Piedmont High School (North Carolina)

Piedmont High School is a public high school in Unionville, North Carolina. The nickname of the school is the Panthers, and the current principal is Mrs. Wanda Little. Former principal Archie Price was principal at Piedmont for almost 20 years.

History

Piedmont was founded in 1960 as the second high school in Union County. After the Class of 2005, the school was divided, with half of the classes of 2007, 2008, and 2009 moving to newly created Porter Ridge High School.

Academics

The Advanced Placement courses offered at Piedmont include:
AP Biology
AP Calculus AB
AP Chemistry
AP English Language
AP English Literature
AP Environmental Science
AP Physics
AP U.S. Government and Politics
AP U.S. History

Art

Piedmont was the first school in Union County to have an NAHS (National Art Honor Society). It was founded in 1991 by Mrs. Tracy Price, one of Piedmont's art teachers. The process to get in involves many art projects, which are made for existing members of NAHS. The members in the club sport the very well known "SFK" sweatshirts. Only members and alumni know what it means. To quote the hoodie, "You think you know but you have no idea." They also started another tradition at Piedmont: VSA, or Very Special Arts. This is a very popular event at Piedmont which is usually the week after spring break. This is the last year that this event will take place, as Wingate University is taking over the project.

ports

The Panthers are the 1984 2A State Baseball champions. They have also had state champions in swimming, wrestling, and track and field. Also, the football team had a 31 game regular season winning streak from 2001-2003 under Coach Rusty Jester, winning the district title during that run. The women's softball and men's baseball teams are currently two of the top teams in 3A.

Currently the teams compete in the South Piedmont Conference, which is 3A.

Currently, the biggest rival for Piedmont is Porter Ridge. Piedmont is currently 2–1 against them all time in football.Historically, though, Piedmont's biggest rival in high school football is Forest Hills High School. Frank Ambrose was named the new varsity football coach for the 2008-2009 year.

The Piedmont Varsity cheerleaders have become highly competitive and won a 5th place title at State out of 22 squads. They also won a first place title at Methodist.

The Piedmont Band (Marching Panthers) has become well-known, beginning in 2004, when they won their first Grand Champion. They won a second Grand Champion in 2005. They have become even more prestigious this year (2007-2008) when they won two Grand Champions in one day at two different contests. Also in 2007, they won Grand Champion at the Porter Ridge Contest, totaling three Grand Champions in one marching season. Needless to say, during the 2007-08 school year, the Marching Band was the reason that there was such a crowd at the Friday Night Football games.