Emmaus High School
Encyclopedia
Emmaus High School is a public high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 located in Emmaus
Emmaus, Pennsylvania
Emmaus is a borough in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is located five miles southwest of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state.The population of Emmaus was 11,313 at the 2000 census...

, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The school serves grades 9 through 12 in Pennsylvania's East Penn School District
East Penn School District
The East Penn School District is a public school district located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Originally known as the East Penn Union School District, the district was established in 1952...

 in the Lehigh Valley
Lehigh Valley
The Lehigh Valley, known officially by the United States Census Bureau as the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metropolitan area and referred to locally as The Valley and A-B-E, is a metropolitan region consisting of Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, and Carbon counties in eastern Pennsylvania and...

 region of the state.

Emmaus High School is located immediately off Cedar Crest Boulevard, at 500 Macungie Avenue in Emmaus, a borough to the southwest of Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the 215th largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is currently...

.

Student population

As of the 2010-2011 academic year, Emmaus High School was attended by 2,663 students. The school serves students from Emmaus
Emmaus, Pennsylvania
Emmaus is a borough in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is located five miles southwest of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state.The population of Emmaus was 11,313 at the 2000 census...

 and its surrounding townships of Alburtis
Alburtis, Pennsylvania
Alburtis is a borough in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is a suburb of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state.The population of Alburtis was 2,117 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...

, Lower Macungie Township, Macungie
Macungie, Pennsylvania
Macungie is a borough in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is the second oldest borough in the county and a suburb of Allentown, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of the state.-History:...

, Upper Milford Township, Vera Cruz
Vera Cruz, Pennsylvania
Vera Cruz is a small village in Upper Milford Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania to the south of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, in the United States. It uses the Emmaus zip code of 18049.-Early jasper mines:...

, and Wescosville
Wescosville, Pennsylvania
Wescosville is an unincorporated town located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, United States. The town is located between Allentown, Pennsylvania and Trexlertown, Pennsylvania in Lower Macungie Township. It is split between the Allentown zip codes of 18103, 18104, and 18106...

.

Emmaus High School ranks among the top Lehigh Valley high schools in its percentage of graduating students who pursue post-secondary education. Among its Class of 2007, 79 percent of its graduates entered colleges, universities, or other post-graduate education. The school also maintains a program for academically gifted students, which includes advanced classes and a mentorship program. Noting the academic quality of Emmaus High School, Money
Money (magazine)
Money is published by Time Inc. Its first issue was published in October 1972. Its articles cover the gamut of personal finance topics ranging from investing, saving, retirement and taxes to family finance issues like paying for college, credit, career and home improvement...

magazine named Emmaus one of the nation's "Top 100" places to live in 2007 and 2009.

Two middle schools, Eyer Middle School
Eyer Middle School
Eyer Middle School is a public middle school located in Macungie, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is located at 5616 Buckeye Road, on the Macungie side of Buckeye Road, which connects Macungie with west-side Emmaus.The school is part of the East...

 and Lower Macungie Middle School
Lower Macungie Middle School
Lower Macungie Middle School is a public middle school located in Macungie, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is located at 6299 Lower Macungie Road in Macungie....

, both located in Macungie, serve grades six through eight and feed into Emmaus High School.

1880s to 1955

What today is the East Penn School District began in the 1880s as the Emaus School District, using the Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch refers to immigrants and their descendants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland who settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries...

 spelling of Emmaus until the name of the town and its associated educational facilities were formally changed to the Biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 spelling in 1938. Upon its founding in the 1880s, Emaus School District began offering high school classes, providing education up to tenth grade in one of the rooms of a 4-room school building on East Main Street, in what was then Emaus. The first graduating class on record was the Emaus High School class of 1890, with two graduates. In 1891 the high school grades were moved to the Central Building on Emmaus's Ridge Street.

Emaus High School obtained a home of its own when, in 1915, the high school moved into a brand new building on North Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets in Emaus. While the building was designated the Jefferson Building, yearbooks of the era identify the school as Emaus High School. By this time, the high school was made up of tenth grade (juniors) eleventh grade (middlers) and twelfth grade (seniors). The yearbook of the class of 1916 pictures 18 graduates, evenly divided between boys and girls.

