The Baby Boom-related expansion of high schools in Iowa began in 1967, when Iowa’s two largest cities opened new buildings.
Des Moines Hoover celebrated its anniversary last week (above). Herbert Hoover, Iowa’s only native son elected president, had died three years earlier.
In August 1967, Sen. Ted Kennedy spoke at the opening of Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School, named for his brother, President John F. Kennedy. Here is the Gazette’s coverage of the dedication.
A half-century after those two opened, Iowa City Liberty High School started classes, this time as a sign of urban sprawl. Hoover and Kennedy remain among the ten newest high schools to open in Iowa that were not a reconfiguration or relocation of existing ones.