Tensas High School

Tensas High School is the public secondary school which serves all of Tensas Parish in northeastern Louisiana. Tensas High School, a term coined in 2006, was formerly known as Joseph Moore Davidson High School. It is located in the parish seat of St. Joseph. Pupils in grades 7-12 from throughout the parish may enroll. This includes those who previously attended the defunct Newellton High School in Newellton and Waterproof High School in Waterproof. The current enrollment is 237.[1]

Consolidated Tensas High School in St. Joseph is located across from the St. Joseph Baptist Church.

School history

Davidson High School was named for Joseph Moore Davidson (1894-1918),[2] a United States Army soldier from St. Joseph who died shortly before the signing of the armistice in World War I. Young Davidson was the son of William Mackenzie Davidson, a native of New York City, who was the first mayor of incorporated St. Joseph, having served from 1901 until his accidental death early in 1930.[3] In addition to Davidson High School, the former all-black Tensas Parish Training School, later known as Tensas Rosenwald High School, is a predecessor institution of Tensas High School. The Rosenwald school closed in 1970 with the desegregation of public schools in Tensas Parish. Two prominent African Americans, Andrew Brimmer and Emmitt Douglas, graduated in 1943 from the former Tensas training school.

Recent years

Tensas High School is operated by the elected seven-member Tensas Parish School Board. Pupils in pre-kindergarten through grade 8 still attend Newellton Elementary School, located on the former Newellton High School campus. Tensas Elementary School in St. Joseph hosts grades pre-K-6. Because of population decline, there is no longer any public school in Waterproof.

Two months after the consolidation of Tensas High School, violence broke out at the campus on November 2, 2006, when fourteen male students were arrested by the office of Sheriff Rickey Jones.[4]

In May 2010, three white students and thirty-seven black students graduated from Tensas High School. Ten whites graduated from the private, Tensas Academy, and four whites from a second private school, the Newellton Christian Academy.[5]

The school sports teams are known as the Panthers.

References
  1. "Tensas High School". greatschools.org. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  2. "Edith Ziegler, Tensas Parish Archives". usgwarchives.net. Retrieved January 6, 2011.
  3. William Mackenzie Davidson obituary, Tensas Gazette, January 24, 1930
  4. Monroe News-Star, November 3, 2006:
  5. Tensas Gazette, May 12, 2010

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