The Jefferson Building was enlarged several times. By 1934 it was considered a state-of-the-art high school, with 16 classrooms, a library, auditorium, gymnasium, woodshop, and home economics room. By this time, Emaus High School had developed many of the activities and athletic teams that continue to this day, with the 1931 yearbook listing a band, chorus, orchestra (55 players), 16 different clubs, and teams for football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

, basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 (boys and girls) and debating. Emaus High School's main football rival at this time was East Greenville High
East Greenville, Pennsylvania
East Greenville is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,951 at the 2010 census.It is part of the Upper Perkiomen School District....

, which met the Hornets every year on "Turkey Day" (Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...

). Today, East Greenville students attend Upper Perkiomen High School
Upper Perkiomen School District
The Upper Perkiomen School District is located in Pennsylvania in the northern corner of Montgomery County, and the eastern corner of Berks County...

. In the 1930s, the Emaus High School football field was located about a mile away from the high school, at the site of Emmaus's current recreational Fourth Street Field.

The Emaus High School class of 1931 had 45 graduates, who took either the general or the commercial course. One of the bygone features of Emaus High School life on North Street was "open lunch" where students could walk home for lunch, or go across the street to a student-oriented restaurant.

The Emaus School District has been operating since at least 1861. By the 1930s and 1940s, the boroughs of Macungie and Alburtis contracted with the Emaus district to send their high school students to Emaus High School. There were no school buses running, and out-of-borough students took the Reading Railroad
Reading Company
The Reading Company , usually called the Reading Railroad, officially the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road and then the Philadelphia and Reading Railway until 1924, operated in southeast Pennsylvania and neighboring states...

 passenger service to the Emaus train station.

Emaus High School becomes Emmaus High School

In 1938, the borough abandoned the Pennsylvania Dutch spelling of its name in favor of the original spelling which had been used from the town's founding in 1759 until 1830. Referenced in the Bible's New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

, Emmaus
Emmaus
Emmaus was an ancient town located approximately northwest of present day Jerusalem...

 is the location in present day Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 where Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 appeared to travelers hours following His resurrection
Resurrection of Jesus
The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...

. East Penn School District and the high school followed suit in adopting the traditional spelling.

With Emmaus High School's population growing rapidly, the Jefferson Building no longer was able to accommodate the needs of the growing school. The boroughs of Emmaus, Macungie, and Alburtis, along with the townships of Lower Macungie and Upper Milford, merged their school districts into the East Penn Union School District (now known as the East Penn School District). This unified district combined their efforts to construct a vastly expanded high school at 500 Macungie Avenue, in Emmaus, the school's current location. It has since been upgraded and renovated several times to accommodate a growing student population.

1955 to current

In 1955, the first sections of the new Emmaus High School opened. The new building included an auditorium and gymnasium, which far surpassed those of the old building, plus science labs, language labs, and a natatorium
Natatorium
A natatorium is a term given for a building containing a swimming pool. In Latin, a cella natatoria was a swimming pool in its own building, although it is sometimes also used to refer to any indoor pool even if not housed in a dedicated building...

 (swimming pool
Swimming pool
A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...

). After the high school moved out of the Jefferson Building, that building was briefly used as Emmaus Junior High School, until a seventh and eight grade wing was added to the new high school building around 1960, making Emmaus High School a six-year high school with a single principal, but separate assistant principals for the senior high and junior high grades. The Emmaus Junior High School building, with its own faculty and administration, was opened on the north side of the high school building in 1965, ten years after the opening of the neighboring Emmaus High School. At that time, Emmaus Junior High School served grades seven through nine. The Jefferson Building, in turn, was designated as one of several Emmaus elementary schools.

By the early 1960s, the number of sports teams at Emmaus High School expanded to include basketball, field hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...

 and softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...

 for girls, and football, basketball, wrestling
Scholastic wrestling
Scholastic wrestling, sometimes known in the United States as Folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling practised at the high school and middle school levels in the United States. This wrestling style is essentially Collegiate wrestling with some slight modifications. It is currently...

, track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...

, cross country
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...

, baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

, swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

 and golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

 for boys. A class play was presented annually and, in 1969, Emmaus High School produced its first musical, Bye Bye Birdie.

By 2000, the school's population had grown significantly due to an influx of residents from New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and Philadelphia, and Emmaus High School expanded again, taking over the junior high building in 1998, adding additional space and using the whole complex to house grades nine through twelve. A second major expansion of the high school was completed in 2005.

