue Öyster Cult (the first of many appearances the band made in Alaska between 1980 and 1999),
Bee Gees,
Ted Nugent,
Nazareth (1983),
Ray Charles,
Johnny Cash and
Itzhak Perlman, and Bill Nye the science guy (2014). The
Grateful Dead held their only Alaska concerts in the auditorium over the summer solstice, on June 19 through 21, 1980. In 2008, renovations were completed that refurbished the entirety of the auditorium. The
gym seats up to 4,500 people for events which accommodate floor seating.
Professional wrestling matches, usually
booked and headlined by
Sándor Szabó and featuring other wrestling talent based in
Southern California, were a staple of the
Fur Rendezvous Festival from the mid 1950s through the early 1960s. The wrestling card on February 20, 1959, an impromptu event stemming from a televised
angle earlier in the week and which saw Szabó and
Count Billy Varga defeat
Lord James Blears and Mr. Moto, drew the largest indoor paid attendance of any event in Alaska's history to that point. From 1977 to 1982, the West Anchorage High gymnasium was home to the
Anchorage Northern Knights, a professional
basketball team that played in the
Continental Basketball Association (which operated under the name Eastern Basketball Association in the team's first season). Among the team's players were
Brad Davis, who would go on to play 12 seasons for the
Dallas Mavericks, and
Ron Davis, who was
MVP of the CBA in 1980. The team won the CBA championship in 1980, defeating the
Rochester Zeniths in seven games. Knights teams would typically start and end each CBA season with lengthy homestands, with a weeks-long bus trip in between for road games in faraway CBA cities. A worship rally held in the gym in 1978, organized by the East Anchorage-based Anchorage Baptist Temple and headlined by keynote speaker
Paul Harvey, raised the public profile of the church substantially. The church's pastor,
Jerry Prevo, was largely unknown at the time outside of the sphere of influence of his congregation. Prevo and his parishioners would become well known in Anchorage shortly thereafter for their role in establishing the
Moral Majority in Alaska and their active involvement in
Republican Party politics. Until the construction of the
Sullivan Arena and the
Egan Center, under what Anchorage titled "Project 80s," the West High auditorium and gymnasium were the primary venues in Anchorage for many concerts and other similar events. The only other venues in Anchorage which could accommodate sizable crowds were the Anchorage Sports Arena, a large
Quonset hut-type structure at the corner of Fireweed Lane and A Street (which has housed retail businesses since 1980), and the
Buckner Fieldhouse on
Fort Richardson (now part of
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson). Following the opening of the Sullivan Arena and the Egan Center, ASD largely stopped renting the venues to commercial promoters. Many events (including concerts) associated with fundraising for
nonprofit organizations continue to be held at the school, however.
Eagle emblem The original 1953 floor tile bearing the school's seal (eagle logo and name) is kept well-preserved, and encircled by a chain barrier. The eagle on the front of the auditorium was presented to the school by the class of 1971.
Renovations In 2008, the
Alaska Legislature appropriated $900,000 to create a master plan for redeveloping West Anchorage High School and Romig Middle School as 21st century schools in a center of community. Both West and Romig's Parent Teacher Student Associations, and the eight Anchorage community councils within the attendance area of the schools, have supported redeveloping the campus consistent with the Pre-Planning Vision Report completed in the spring of 2008. The planning process moved forward in November 2008 with a community wide effort to define the 21st-century educational programs for West and Romig as well as to design the campus as a center of community. Meetings were scheduled over the next year, seeking input from the schools, teachers, parents, students, the municipality, businesses, non-profit agencies, and community as a whole. The planning process was scheduled to be completed in December 2009 with sufficient detail to design, finance, and redevelop both schools to meet the educational needs of the 21st century and become a center of community. In the latter half of the 2010s, a two story medical wing was added, allowing classes such as First Aid and Health Occupation Essentials to be added to the curriculum. This would be the first time part of the second floor would be added to the school since the 1964 Good Friday earthquake, albeit neither section of the second floor is directly connected to each other. ==Academics==