The interior décor of Central High School is a mishmash of styles, some with stranger origins than you might guess.

By Kayce Archer-Edwards and De’Mya Johnson

Have you ever just stared deeply into the orange carpeting that haunts the social studies and English department and wonder, “Why this color?” Well we have the answer! (As well as others’ opinions about outdated parts of the school 😉).

Why we used to have green and orange carpeting was because we weren’t always called the Cobblers, we were once called, “The Tigers! That’s why the green and orange were put in. We also used to have orange lockers as well,” Mandy Hennies, secretary of Central explains. “I love the color orange but the orange carpeting is dated.”

It beats the green carpeting the school had when it was first built! All the seniors and teachers know the green carpeting I’m talking about. To those who don’t remember or weren’t here to see it, the carpeting in the library is the original green carpet that covered the whole second floor.

Then it was torn up and replaced with the orange carpet that still remains in the social studies department and the English department today, those poor souls. Anyway, we have gathered a few thoughts from those who have to suffer the carpeting still.

“The orange wasn’t the best choice,” James Thovson, teacher of Government class at Central High School said. “It beats the green carpet we used to have.” Yes it does. But why go with orange and not a bland color? Why don’t we just tear it up and change it?

“We sent a request to capital outlay to get it changed and have a refresh,” Mandy Hennies explained.

In 1973, Rapid City passed a bond to build Central High School in the northern part of town, close to Downtown Rapid City. As years went on, the building grew older but the curriculum grew newer and so did the generations that entered into Central High School.

The architecture of the building goes way back to the 1970s. The person who designed the building is unknown, but they used to design the architecture of prisons. Yeah, prisons! Looking at these two photos, the one to the left is a picture of a state prison and the one to the right is a photo taken right in Central.

See the similarities? The architecture used the design plans for a prison and worked it into our school. Crazy!

Another thing that was left out when building the building was windows. A number of classrooms within the school don’t have windows. Some of these classrooms would never be able to have windows, as they do not use an outside wall, but in theory the classrooms that have a wall(s) connected to the outside could have windows. A retired teacher here at central, Dan Mahoney, was the chair for the social studies department and the main leader in requesting windows for the department for well over 20 years. But the request was denied due to rooms having load-bearing walls.

I guess it’s time to get creative and pull out those power tools and make your own window to feel some of those sun rays! (ADVISORY⚠️: we are just joking and don’t actually support nor recommend this action! Thank You).