The Jefferson Building, the first dedicated home of Emmaus High School, was subsequently decommissioned as a school. In 1999, the Jefferson Building was demolished and replaced by Jefferson Elementary School.

Emmaus High School today is larger and more vibrant than ever, having grown from a small town high school in the late 19th century and early 20th century, with a handful of students, to one of the largest high schools in the Lehigh Valley, the third largest metropolitan region in Pennsylvania. As Emmaus High School has grown, it has distinguished itself considerably in academics, the arts, and athletics. Since its founding in the late 19th century, several Emmaus High School graduates have gone on to significant global achievement and notoriety.

Academics

Emmaus High School ranks in the top academic tier of Pennsylvania public high schools, based on state testing results. In the 2008 Pennsylvania System of State Assessments (PSSAs), Emmaus High School ranked in the top five percent of all public high schools in the state in writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...

, in the top 20 percent in reading
Reading (process)
Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols for the intention of constructing or deriving meaning . It is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas...

, and in the top 25 percent in mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

. In 2007, the mean SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...

 score for Emmaus High School students was 1580.

The school's academic team has made several appearances at the national level, appearing three consecutive years (2003, 2004, and 2005) in the Panasonic
Panasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...

 Academic Challenge at Disney World
Walt Disney World Resort
Walt Disney World Resort , is the world's most-visited entertaimental resort. Located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida ; approximately southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States, the resort covers an area of and includes four theme parks, two water parks, 23 on-site themed resort hotels Walt...

. Emmaus High School placed fifth nationally in the competition in 2003.

Emmaus High School also holds the record for the most wins of any high school in Pennsylvania's Scholastic Scrimmage
Scholastic Scrimmage
Scholastic Scrimmage is a high school quiz bowl game show airing on WLVT-TV and WPSU-TV , and is hosted by Karen Walton and David Price respectively....

contest, an advanced academic quiz game televised on Pennsylvania PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 affiliates. Emmaus has won the contest seven times (1981, 1983, 1993, 1995, 2000, 2003, and 2004) and placed second three times (1986, 1991, and 2002).

The school's Class of 2008 produced 10 National Merit semi-finalists.

Athletics

Emmaus High School competes athletically in the Lehigh Valley Conference
Lehigh Valley Conference
The Lehigh Valley Interscholastic Athletic Conference is an athletic conference consisting of 12 large high schools from Lehigh and Northampton counties in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, in the United States...

 (LVC) in the District XI
PIAA District 11
District 11 of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association is an interscholastic athletic association in Northeastern Pennsylvania. District 11 is one of the PIAA's 12 athletic conferences and comprises mostly high schools within the Lehigh Valley and a few surrounding counties. Member...

 division of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association
Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association
The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, Inc. is one of the governing bodies of high school and junior high school sports for the state of Pennsylvania, United States....

, one of the premier high school athletic divisions in the nation. The school fields teams in all of the association's sports. Its primary LVC athletic rivals are Parkland High School
Parkland High School (Allentown, Pennsylvania)
Parkland High School, located near Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States, is a public high school serving students in grades 9 to 12. It is the only high school for the Parkland School District....

 in South Whitehall Township and Whitehall High School
Whitehall High School (Pennsylvania)
Whitehall High School is a public high school, based in Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania, in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley region, in the United States. It is the only high school in the Whitehall-Coplay School District. As of the 2006-2007 academic school year, 1,393 students attend the...

 in Whitehall Township
Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania
Whitehall Township is a township in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is a suburb of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state.The population of Whitehall Township was 24,896 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...

.

Emmaus High School's mascot is the "Green Hornet." Entrances to the school's campus prominently feature green and gold billboards and flags stating "Home of the Hornets," in the school's colors of green and gold. Since 1955, Emmaus has won LVC championships at least once in every one of the conference's sports, and several of its graduates have gone on to success in professional and Olympic-level athletics, including in the NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 and NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

. Among the Emmaus High School Class of 2007, 26 Emmaus High School athletes signed letters of intent
Letter of intent
A letter of intent is a document outlining an agreement between two or more parties before the agreement is finalized. The concept is similar to a heads of agreement...

 for full NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...

 athletic scholarships.

