O'Fallon Township High School

O'Fallon Township High School is a public secondary school in O'Fallon, Illinois. In 2009, OTHS was ranked 49th out of the top 100 high schools in Illinois by the Chicago Sun Times.HistoryThe first high school was founded in 1901 as a two-year school by William R. Dorris, who became the first principal, according to Brian Keller of the O’Fallon Historical Society.In 1900, the city had built a new building to serve as the elementary school. Room 10 was set aside for the high school studies.The first graduating class in 1903 had only five members.In 1920, O’Fallon’s high school officially became OTHS of District 203, and the original school song, “Blue and Old Gold”, was first sung at graduation in 1925. The school's mascot is the Panther, for which the 1934 basketball team takes credit for choosing. The basketball team visited a sports store in 1934 and was impressed by the large picture of a panther in the store’s display window, according to Mr. George Bender, class of 1937. The team, not having a mascot of their own yet, liked the idea of using the panther. By November 1934, the team was nicknamed the Panthers, a name which would eventually represent the entire school.CampusesThe current main campus, which houses grades 10-12 was built and opened in 1958. Also, the district expanded the main campus by extending the street-side hallway, thus adding another hallway stretching the length of the school along with multiple new classrooms.The district completed construction on the strictly 9th grade or freshman campus in the summer of 2009. The two campuses are about 10–15 minutes apart. The first class to attend the Milburn campus was the class of 2013.Extracurricular activitiesSportsThe Panthers compete in the Southwestern Conference.