"High School" on first reference

We only ever use the words "High School" if it refers to a certain location where something is held that doesn't involve one of the teams.

Examples:

"Bloomfield defeated Harbor City, 58-45, in a quarterfinal game."

"Austin Smith's jump of 41 feet, six inches helped Kalamazoo win its third consecutive state championship Saturday at Liverpool High School."

 

My paper requires the "High School." I'm not a big fan of it in our area.

 

If you're writing for the sports section, there is zero need to write "high school" unless there's a college with the same name. If you're writing a 1A story on a pitcher saving a bus full of nuns, fine, step back and say "Johnson, a senior at Frank Lucas High School, said anyone would have done what he did."

It's all about context. Your readers should know the name of the high schools in your readership. My paper, we don't even include the city with the school if it's in our area, but include the city if it's outside our area ... at no point do we write "High School" after the school name on the sports pages.

 

We have "guides" on top of many game stories that tell the score of the game.

Doesn't mean we can leave the score out of the story for fear of redundancy.

 

I admit I'm inconsistent on it, mainly because the schools in our area don't always use it. For example, around here, Podunk High is commonly referred to as "Podunk High" so I'll often call it that. And when we had two area high schools in the same town -- one a private school, one public -- that were called "Shelbyville High" and "Shelbyville Academy" we referred to them as such.
But some of our other schools don't use the "High School" or "Academy" on the end. Podunk County, for example, is usually just called "Podunk County" so that's what we call it. Same with the private schools. They have more common names that don't include the "High School" tag.
Now, if there were a Podunk College and Podunk High School that you cover, by all means use it. Otherwise, give the readers credit that they can figure out what's what.
Basically, it comes down to what it always comes down to -- each paper needs its own rule for it. One size doesn't necessarily fit all.

 

Why should readers of the sports sections be required to know the local high schools (when they might not have grown up in the area or have children) but readers of 1A don't?

Consistency from section to section is a good thing.

 

I generally don't use the full term, "Podunk High School," preferring Podunk High. There are other occasions when I don't, when the inference is clear that it's the high school in Podunk, but when I write it that way, I always – always – include a reference in the second or third graf indicating that it's a high school (whatever) game.

One thing that has always bugged the pee out of me has been our paper's style to refer to the University of Mississippi as Ole Miss on first reference. I'd be interested in how some of the other Mississippi writers on here do it.

 

We never use high school, and don't use the first name -- it's Lincoln beat Washington, not Abraham Lincoln beat George Washington -- and everybody seems to get it.

 

We don't use "high school" as an identifier, but our situation is a tad different, seeing as how there's only one four-year school out here and only two JCs have names the same as a high school (and those two get "College" to avoid any confusion). It's understood in our section that when we say "Podunk" we mean Podunk High because there is no Podunk JC, no Podunk College, no South Podunk High, no Podunk town team....

 

No need to put "high school", even on first reference. Most papers use little headings or scorelines with "High School Sports" or "High School Basketball" or whatever. And if they don't, then, well, give the reader some credit.

If it's September, they won't be reading a HS baseball gamer. If it's April, they won't be reading a football gamer.

A lede with "High School" after the first two names makes me want to poke my eyes out and never again read whatever newspaper it's in, especially if it's a straight AP lede in the first place.

So no, not necessary IMO.

 

"High" and no "School" irritates the hell out of me. Always has, always will.

 

Every paper is different. Depends on your location and situation.

We don't use it. The school names are unique enough that our readers know we're writing about high schools and not colleges.