Emmaus High School holds the record for the most recorded LVC championships in eight conference sports: boys baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

, boys lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...

, boys soccer, boys swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

, girls field hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...

, girls soccer, girls swimming, and golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

. The school holds the second most LVC championships in all sports, behind only Parkland High School. Emmaus holds the record for the most Pennsylvania state championships in all sports (13 since 2002) among all LVC schools.

Girls field hockey

Emmaus High School is known nationally for the success of its girls field hockey team, which is regularly ranked among the nation's best. Emmaus has won the Pennsylvania state championship in girls field hockey ten times in the program's history, including in five of the last nine years (2001, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2010). As of 2010, Emmaus has won the PIAA District XI girls field hockey championship in 22 consecutive seasons. In 2010, the national sports web site, topofthecircle.com, ranked Emmaus the best girls field hockey team in the nation for the third time in the program's history. The Allentown Morning Call
The Morning Call
The Morning Call is a daily newspaper based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The newspaper is owned by the Tribune Company, whose other publications include the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun....

has called the program "an organized, multifaceted machine."

Other sports

Emmaus High School's girls swimming and diving
Diving
Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...

 team has proven one of the best in the state, winning the Pennsylvania state championship in six of the last nine years (2000, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009). Its boys swimming and diving team has been consistently one of the top teams in the state, dating back to the 1970s, and has won the state championship the past two years (2006 and 2007) and has finished the last three consecutive years (2005, 2006 and 2007) with an undefeated regular season record.

Emmaus High School has also won Pennsylvania state championships in girls soccer
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 (1997), girls softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...

 (2000), and girls cross country
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...

 (2007, 2008 and 2009).

In 2006, Emmaus High School's boys and girls U.S. Marine Corps physical fitness
United States Marine Corps Physical Fitness Test
The United States Marine Corps requires that all Marines perform a Physical Fitness Test and a Combat Fitness Test once per fiscal year. Each test must have an interval of 6 months . The PFT ensures that Marines are keeping physically fit and in a state of physical readiness. It consists of...

 team, which is based on the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

 physical fitness regimen, placed second in the Pennsylvania state competition. As with Emmaus High School's girls field hockey team, its Marine Corps physical fitness team and its individual members have often ranked among the nation's best, dating back to the 1970s, with several team and individual national championships.

In 2008, Emmaus High School's boys volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

 team won the LVC championship and advanced to the Pennsylvania state tournament. Also in 2008, running back
Running back
A running back is a gridiron football position, who is typically lined up in the offensive backfield. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback for a rushing play, to catch passes from out of the backfield, and to block.There are usually one or two running...

 C.J. Billera broke Emmaus High School football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 records for most all-time touchdowns and career scoring.

In 2010, for the first time since the 1981 season, Emmaus won Pennsylvania's Class 4A Eastern Conference Championship in football. During the 2010 season, Emmaus senior tailback Joseph Williams broke three school football records: most yards in a single game (282), most touchdowns in a single game (6) and most points in a single game (36).

2007

Twenty-two Emmaus High School choral students were selected to participate in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association
Pennsylvania Music Educators Association
The Pennsylvania Music Educators Association, more commonly known as PMEA, is the Pennsylvania state-level affiliate of MENC: The National Association for Music Education. PMEA is a statewide non-profit organization of over 5,000 members reaching thousands of students, dedicated to promoting the...

 (PMEA) District 10 Chorus Festival, more than any other high school in the seven District 10 counties. Sixteen Emmaus High School students advanced to the Regional Chorus Festival held at Boyertown High School
Boyertown, Pennsylvania
Boyertown is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 3,940 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of , all of it land.-Demographics:...

, also outnumbering all other districts (including double that of rival Boyertown High School). Out of the sixteen, four Emmaus High School students (more than any other high school participating in the festival) went on to participate in the PMEA All-State Conference, held April 2007 in Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey is a census-designated place in Derry Township, Dauphin County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The community is located 14 miles east of Harrisburg and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hershey has no legal status as an incorporated municipality...

.

Emmaus High School's spring 2007 production of Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...

 and Tim Rice
Tim Rice
Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...

