Ralston High School

Ralston High School is located in Ralston, a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska. The school opened in 1954, as a 7–12 building, when it was located at 82nd and Lakeview Drive, and relocated to its current address on 8969 Park Drive in 1969. Prior to 1954 Ralston students went to Omaha South High School as Ralston Schools only had grades K-8.^[1] The former high school building was converted to the middle school. Ralston High School's colors are Red, White and Columbian Blue. In 2006, Ralston High School's enrollment jumped from 850 students to 1090 students, and it is also becoming a more diverse school.

Extracurricular activities

Athletics

The athletic programs are known as the Ralston Rams. Ralston participates in Nebraska's second-largest class. Ralston's baseball teams have experienced similar success, with 18 appearances in the state tournament, their most recent appearance in 2006. The Rams have been in the finals seven times, and captured the state title seven times, holding the second most state titles in baseball, behind Creighton Prep's 8. The football team has been successful as well since Head Coach Tyler Zahn took over. They made an appearance in the State Finals in 2002 when they beat their rival Gross to make it to Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. Ralston played tough but lost to McCook. The closest the Rams have come to the finals again was in 2011 when the Rams beat Scottsbluff in Scottsbluff and came home to face the top seed Gretna where they lost. Ralston Basketball has also had some fantastic success lately. Winning the State Title in 2008 against Beatrice. From that team Ralston had two top athletes that went and played Division 1 Basketball at Colorado State. Brothers Greg and Dwight Smith led the team that year and they were both nominated as All-State in 2008. Ralston Basketball is one of the top programs in the last decade behind Beatrice and Gretna with a winning percentage of 64.3% and a win total of 146 in the last 10 years. The Rams have had most of their success from their student section known as the "Rowdies" which attends every major sporting event.

Arts

The Ralston Performing Arts Centre is currently located inside Ralston High School. This stage is used once a year in the summer by the Ralston Community Theatre and it is used all throughout the school year by the Ralston Drama students. The theatre, along with the entire school, was recently renovated and now seats 600+ people. The "new theatre's" first show was Les Misérables in May 2005.

The Ralston Fine Arts Department has had success in recent years. The band has almost tripled in size, received numerous awards including best drumline, best drum major, and has had continuous success at competitions receiving all superior and excellent ratings.

Ralston High School has three competing show choirs, Rampage, Runway, and Rush. Rush has had successful competition seasons, often placing in the top of their division and competing in finals. In recent years Rush has been named grand champions at Millard West Singsation and at Bishop Heelan High School show choir invitational. Ralston now hosts a show choir invitational of their own, called Ramageddon.

Debate

The Ralston Debate Team has had much success in recent years under the coaching of Jennifer Stark. She has earned Nebraska Coach of the Year on two occasions, 2009-10 and 2013-14. The team has qualified for National Tournaments multiple times, and took home 3rd place Sweepstakes at the start of the 2013 season. Kurt Cronican placed 5th in the nation at the National Forensic League tournament. The team has rapidly grown in size in recent years, increasing the number of students and participants in a wide variety of events. The team competes in Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum, Policy and Congressional Debate at the state and national level. In the 2015-2016 school year, Jennifer Stark was replaced by Jeff Garst, one of her most successful debaters.

See also

• Education in Omaha, Nebraska

References

• http://rhs.ralstonschools.org/about_r_h_s

External links

• Ralston H.S.
• Ralston Public Schools