Henninger High School

Anthony A. Henninger High School is a high school in the Syracuse City School District. Henninger is the largest of the four High Schools in this district with a student population of approximately 1,800.

((Pronounced Hen-ing-er))

History

Henninger High School was built in the mid 1960s in order to merge two High Schools in the area. These two schools were North High School and Eastwood High School. The latter was in a neighborhood that was once a village and was later annexed by the city of Syracuse.

Originally, the school was going to be named Northeast High. However, by the time the school was finished, it was decided that the school would be named after the current mayor of Syracuse; Anthony A. Henninger.

Facilities

The Henninger High School campus is home to a variety of facilities. The auditorium was built to have excellent acoustics and seats around 950 people. The athletic complex includes two recently-built turf fields, six tennis courts, two baseball fields, 4 basketball courts, a quarter mile track surrounded the main field, a pool, the Sunnycrest Ice Skating Rink and the Sunnycrest Golf Course.

Athletics

Henninger participates in both boys and girls Section III, Class AA athletics. Henninger has many reputable athletic programs including boys' basketball, American football, lacrosse, bowling, soccer, Tennis, hockey (through Corcoran High School ), golf and track as well as girls' basketball, soccer, volleyball, Tennis, bowling, lacrosse, track and crew (with Corcoran and Nottingham High Schools). Henninger has won several state champions including, most recently, basketball in 2002

Music/Fine Arts

Henninger has four branches of its fine arts department: band, chorus, orchestra and drama.

Its instrumental ensembles perform in several venues. The pep band plays at all home basketball and football games. The marching band performs in several parades a year and is the only High School band that has performed in the annual St. Patrick's day parade in Syracuse every year since the parade's establishment in 1985. In 2007, the band achieved first place out of all High School bands. Its successful Jazz Ensemble is well-known throughout the area and goes to several competitions throughout the year. The Wind Ensemble, a select version of its main Concert Band traditionally plays a copy of the original arrangement of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride. The band is currently led by Michelin Keleher.

Henninger's choral ensemble has been led by Peter Prunner for 24 years. Due to a lack of active participants, the group has not attended any competitions in the last decade.

The Henninger High School Orchestra is led by Ann Kupferberg and performs one annual concert.

The Henninger High School Drama Club puts on 2-3 performances a year. Unlike most High Schools, at least two of these performances are musicals. In the past several years, the Club has been particularly ambitious. In the spring of 2006, they performed the Syracuse area debut (High School and professional) of Elton John and Tim Rice's: " Aida". In the fall of the same year they performed the Syracuse area debut of Disney's "High School Musical". In the spring of 2008 Henninger was the first High School in the area to do the musical "Miss Saigon". Other successful shows in recent years include "Fiddler on the Roof" in 2004 and "West Side Story" in Fall 2007 and Miss Saigon in 2008. The Henninger Drama Club is currently led by Peter Prunner and Tony Brown. Drama I and II is now being offered as an English elective, taught by Raymond Trumble.

Academics

Henninger High School's academic program is different in that it is divided into various "focus teams." There are four main teams and they are: Business, Media and Communications, Art Focus and Health Careers. The two largest teams; Health Careers and Art Focus are the only programs of their kind in the surrounding area. Health Careers in particular is a program aimed for students heading towards the medical profession. Benefits from Health Careers include many medical-based courses as well as volunteer work at local hospitals.

Henninger High School also has chapters in the National Honor Society, Tri-M Music Honor Society and the only chapter of the National Art Honor Society in Upstate New York

External links

* [http://weblink.scsd.us/~henninger/Henni.html Henninger High School Website]