's Aida
Aida (musical)
Aida is a musical with music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang, and produced by Walt Disney Theatrical....

earned the school fourteen Freddy Award
The Freddy Awards
The Freddy Awards, also known as the Freddys, are an annual recognition of outstanding high school musical theatre in the Lehigh Valley area, including the Northampton County and Lehigh County in Pennsylvania, and Warren County in New Jersey...

 nominations and five awards, including "Outstanding Performance By An Orchestra," "Outstanding Light Design," "Outstanding Chorus," "Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role," and "Outstanding Scenic Design."

Due to the writers strike
2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
The 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, more commonly referred to as simply the Writers' Strike, was a strike by the Writers Guild of America, East and the Writers Guild of America, West ....

, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 launched a short-lived talent contest dubbed Clash of the Choirs
Clash of the Choirs
Clash of the Choirs is a reality talent contest miniseries that debuted on NBC in the United States on December 17, 2007. There were four episodes scheduled in the “quick competition”...

in December 2007. After submitting a video recording of "Jingle Bells
Jingle Bells
"Jingle Bells" is one of the best-known and commonly sung winter songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont and published under the title "One Horse Open Sleigh" in the autumn of 1857...

" for the show's Holiday Challenge, Emmaus' men's a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

 group, known as Fermata Nowhere, landed a brief stint on the show.

2008

Emmaus High School had the top number of students participating in the District 10 Chorus Festival in 2008. Twenty-four Emmaus High School choral students were selected to be part of the 2008 festival, which was held at Brandywine Heights High School
Brandywine Heights Area School District
The Brandywine Heights Area School District covers the Borough of Topton and District Township, Longswamp Township and Rockland Township in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The district operates Brandywine Heights High School , Brandywine Heights Middle School , District-Topton Elementary School and...

 in February 2008. Ten of those students qualified for the Region V Chorus Festival in March 2008. Three Emmaus students advanced to the All-State Festival in April 2008.

In spring 2008, Emmaus High School's Drama Department performed Claude-Michel Schönberg
Claude-Michel Schönberg
Claude-Michel Schönberg is a French record producer, actor, singer, songwriter, and musical theatre composer, best known for his collaborations with the lyricist Alain Boublil.These include the musicals:...

 and Alain Boublil
Alain Boublil
Alain Boublil is a musical theatre lyricist and librettist, best known for his collaborations with the composer Claude-Michel Schönberg for musicals on Broadway and London's West End...

's Les Misérables
Les Misérables (musical)
Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....

. Emmaus received sixteen Freddy Award nominations and four wins, including "Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role," "Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role," "Educational Impact Award," and the coveted "Outstanding Overall Production." Also in 2008, three Emmaus High School orchestra and band member were named to the MENC
MENC: The National Association for Music Education
MENC: The National Association for Music Education is an organization of American music educators dedicated to advancing and preserving music education and as part of the core curriculum of schools in the United States...

 All-Eastern Band and Orchestra.

2009

In 2009, Emmaus High School received the highest number of qualified students in all three District 10 festivals. Twenty-eight Emmaus singers were selected for chorus
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

, while band
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...

 and orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 each had ten qualified musicians. A number of students then qualified for the Regional and All-State festivals.

Emmaus High School's spring 2009 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...

's South Pacific
South Pacific (musical)
South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...

earned the school nine nominations, including "Outstanding Overall Production". Emmaus received the Freddy for "Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role" for the third year in a row.

2010

In March 2010, Emmaus High School performed the complex musical thriller Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

. This elaborate production earned Emmaus a total of fourteen Freddy Award nominations including "Outstanding Overall Production" for the sixth consecutive year.

2011

In 2011, thirty-two Emmaus High School choral students were selected by audition to participate in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association
Pennsylvania Music Educators Association
The Pennsylvania Music Educators Association, more commonly known as PMEA, is the Pennsylvania state-level affiliate of MENC: The National Association for Music Education. PMEA is a statewide non-profit organization of over 5,000 members reaching thousands of students, dedicated to promoting the...

 (PMEA) District 10 Chorus Festival, conducted by Amy Allibon and hosted at Easton Area High School. For the fifth consecutive year, Emmaus sent more than any other high school in the seven District 10 counties to the festival. Twenty-two Emmaus High School students then advanced to the Regional Chorus Festival, conducted by Dr. Rodney Caldwell and hosted at Parkland High School
Parkland High School (Allentown, Pennsylvania)
Parkland High School, located near Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States, is a public high school serving students in grades 9 to 12. It is the only high school for the Parkland School District....

