Many people would think that after 56 years LHS would have changed a lot but it has not changed much. In fact, there are still the same shelves in the biology rooms as when the school first opened. While students have entered and exited the hallways, the lockers, hallways and classrooms still look the same.

LHS was the second high school in Sioux Falls to be built. It was built for $2.72 million which is infinitesimal compared to the roughly $89 million spent on the newest Sioux Falls high school, JHS. While we may be the oldest high school still in use, we are still proud to be a Patriot.

When LHS opened on Oct. 19, 1965, there were 1,364 students and 77 faculty members. Currently, we have roughly 1,970 students and 110 staff members. However, our ratio of staff to students is still 18:1. Something else that has drastically improved is our diversity. When the school opened there was not much diversity, however now, 28.32% of the LHS population is African American or Hispanic.

Another aspect of LHS that has changed is the school store. Where our current school store is, was once a classroom, and our old school store was the room where our social worker, Ashley Ruppert now calls her office. Our school store was opened in 1996, 40 years after the school opened, giving students a chance to buy many items including school apparel and snacks to help them get through the day. Not only have we upgraded the school store, but we have also added a gym, classrooms and improvements in technology and heating and cooling.

Something many people might not know about LHS is, students who went to LHS had to participate in tennis as a gym class and students attending WHS had to take swimming as their gym class. So, the much-loved gym classes offered like yoga and team sports were not around yet and those were your only option. However, during the first six weeks of school, LHS students had to go to WHS, as LHS was not finished being built.