. As most schools were only able to send two or three students, Emmaus greatly outnumbered all others participating in the festival (including rival Parkland High School). Out of the twenty-two, seven Emmaus High School students were selected to participate in the PMEA All-State Conference, held April 2011 in Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey is a census-designated place in Derry Township, Dauphin County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The community is located 14 miles east of Harrisburg and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hershey has no legal status as an incorporated municipality...

.

2012

For the sixth year in a row, Emmaus High School had the most students to qualify out of the 65 participating high schools for the PMEA
Pennsylvania Music Educators Association
The Pennsylvania Music Educators Association, more commonly known as PMEA, is the Pennsylvania state-level affiliate of MENC: The National Association for Music Education. PMEA is a statewide non-profit organization of over 5,000 members reaching thousands of students, dedicated to promoting the...

 District 10 Chorus Festival in 2012. Forty choral students from Emmaus High School were selected to perform in this group, outnumbering any other school in the festival. The school sending the next highest number of participants is Parkland High School
Parkland High School (Allentown, Pennsylvania)
Parkland High School, located near Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States, is a public high school serving students in grades 9 to 12. It is the only high school for the Parkland School District....

 with eighteen singers. Of the over 800 students who auditioned, approximately 27 students were chosen for each of the eight voice parts.

The Stinger

Emmaus High School's official student newspaper is The Stinger. The newspaper's name is a reference to the school's mascot, the hornet. The newspaper is produced by a staff of students, who report, photograph and write all of the newspaper's content.

Typically, the newspaper has several sections related to Emmaus High School, including Emmaus High School sports, faculty, coach and student interviews, editorials, local popular culture, and satire and jokes related to school news and events. In most issues, the final page of The Stinger is dedicated to student-drawn comics, which also usually deal with student-related themes.

The Stinger has been known to tackle controversial topics, especially Emmaus High School's long-standing problems with student fights, truancy
Truancy
Truancy is any intentional unauthorized absence from compulsory schooling. The term typically describes absences caused by students of their own free will, and usually does not refer to legitimate "excused" absences, such as ones related to medical conditions...

 and widespread recreational drug use
Recreational drug use
Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...

.

News from the West Wing

In addition to The Stinger, from 1999 to 2001, a second, unofficial Emmaus High School newspaper, News from the West Wing, was distributed at the school. It was an independent humor newspaper distributed both at the school and available online. Similar in editorial style to The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...

, the newspaper was founded in 1999 by a small group of Emmaus High School students and was entirely student-run.

The newspaper featured a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 look at Emmaus High School student life, while routinely poking fun at the school administration. The newspaper was popular and widely-read among Emmaus High School students. In 2000, a special issue of the newspaper was selected by the Principal, Dr. Herman Corradetti, to be placed in the high school's cornerstone, upon the completion of the renovated high school. News from the West Wing also was the subject of a 1999 front page Local News article in The Allentown Morning Call
The Morning Call
The Morning Call is a daily newspaper based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The newspaper is owned by the Tribune Company, whose other publications include the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun....

.

Satirical news stories in News from the West Wing included a gang
Gang
A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...

 war between the school's East and West Wings (the latter of which inspired the publication's name), the East Penn School District Superintendent's decision to purchase a "matter transporter
Transporter (Star Trek)
A transporter is a fictional teleportation machine used in the Star Trek universe. Transporters convert a person or object into an energy pattern , then "beam" it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter...

," and a scientific analysis
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...

 of an Emmaus High School cafeteria food item that the newspaper dubbed the "Taco Boat."

Notable alumni

  • Roy C. Afflerbach
    Roy C. Afflerbach
    Roy C. Afflerbach is an American lobbyist and former Pennsylvania state senator and Representative. He was Mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania, the third largest city in Pennsylvania, from 2002 to 2006...

    , former Mayor of Allentown
    Allentown, Pennsylvania
    Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the 215th largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is currently...

    , Pennsylvania
    Pennsylvania
    The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

  • Charles Bierbauer
    Charles Bierbauer
    Charles Bierbauer was for many years CNN’s senior Washington correspondent and a veteran reporter covering national and international affairs....

    , former television journalist, CNN
    CNN
    Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

  • Devon, adult film actress
  • Keith Dorney
    Keith Dorney
    Keith Robert Dorney is a former offensive lineman for the National Football League's Detroit Lions.-High school and college career:...

    , former professional football player, Detroit Lions
    Detroit Lions
    The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League , and play their home games at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit.Originally based in Portsmouth, Ohio and...

  • Aaron Gray
    Aaron Gray
    Aaron Michael Gray is an American professional basketball player who last played for the New Orleans Hornets of the NBA.-High school career:...

    , professional basketball player, New Orleans Hornets
  • Todd Howard
    Todd Howard
    Todd Howard is an American designer, director, and producer. He is currently Game Director and Executive Producer for Bethesda Game Studios, where he has led the creation of Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls video game series. GamePro magazine named him to the Top 20 Most Influential People in Gaming...

    , executive producer and video game director, Bethesda Softworks
    Bethesda Softworks
    Bethesda Softworks, LLC, is an American video game company. A subsidiary of ZeniMax Media, the company was originally based in Bethesda, Maryland and eventually moved to their current location in Rockville, Maryland...

  • Keith Jarrett
    Keith Jarrett
    Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as...

    , jazz pianist and composer
  • Michael Johns
    Michael Johns (executive)
    Michael Johns is an American health care executive, former federal government of the United States official and conservative policy analyst and writer.-Biography:...

    , health care executive and former White House
    White House
    The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

     speechwriter
  • K. C. Keeler
    K. C. Keeler
    Kurt Charles "K. C." Keeler is an American football coach and former player in the United States. He is the current head football coach at the University of Delaware, a position he has held since the 2002 season. Keeler served as the head football coach at Rowan University from 1993 to 2001...

    , head football coach, University of Delaware
    University of Delaware
    The university is organized into seven colleges:* College of Agriculture and Natural Resources* College of Arts and Sciences* Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics* College of Earth, Ocean and Environment* College of Education and Human Development...

  • Joe Milinichik, former professional football player, Detroit Lions
    Detroit Lions
    The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League , and play their home games at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit.Originally based in Portsmouth, Ohio and...

    , Los Angeles Rams and San Diego Chargers
    San Diego Chargers
    The San Diego Chargers are a professional American football team based in San Diego, California. they were members of the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

  • Marty Nothstein
    Marty Nothstein
    Martin "Marty" Wayne Nothstein is an American professional road bicycle racer and track cyclist. He is a 3-time world champion in track events and an Olympic gold and silver medalist.-Early life:...

    , 2000 Summer Olympics
    2000 Summer Olympics
    The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

     gold-medal winner, track cycling
    Track cycling
    Track cycling is a bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using track bicycles....

  • Michael Oleksa
    Michael Oleksa
    Michael James Oleksa, Ph.D., is an archpriest in the Orthodox Church in America and a historian of the Orthodox Church in Alaska.Oleksa is a native of Allentown, Pennsylvania and a graduate of Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. He attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where...

    , Orthodox Christian archpriest and historian of Orthodox Christianity
  • Heather Parry
    Heather Parry
    Heather Parry is a film and television producer and currently Head of Film with Happy Madison Productions.She is a 1989 graduate of Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania....

    , film producer, Happy Madison Productions
    Happy Madison
    Happy Madison Productions is an American film/television production company founded by actor/comedian Adam Sandler in 1999 that is best known for comedy films. Happy Madison takes its name from the films Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, two box office successes starring Sandler himself, both...

     and former video producer, MTV
    MTV
    MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

  • Nicole Reinhart
    Nicole Reinhart
    Nicole Louise Reinhart was an American professional track and road racing cyclist who twice won gold medals in cycling at the Pan American Games.-Early life:...

    , former professional cyclist
    Cycling
    Cycling, also called bicycling or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport. Persons engaged in cycling are cyclists or bicyclists...

     and two-time Pan American Games
    Pan American Games
    The Pan-American or Pan American Games are a major event in the Americas featuring summer and formerly winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Pan American Games are the second largest multi-sport event after the Summer Olympics...

     gold-medal winner
  • Cindy Werley
    Cindy Werley
    Cindy Werley is a former Olympic field hockey forward from the United States, who made her international debut for the Women's National Team in 1994...

    , 1996 Summer Olympics
    1996 Summer Olympics
    The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....

    women's field hockey player

External links

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